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Published: December 16th 2009
Day One - Kathmandu to Bhulbhule (840m)
On the first day of our trek we woke up at 4.30 am (as Nepal is four hours behind Australia), even though we had scheduled our wake up call for 6.00am . Bikash, our portly porter/guide came to pick us up from the hotel at 6.30. We were pleased to see him, and he was looking mountain hardy in his trackie-daks, cotton hoodie and bling. We hadn’t had a chance to eat breakfast yet, but Bikash hooked us up at the bus interchange with some powerfully sweet Nepali milk tea (skin on top) and the most delicious aloo paratha with potato and pea curry - for 70 rupees or a single AUD. Unfortunately, the bus ride wasn’t as good, and definitely upset our stomachs more. It took us an hour to get out of the dustbowl that is the Kathmandu valley, as the bus was only half empty and there was a kid hanging out the door spruiking seats to ‘besi besi’. It took us just under 7 hours to travel the couple of hundred kilometers to the trailhead at Besi Shahar, as the major highway that we were traveling on was very
narrow for the amount of trucks, killer kombis and motorcycles that were heading in each direction. Despite the poor condition of the road, and the often perilous roadside cliffs, we were both heartened by messages written in English on all of the brightly coloured trucks. Mark’s favourites were ‘drive slow, long life’ and ‘speed control’. The other vehicles didn’t share this mentality, with a loud horn tune generally accepted as sufficient warning whilst going around a blind corner on the wrong side of the road to overtake one of the slow, carefully driven trucks.
We stopped for lunch half way for our first Dal Bhat, which in hindsight was one of the best, but at the time was a quite confusing experience. Dal Bhat is what Nepalis eat, whenever, wherever. Dal Bhat literally translates as ‘lentil soup’ and ‘rice’ - though it is served on a large metal plate with a vegetable (read potato) curry and greens, and sometimes a pickle. If you’re lucky you even get a papad. However, the best thing about Dal Bhat is the fact that it’s the only thing on the menu where you can ask for seconds.
We started walking as soon as we
stopped in Besi Shahar, glad to be on solid ground again. As the road was ‘jeepable’, we were often honked off the road by trucks, buses and tractors. The track followed along the Marsyangdi Nadi River, which the Annapurna Circuit follows for days to the North and then West. After about an hour’s walk we came to the top of a ridge and a group of people and police who were looking down into the river, as well as throwing rubber flotation devices down into the river. At first we thought that the flotation devices were part of a rescue attempt, until we realised that they were for a line of people who were entering the water to collect a corpse that had been caught in rocks. The river was very fast flowing, and it seemed the man had been washing upstream and then swept away. As we walked past the solemn faces staring into the river, we asked Bikash whether this happened often. He nodded casually ‘yes, lots of people fall in’. A hard thought to escape when crossing one of the many swing bridges. The second half of the walk to Bhulbhule was more light hearted, as it
was 3pm and all the school kids were returning home from their school in Khudi. Bhulbhule was a scenic spot, right on the river with a view up the valley to the peaks beyond. Dinner was another Dal Bhat, and it was an early night after a long day. Throughout the night we thought that there was a massive storm, only to realise later that it was the sound of the strong river.
Day Two - Bhulbhule (840m) to Bahundanda (1310m)
We ordered the ‘traditional’ Nepali breakfast of noodle soup, as Bikash had said it was good ‘mountain food’. Unfortunately, while Bikash was served garlic and spinach with his noodle soup, we were served the plain two minute variety - which was an anticlimax after the paratha and potato of the previous morning. We were walking by 8.30, and the walk through the deep valley was beautiful and cool. For the first several kilometers we were escorted by a pair of dogs, who kept on fighting with each other for the rights to accompany us. Thankfully we didn’t end up as collateral. We walked for two hours without much climbing at all - following the river through
various villages. We were constantly meeting kids on their way to school - all eager to greet us with a ‘namaste’ (I Salute the Divine within you) and a request for a pen (pen?). After several more kilometers things became more difficult - several landslides had destroyed the path, and we were forced to walk up and around. However, the real climb didn’t really start until we had Bahundanda within our sights. All of us found it fairly hard going, Bikash disconcertingly so. We were there by lunchtime, and stayed at the ‘Superb View’ Lodge - at the highest point in Bahundanda. The Dal Bhat was a bit below par - the 15 year old chefs were obviously keen to get back to playing hackey sack. We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the views up and down the valley, reading in the sun (Mark) and contemplating the climb ahead (Beth).
