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Published: November 16th 2008
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So - as we said in our previous entry, we decided to do a trek in the Annapurna region. Kathmandu is all about the trekking - and we were almost kind of caught up in the excitement of it all. Thankfully we booked a fairly short trek in the scheme of things. Ours was 5 days long - of trekking every day - for between 5 and 7 hours a day. There is a specific circuit around the Annapurnas which takes something like 21 days - of torture that is!
We began the trip anyway by taking a bus from Kathmandu to Pokhara, which is a smallish city and the start point for any treks in the Annapurna region. Pokhara is the complete opposite to Kathmandu - really laid back and relaxed (although they still drive like they are on drugs!!! - more about that in a bit....) and so we were lulled into a false sense that this was going to be a breeze for us. The first morning we were up early to leave our hotel (overstatement!) at 8 am. We got a taxi to Nayapul, which is basically just a whole pile of shacks set up on the
side of the road selling bits and pieces (we have no idea who buys all these things!!) and we set of on our walk. We had a 5 hour walk ahead of us and as the time passed we started to get incredibly smug about oursleves - we could so do this - this was a piece of cake! As the hours passed we were practically cocky - little did we know we were setting ourselves up for a major crash back to reality. There's a certain camradarie on a trekking trail like the one we were on - everyone greets everyone and gives little words of encouragement and you kind of feel you're all part of this special little club - it was actually quite nice - until we met this Englishman that is - obviously very familiar with the area, when he found out where were headed (a place called Ulleri), and the fact that this was our first proper trek, he wasted no time in telling us that we had 3200 steps to climb before we arrived at the village - the famous 3200 steps of Ulleri apparently. (as if Joe needed any more reason to hate
the English!!! just joking there!!!!!) But it was a little horrifying - he obviously saw our dropped jaws and trIed to pretend he was joking but he was a very bad liar and the damage was done. Our guide Sudip tried to brush it off as not as bad as it sounded (he may have had visions of trying to reach a mountain rescue service to carry us off the mountain!) and so we trudged on. We ended up climbing 1000 vertical metres that day and the 3200 steps felt like 10,000,000!!!As we arrived we were walking as if we were walking through quicksand - literally forcing one leg in front of the other.This was pure torture and the irony of it all was that we had bloody well paid for this brutality!!!! The only thing that kept us going was the thought of a really comfy bed at the end of it - as it turned out we were sleeping on a couple of sheets of plywood with a sheet on top!!!It was a scene out of a bad horror.We were in bed at 6.30, whimpering to each other.Turning over in the bed hurt all over.
The next morning
we began again.It actually wasn't too bad.We had forgotten the previous days agony and were feeling good about what we had done. And also apparently it wasn't going to get any worse than that so...!! We made our way 'slowly slowly' (this was our guides' nickname for us) to a place called Ghorepani and it wasn't so bad. We stayed in a nicer place than the previous night (although still with the plywood in place of mattresses!!) and we felt fine. The next morning we were getting up at 5 to head up to Poon Hill to watch the sunrise over the Annapurna range so we were in bed again at a ridiculous hour in preparation. Apparently there were about 300 people staying in Ghorepani that night and the next morning, in the dark, we all set off for the hours walk that would take us up to Poon Hill. It was a very bizarre scene, all of us heading off with torches, as if we were heading to work in the mines or something, except that we were going uphill. The view from the top was amazing, as the sun rose behind the mountains and we pretty glad we
had made the effort in the end. Once we made our way back down, we had breakfast and set off again for another 5 hours climbing.This was to be our last day climbing though - the last 2 days would be coming back down - so we took some comfort in that. I don't know was it the early start or the fact that it was our 3rd day climbing, but at the end of it, we were again walking like we needed hip replacements and dying for blessed relief. Our muscles had started to ache all over at this stage, and we had to laugh at how smug we had been at the beginning - we were practicallly broken people here. But the next morning we began our descen - and it was OUR turn to throw sympathetic looks and words toward the people we met coming toward us going up the way. It's no mean feat going down the way either - just different muscles screaming out in agony!! We're painting a bad picture here - the scenery was very much worth it and when you're rambling along, emptying your mind of any thought, it's actually a pretty
good feeling. We bumped into 2 Irish guys that day who were having lunch in the place we were staying in. They were serious trekkers - on day 23 of their trek (read:ordeal!).With the pressing need for laundry that we had, we could only imagine that they were going to incinerate their backpacks when they got back.
We finally made it back down to Nayapul and then back to Pokhara and there was back slapping all round that we had finally made it, albeit 'slowly slowly'! We went for a celebratory dinner and drinks before heading to bed early again because we had another early start the next morning heading to Chitwan Wildlife Reserve for a jungle safari. (What does a sleep-in feel like again???)
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Liljan Bay Nielsen
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Congratulations....
Hi Guys Just read this - sounds like I would have giving up :-) But great job... Just read the other blogs from our trip as well... No bad comments, but couldn't help laughing about the comment you made after the first day... "They all seem nice but we might be singing an other tune at day 28" :-) ha ha ha.... By the way the pool table in the middle of nowhere... What a great photo... I just subscribed on here - gonna be great to follow you around the world. Take care...