Blogs from Nepal, Asia

As usual, woke early at 06:00, we all met for breakfast at 07:30 in The Beatles room as usual and got a call from our guide at 08:30, but when we got down we couldn’t see him but could see our van so we went out but no guide. We asked the driver, who was the same driver we had on our early city tour, and he said the guide was in the hotel lobby so we got him to go back with us and point him out. Finally found him sitting in a low chair near the travel desk and off we went. His name is Som and he was a little hard to understand but he tried hard. It seemed like he had set spiels for certain places and he would rattle them off ... read more

I woke up early at 06:00 and did some blogging until the arranged breakfast time of 08:00. Nice buffet breakfast before stating our tour at 09:00. It turns out that the un-named guide from yesterday was not our guide for this day tour and in fact, there was no guide. It was just a driver taking us around to designated sites, very similar in fashion to when we hired a driver or taxi for a day in Bolivia and Ecuador last year. He limited English and it was quite amusing at times as we tried to make him understand what we wanted. Overall the Pokhara highlights tour was pretty underwhelming compared with what we had seen during our trek. The first stop was Devis Falls which didn’t even compare that well with no name falls we ... read more

07:00 start and I asked Sudarshan about the feasibility of going to Marpha and then trekking back from there to Jomsom to replace the Kagbeni to Jomsom leg. He said that was possible but in his opinion the track for both options was all on the road and very dusty and he suggested we go back to Jomsom on the jeep and he could take us on a better trail off the dusty roads in Jomsom. I put the proposal to the youngsters but Mitch and Nick still seemed pretty keen on completing the scheduled trek but in the end after discussing it with Krissy they decided to join Vicki and I in going all the way to Marpha. We set off at 08:00 with Vicki and I sharing the middle seat with Ganesh and Suman, ... read more

Today was the penultimate challenge day, reaching the highest point of our trek, Thorung La Pass (5,416m). We woke at 02:45 and the original plan was not have breakfast but Sudarshan was having porridge so we all decided to do the same thing. This meant we didn’t start our hike to High Camp until 03:45. We all had headlamps and you could see a trail of lights going up the trail. None of us had a good nights sleep as it is more difficult in high altitude, but somehow, we all managed to wake up enough to take the first steps upwards. The weather was literally freezing and un-seasonal snow covered the whole trail. This was not what we expected in April and although pretty, it made the hike even more challenging, particularly going downhill in ... read more

Breakfast today was 07:30 but I couldn’t find my sunglasses and Krissy reminded me that I may have taken them off when trying on a polo shirt at the medical lecture yesterday. Sudarshan arranged for Ganesh to go over and check for me. I had already gone over but it wasn’t open and no-one was around. I think Ganesh rang them and luckily he was able to retrieve my sunglasses. We set off around 08:30 but had to wait a few minutes at the AC Checkpoint. At each stop Sudarshan has to register our arrival and departure. This is how they keep track of people hiking the Annapurna Circuit. If someone doesn’t turn up when they are suppose to turn up, there is a search operation put in place. Just last month a guide and his ... read more