Day Three - Bahundanda (1310m) to Chyamche (1430m)
We started off at 8.30, after a slightly more legit noodle soup (tomato, spinach and garlic inclusive). The first couple of hours were fairly leisurely, undulating through terraces and villages where the locals were sitting around after
the harvest. We stopped at Ghermu for lunch around 11 and sat in the sun on the veranda, watching toddlers play with chickens and other village antics. The afternoon turned out to be less sedate.
There is a road that connects Syange (just north of Ghermu) with Besi Shahar. However, recently work has commenced to lengthen the road all the way to Manang - an ambitious task, as it is essentially trying to carve a road into the near vertical sides of cliffs. By hand. We had our first run-in with the construction shortly after lunch. The road was blocked by a ‘big machine’ (Mark’s words for something bigger than a bob cat), which was doing some pretty ridiculous maneuvering using its bucket-scooper to pirouette. It was a metre from the edge and a 20m drop. While Bikash went ahead, we waited from a distance for it to stop. After knocking down several safety walls of stone, and positioning its bucket-scooper in front of a large rock, he signaled for us to walk between the rock and the bucket-scooper to get past. However, it had not stopped moving so Beth yelled (for the first time on the trip) that he
had to STOP before we walked through. He did (Mark would too) and we hoofed it through.
Things didn’t get much better from there on. The result of carving a road into the sides of sheer rock faces is that you destablise all the rock above, which triggers incredible landslides. After a while of walking over precarious ledges we came to one of these landslides. It was a mass of head-size rocks stretching from the solid cliff 120 metres above to the river, 60 metres below. It spanned 50 metres across. Unlike many of the landslides we have seen since, there was no compacted path of soil through, as it was purely a rockslide. To make matters worse, up on the cliff above, construction of the road was still underway. A team of about 20 men and boys were carving out the cliff with jackhammers, throwing the loose rocks down the cliff to the rockslide below. Some of the rocks that cascaded down were a metre wide, and the smallest could have killed a person traversing the rockslide-path below or triggered another rock slide. The extent of the safety precautions was a boy, of about 8, who was standing down
near the trail with a red flag and a whistle which he would blow when someone wanted to cross the path. Despite all of this it didn’t get really nerve wracking until we were half way across the rockslide, and a fully laden donkey train started to cross from the other side. Several men ran forward to try and stop the donkeys, but they kept coming across. Since then we have learned that all paths are cleared to make way for donkey trains; you stand as close as possible to the rockface and as far away from the donkeys and the edge as possible. Unfortunately in this case that wasn’t possible as the ‘path’ was only 20 cm wide. All we could do was hold tight as the donkeys pushed past us. By this point Beth had three men holding onto her; Bikash in front and a nepali boy and Mark from behind, telling Beth that it was alright. But not to move.
Unfortunately the terror of the afternoon prevented us from noticing the 'field of marijuana' that was marked on our topographic map as being opposite the track on the other side of the river. The next few days
confirmed our suspicions that we were the only ones to have missed it.
The rest of the afternoon proceeded past more construction. The road was even more perilously positioned, far above the river, and it was a real relief to get to Jagat, where the path was vegetated and less precarious. From there it was steep climb to Chyamche, and our adrenaline was starting to wear off by that stage of the afternoon. Unfortunately, the filthy toilet/shower combo (one flushed into the other) was the straw that broke Beth’s back However, the rice pudding was a surprisingly good dinner choice.
Day Four - Chyamche (1430m) to Dharapani (1860m)
From Chyamche we set out fairly early, at 8.00 as neither of us felt like lingering. That morning we met a Canadian who was walking the opposite way to us, who said that the night in Chyamche was the first warm night he had experienced in weeks - from Chyamche we were to gain altitude fairly rapidly. The walk was a gradual climb along a decent road, until we crossed a bridge a bit before Tal (1700m) and had a long climb along a waterfall. We stopped for a
relaxed lunch in Tal, and bought a few snickers bars and a box of hobnobs in preparation for the climb ahead. From Tal the valley was steep to Dharapani where we enjoyed one of the hottest ‘hot showers’ of the walk.
Day Five - Dharapani (1860m) to Chame (2670m)
From Dharapani the valley turned to the West, and we were grateful that we hadn’t made it to Danakyu (as planned) the previous evening, as it was still in an icy shadow when we made it there at 9.30. However, as the valley turned to the West we enjoyed our first sight of Annapurna II (7937m). From Danakyu it was a very steep climb to Thanchok for lunch. On route we met a Canadian named Sue, and Jamie and Justin, two brothers from England who we walked in tandem with until Muktinath. Lunch was a lengthy affair, and the sun made only a guest appearance, but we were brightened up by prawn crackers that were substituted for the papad in our Dal Bhat.
