Chris’ birthday

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Day 10 Lokpa (2240m) – Deng (1860)

Up really early but we were so excited about being able to talk to family got a bit late and didn’t leave until after 8.00.

Chris’ birthday today but unlike the last time he had a birthday on a trek here we’re a long way from a cake shop so looking like he’ll have to settle for “Happy Birthdays” this morning and perhaps a beer and chocolate bar later in the day.

The trek today takes us down to the entry to the Tsum Valley then back up the Manaslu Circuit proper. We departed planning on doing a long day but after about an hour after we started Himal and I were having a chat and he suggested we do a shorter day and stop at Deng. On reflection a good decision because neither Gordie or Sumon (porter) are firing on all cylinders and a short day will do everyone the world of good.

About a four hour trek to Deng and largely the standard Nepalese flat of up hill and down hill. Back to large number of pony trains which keep us on our toes making sure we don’t encounter them on narrow sections of the path or areas where there is path across a slip.

Arrived in Deng a bit after lunch.

Interesting tea house here. Very basic, no lights in rooms (most others have had 12v from solar panels) and rooms are very basic and draughty. Essentially look like packing crates fitted into some form of out of square building structure. One interesting innovation was in Gordies and my room where the window, presumably Perspex, had had corner cut our of it then a patch sewn in with copper wire.

This tea house is used as much be the Nepalese pony train as thier equivalent of a truck stop as by trekkers. Obviously no diesel needed just grain for feed. There was a large area to park thier ponies and just like truckies everywhere they sat around in promos telling stories.

Despite the obvious “roughness“ of the place lunch was fabulous, I had the best Momos of the trip and everyone else reported good food, all cooked over an open fire in a very basic kitchen.

Spent the afternoon having a bit of a sort out, washing in a bucket shower and generally relaxing.

One thing of interest was in the smoky kitchen they had a wheel of yaks cheese hanging in the window. We asked for some with our dinner and it was superb! Tasted a bit like an emmantel or Swiss without the nuttiness but a little smoky (obviously from hanging in the kitchen for a while) with a very slight aftertaste similar to a goats cheese.

One lovely thing that did happen was after we’d eaten Himal, Sumon and Tom came out and gave Chris an embroidered knee blanket and white silk (probably rayon) scarf and the rest of us yellow scarfs. They then sang Happy Birthday. It was really nice.

Now since it was such a short day with little to report I thought I’d provide a bit of description of the ablutions together with the various trial and tribulations faced on a trek such as this.

Most guest houses have a sign that says “hot shower”. Now the Commerce Commission may take issue with the advertising aspects of this as hot shower can mean a hot shower from some source of hot water but more often than not just means they’ll give you a bucket of hot water and you can splash that over you thus creating something that approximates a shower.

Generally the shower room, whether plumbed or bucket, is a cold draughty room, frequently remote from the main tea house building, often doubling as a toilet and, it would seem always suffering from the Nepalese failure to plumb drainage adequately. Hence you always end up slashing around in muddy water.

Dressing and undressing in these rooms is always a mission without getting cloths wet and the problem is exacerbated by a general failure to put hooks of any sort in the rooms.

So all in all a shower, while a luxury here, is a real mission and after a few days without having had one it gets easier and easier to avoid!

Probably the most interesting “shower room” was in Chistopani where the bucket type shower was served in the public toilet (imagine a corrugated builders shed with squat toilet in the middle of it) over the “road” (this being the main track through the village) from the tea house. As mentioned earlier when I exited it was straight into a flock (herd?) of goats that happened to be passing through.

So there you are, a brief description of the showering/washing issues faced here.

In the next day or so I’ll try to describe the toilet issues, hopefully in a manner that is family friendly, but it is fair to say some of the smells and sights are impossible to communicate adequately!

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Photos

Some of the ponies are well decorated
This is a bit like Indian trickiest pimping thier trucks.