More trekking: to Tatopani

---

November 2, 2008 Sunday 1 p.m. Lunch at Shikha Day 13

We hung out in the dining hall (Ghorapani) as usual. Bruce didn’t want to explore because he wanted to rest his knees as much as possible. The dining room was very large and more like a restaurant than any of the others - more separate tables, less communal. I had dal bhat for dinner. It was very good. Then to bed - me at 7:30; Bruce got kicked out of the dining room at 8 so he came to bed also. Everything was very comfortable except there was a very bright light directly outside my window and at some point I woke up and it kept me awake.

At 5 a.m. Dilman woke us for Poon Hill. We dressed (too) warmly and set off like a mass of lemmings. Bruce really hated it because the trail was very narrow and quite steep and he was slower than the flow. The view was very good at the top. The weather was really flawless. Not too cold and very clear.
Both of us were very tired. We returned to Ghorapani and had breakfast and then set off for Tatopani. All downhill so it was bad for Bruce's knees, but absolutely beautiful. The day remains warm, sunny and cloudless. The trail goes through quite prosperous looking terraced farm lands. We took lots of good pictures.

Sunday 6:30 p.m. Tatopani (Hot water) Day 13

The trail goes down, down, down, steps, steps, stone, steep. The country side is beautiful and varied. Within 15 minutes you are able to see teen-aged girls with basins filled with laundry pounding clothes on the rocks near the outdoors water spigot; large shallow baskets filled with yellow and red peppers drying on a thatched roof of a house; the rafters of the roof strung with corn drying; a young boy on a bank by the trail side chases baby goats, catching them and tossing them down to the trail below; Old men trudge by with huge loads of “grass” (livestock feed) on their backs supported by forehead straps. We passed a whole family in a field tying hay into bunches and stacking them into huge round cottage sized stack.

People are generally polite and very friendly to trekkers. Another thing about trekking in Nepal is the sense of internationalism - especially on the ABC trek. Everyone staying at a given lodge ate in a central dining room usually around one big central table. So everyone talks to each other - Australians, Americans, Brits, Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, and many others. So much of the time you have less sense of being in a 3rd World country and more of being a participant in a surreal international event. This has been less so the last few days - bigger dining rooms, larger towns, and more developed countryside.

Anyway today was a very long trekking day. First Poon Hill and then trekking from 8:40 a.m. to 5:20 p.m.!!! When we arrived on the outskirts of Tatopani, we were met by Dirga who said there were no rooms available. Dilman left Dirga with us and hurried down the trail. When we reached the town he met us and showed us apologetically to a room. It really wasn’t bad, not as clean perhaps as some of the rooms, no private toilet - but many of our rooms have not had attached toilets. Dilman got us some incense to freshen the room and we unpacked our sleeping bags and we were fine. I walked to the hot springs (which was very close to our lodge) but it was already time to eat and by the time we were done eating it was dark and although Dilman volunteered to escort me to the Springs I decided sleep was more appropriate. (We later talked to a couple from Ireland who arrived in Tatopani about the time we did, and they had been put up in a barn that had scurrying mice - so we were thankful to Dilman and his ITrekNepal cap!)

---