From Thanchok it was a slow, undulating climb to Chame. Bikash tried to convince us to stay in the first dingy teahouse we saw, but
Day 2
Near Bahundandawe insisted on following the brothers to the top of the town where we were rewarded with our own little cabin and view at the Tilicho Guest House. The place was packed as a Sherpa wedding was in full swing downstairs in the restaurant. There was lots of dancing, and Bikash showed off his true party boy colours. Mark declined multiple invitations to dance, volunteering Beth instead. Another highlight of the night was the heater underneath the dining table we were invited to join, which would have singed my leg hairs had I been wearing shorts.
The Canadian’s words about the cold nights proved true - opening the door of the Cabin made no difference to the temperature, but our sleeping bags held their own nicely. After a very warm evening we settled in for a very chilly night.
Day Six - Chame (2670m) to Upper Pisang (3300m)
Bright and early the next morning the groom took our breakfast order and the bride got busy in the kitchen. From Chame the valley flattened out a little, while the dense foliage made way for tall, sparse pine forest. Despite the sudden gain in altitude, there were no endless
climbs, and only one really solid ascent to Dhikur Pokhari (3060m), where we had lunch. Again, we spent most of the walk with the Brits. We also met a couple from Portugal as well as an eccentric Grecian, who resembled Borat in many, many ways. He walked with a German and Dutchman, who were generally very happy with themselves, telling us the virtues of their chlorine over our Steripen (‘but you swim in chlorine pools!) and of the protein to be found in lentils (‘you didn’t eat all of your second serve of Dal?’). From lunch it was an easy, undulating walk to Upper Pisang. However, the smooth glacial slope of the Swargadwari Danda created quite the wind tunnel and it was freezing once the sun went behind the Annapurnas. Again Bikash wanted to stay at one of the first places in Lower Pisang, and seemed to be generally miffed when we insisted on staying 100 metres higher in Upper Pisang, with its fantastic views, monastery and classic Nepali village.
All of the other people we had seen along the trek crammed into the hotel at the top of Upper Pisang. So the Brits and us stayed one lower at
half the price, after declining the hotelier’s offer of free accommodation as long as we ate there. Unfortunately the food wasn’t that great. Mark’s potato curry lacked the curry, and Beth’s noodle soup was sans flavour sachet. However, Mark and Jamie made good use of the deck looking out over the Annapurnas, taking many long exposure shots.
Day Seven - Upper Pisang (3300m) to Manang (3540m)
There are two routes from Upper Pisang to Manang, a high route and a low route. The low route follows the floor of the valley to Manang, whereas the high route climbs 300m to Ghyaru and contours around to Ngawal before decending to Manang, and takes 4 hours longer. We deliberated a lot the night before we set off - the low route seemed awfully appealing for its flatness, but as usual the appeal of having views of the Annapurnas from the high route won out. Unfortunately there was a lot of confusion about where the high route started, so we traipsed down to Lower Pisang to try and find the route as directed by our map. However, there is also a path from Upper Pisang that cuts directly across to
the high route, a path that was not shown on our map, a path that every guide but ours was aware of. Eventually we saw people walking along the high route, a hundred metres above us. Bikash lit up, relieved to have found the way, and confidently led us up through the scrub for 45 minutes to meet it. After that it was a tedious 370 metre switchback climb to Ghyaru, where we stopped for hobnobs and a look at the Stupa. The path from Ghyaru contoured around the hillside, far above the valley floor, and kept up its promise of amazing views of the Annapurnas to the South and Tilicho Peak far in the West. We stopped in Ngawal for lunch where Beth was locked in the toilet by a local kid, whose other toys included a bottle cap and a piece of string. There wasn’t much climbing, instead there was wide open land with desert like stone walls rising to the North and mountain peaks and the river valley to the South. It was on our way to Mugje when we heard the call of a jackal and had our first sighting of a Himalayan Griffin - a
mighty big bird. The firsts continued in Mugje where we walked through our first herd of yaks and saw the first ads for Seabuckthorn juice. In Bhraka we took a few photos of an ancient monastery. It was a quick walk to Manang. We were both expecting a metropolis as Manang is reputed to be the big smoke of the Annapurna region. However, it was really quite small, and very quiet despite the many trekkers who were lodged up there for their acclimatisation day. However, Manang did live up to its promise of hot showers, woodfired pizza and real coffee - though we were too busy with hot chocolates to sip lattes. Mark would have preferred Home Brand Lite Tasty cheese on Beth’s woodfired pizza - or even an Italian mozzarella - as yak cheese didn’t quite fit the bill.
