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Published: December 16th 2010
Day 9 - Ranipauwa to Jomson 2761m
This was a long but easy trekking day, most interesting things were the land changes. Having gone from tropical near the start of the trek to more arid land, and then into the snowy peaks, we had headed over the pass and into the worlds deepest valley (oh yes). Basically a complete desert land due to another set of Himalayas blocking the natural weather. Massive wide rocky river basin for monsoon season but being middle of the their was a feeble trickle to begin with.
Lots of fossils in the riverbed (evidence of evolution people!) but i couldn't find one, sob. My feet had now begun to fall apart pathetically, previous day had pulled the skin into a large blister and the back of my left foot which when you've got 6 day on trekking socks, aint the most pleasant.
Jomson is meant to have the one ATM on the whole trek, so myself, Barry and Ciaran were desperate for cash. But for one reason or other, it was off but would be working the next day. With little else to do we got pretty stupidly drunk on the roof of the guesthouse overlooking
the runway. When it got time for sleep, a stupid bet arose that first one inside should have to steal a plane the next morning. Someone else suggested that this was dumb and clearly the person should only have to run onto the runway.
Well, we're guys and we're drunk. So no one wanted to go in. Sitting in the near-zero degree temperature outside only Ciaran eventually moved near the door. The rest tried to sleep about the place, me included. Ciaran eventually got Brian near the door with promise of booze and pushed him in.
Brian is currently serving life in a Nepalese prison for attempted terrorism.
In reality, clearly no one would never do the dare - but we were drunk and it was a fantastic battle of wills!
Day 10 - Jomson
Cash machine wasn't working today due to a 'national holiday', apparently 'celebrating' 6 months of the new government. This meant that we were forced to find Jomson entertainment in the off-season. Started with two calf's standing close to each other so that it looked like a two headed beast. We following this thrill by seeing a rabies dog tied to a tree and then the
local museum which had dead plants pinned to walls - awesome stuff. Oh and even better for pure comedy was the 'Owl's Feather'. Clearly someone had grabbed the thing and it managed to get away leaving the person with just a stinking feather, facebook has it in all its glory.
Otherwise, passed the day eating spaghetti too many times, bursting my feet wounds, getting drunk again, but this time with an English couple we all met in Kathmandu who were doing the circuit backwards. Walked into a local 'pub' only to find meat hanging from the ceiling everywhere, left quickly.
Day 11 - Jomson to Larjung 2560m
Cash machine still not working (apparently broken for months and not likely to be repaired for months!) so Ciaran took a cash advance and lent us money to get moving. Walking down through the valley, the scenery gradually got greener and greener. Passed through Martha en-route which produces most of Nepal's apples, so there we go. Gareth got served by a transsexual at a shop who sent us the wrong way across a riverbed.
(I will admit that the remaining text is not overly brilliant because I'm writing this on 30th
Kagbeni, Home of Yakdonalds
A few kilometres from TibetJan way after we've finished and been to many more places since! Hopefully I can regain some effort for the next post!)
All four of followed this route, Ciaran miles ahead, then Brian, then me and then Barry. All of us were far enough apart from each other to not listen to each others warnings, which meant that we all got cut off by the river one by one and individually waded across. With soaking boots we stopped at Larjung which had been recommended by an English couple as the Didi (older sister) who runs the Riverside Lodge is fantastic. Apple pie with custard for all followed by a night of experimenting with Nepali foods. Dal Bhat, Buckwheat (imagine Wheatabix that has had water on it to make it soggy and then this has been mushed into a giant pile, yumsers). These were chased by local Apple Brandy (no apple, just petrol), Chang (fermented rice possibly), Roxie (some other fermented work of Satan) and admittedly a couple of joints (sorry family!). Larjung is smack in the riverbed of the valley surrounded by white capped mountains, should be a mini video and some pics added at some point!
Day
12 - Larjung to Tatopani 2100m
We all woke late, hoping that by some force of magic all of our boots would be dry - but no luck there. Eventually we decided we better make a move and attempt to reach Tatopani, one of the treks holy grails due to promises of great food and natural hot tubs! Another day where the scenery progressively greener and went from snow to colourful with citrus trees of various types on the way.
Passed some huge waterfalls en-route, left my stick at a check post so had to back track and saw a small boy chase a cow, which in turn chased Brian off down the road. Throughout the day Daulagiri loomed over us from behind.
On this day I just wanted to reach the end so I marched ahead of the others with my feet suffering fairly badly still due to the epic landslide blister and wet boots . From about 500 meters away, two girls spotted me and started jumping up and down excitedly, carried on towards them to be greeted with the usual cries of, "School pen, chocolate, rupees!" After saying no fairly flatly, they went all out with their
last option, "PICTURE!!!" Their picture will soon be their picture on facebook unsurprisingly.
Eventually got to Tatopani just as the sun was setting at 17:30, slipped on a step going up into the village and tore a large chunk of skin from the bottom of my right foot. This was cleverly whilst walking the wrong way and I managed to end up walking through a guesthouse. Ciaran turned up at 18:10 and the others 20 minutes later.
Once again, to pass an evening we resorted to Khukuri rum and cards.
Day 13 - Tatopani Laziness
I got up first, had some foul lemon tea and awful breakfast, uninspired by this I wandered a little and eventually the four of us went down to check out the tato pani. It was actually a concrete hot tub, next to the river with the spring water beign piped straight in. Unfortunately the water was insanely hot which meant we ended up doing rock, paper, scissors to see who had to sit in it for the longest. All of this was complimented by the now obligatory beer.
In the evening we ventured out for space cakes (ineffective) and then bed.
Day 14
- Tatopani to Beni
Once again we got up late and struggled somewhat on where to go - this side of the trek being largely road and Nepal time running out for Brian and Ciaran led to the suggestion of getting a jeep the rest of the way, but we decided to walk eventually with all of our wounded feet. Ciaran marching ahead managed to take a wrong turn about an hour in and when confronted with the idea of backtracking 50m the others succumbed to the idea of the jeep whilst I waiting at a bridge (the right direction to be heading!). When I went to meet the others, they told me their new idea and conveniently a jeep turned up so we took it to Beni where the trek ended 30 minutes later. Some gimpy bastarding kids who were roof surfing the jeep stole mine and Brian's phones - this led to more rum and comprehensive street food eating on arrival back in civilization!
The End!
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