Day Eight - Rest day in Manang (3540m)
After a treasured sleep in we woke to baked beans and swiss breakfasts. After doing some much needed washing we decided to climb up a glacial moraine to the South of Manang, overlooking the valley and glacial lake. It probably took us about 2 hours as a round trip,
and the gained altitude (to 3800m) probably helped our acclimatisation a little. Otherwise, we walked up and down the main street of Manang, trying to keep in the sun to stay warm. Beth got attacked by children again - they grow them fierce and mean up there. We were beginning to understand why the British are so keen on the Ghurkas.
We didn’t see Bickhas all day - but he had borrowed our pack of cards the evening beforehand to play ‘nepali card games’ with the other porters and guides. The Brits suspected an evening at ‘Club de Manang’. We never asked.
Day Nine - Manang (3540m) to Letdar (4200m)
The Portuguese couple that we had met a few days previously hired donkeys for the trip from Manang to Thorung La (they were refused donkeys to take them down to Muktinath as it is considered too icy and dangerous), and they passed us by mid morning. They had paid 200 for each donkey, and they looked positively uncomfortable despite it. The walk up to Letdar was rather uneventful and not so far. Letdar itself consisted of two teahouses, so we all piled into one. Shortly after arrival
Beth started to develop what seemed to be a classic altitude headache, and spent the evening in bed, getting up briefly for an apple pie.
Day Ten - Letdar (4200m) to Thorung Phedi (4450m)
Although we intended to make it to High Camp (4800m) this day, after a lazy lunch in Thorung Phedi we decided against it. Beth’s headache the night before suggested that a night in Thorung Phedi was the pragmatic approach instead of risking the extra ascent. The walk itself was easy, but we took it ‘slow slow’ (Bickash’s sole directive). Unfortunately this meant saying goodbye to the Brits and to the Belgian ladies who were excellent company of an evening (as well as the Belgian’s guide, who was an invaluable resource). The afternoon was spent reading in the sun, before it got freezing cold and we moved inside and huddled around the fireplace, carbo loading for the next day.
Day Eleven - Thorung Phedi (4450m) to Muktinath (3760m) - via Thorung La Pass (5416m)
We got up early for what we knew was going to be a very long day. While most people booked breakfast for 4.30am, we slept in and
Day 3
Communizm woz 'ere. had ours at 5.30 as we were unwilling to walk in the dark for an hour and a half - especially since Bickash only had a hand light (that doubled as a pen!). Also, the fact that it was at least -5 degrees outside made the idea not very appealing. Despite leaving an hour later it was still dark for the first half an hour as we climbed the switchbacks up to High Camp, and our drinking tube froze solid within the first twenty minutes, staying like that for two hours after the sun rose. After an hour and fifteen minutes we reached High Camp, where we stopped to defrost our fingers and restored facial dexterity with a cup of tea. From High Camp the path was an iced over ledge wherever there was shadow. We stopped briefly to share a snickers before it was heads down up to the pass. We took our time getting up, as both of us felt the effects of the altitude; Mark developing a slight headache while Beth felt increasingly nauseous. However, we weren’t as bad as one British lady, whose guide was half dragging her up by the arm. We only spent a
Day 3
The Indian Hannah Montana few minutes at the pass, where it was probably about -8 degrees at 11.30am, before heading down the other side towards Muktinath as Beth was feeling quite sick and there was nothing much to hang around for. The path descended sharply down the other side, though it took us a good 4 or more hours to get to Muktinath. The walking was tedious and required a great deal of concentration to avoid slipping on ice, concealed and otherwise. By the time we reached Muktinath the 1600m descent had taken its toll; our knees were very sore and we were both pooped. Mark was perked up slightly by the fact that even Muktinath's helipad was covered in prayer flags - we were reassured to hear that they are taken down for medical evacuations. Yet again we ended up at the same place as the Brits and the Belgians, and we all celebrated crossing the pass with beer and apple pie.
*There are more photos to come once we salvage them off a DVD. The ones that are up are of the first couple of days of the hike and then the ascent over Thorung La. Many more have been taken,
and will be posted.
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Kayla
non-member comment
Love your blogs!
Hi Mark, we met in Cartagena many months ago, and I'm so glad to still receive your blog updates. I was in Nepal in 2003, and enjoyed reading your account of the Annapurna circuit. You are a witty story teller. I had quite a few chuckles. Keep it up!