Annapurna Trek - Week 1

3/22/05 - Day 1
From: Besi Sahar 823m
To: Bhulbhule 790m

The day started in Kathmandu at 6:30 am when Sappa, our guide, showed up to take us to the bus station. It was raining, so instead of throwing our bags on the roof of the bus, they let us take them inside. The trip wasn't too different from the one from Sonauli to Kathmandu: many stops, people jumping in and out along the way and army checkpoints. Besi Sahar, the destination of our bus and the beginning of the trek, was 6 hours away. We stopped for lunch around 11 am. It was our first real contact with the Nepalese culture. Nepalese usually do not have breakfast, but lunch will be no later then 11 am. We ate the national dish called dal bhat - rice and lentils - served generally with vegetables and spicy pickles.
Once in Besi Sahar, Sappa got us some fruits since in the mountains it is harder to find and, of course, it is more expensive too.



Right at the beginning of the trail we could still see some motorized vehicles ...



... but as you go further, walking becomes the only way to move around.



The terraces dominate the landscape where you start to see the hard life of farming in the mountains.



We walked for only 2:15h since the trip from Kathmandu to Besi Sahar took a good part of the day but, even though, we made it further than planned, getting to Bhulbhule.
Many bridges along the trails in Nepal were built by Swiss people or at least financed by them.



The lodge was nice and by the river. The restaurant had the dinning tables on a balcony from where we watched the night falling over the Annapurna I mountain (because there are actually several Annapurna mountains). Not bad for the first day!
Before we had dinner Angie had her first shower of the trek, cold water. I passed. :D
The food was good and Angie started her first Nepalese class with the cook with 'thank you', 'good morning' and 'good night'. For dinner, we tried veg momo which are steamed Nepalese dumpling filled with spicy vegetables, very good.
We spent the rest of the evening chitchatting with our guide about the Maoists and the Government, about his village and how his parents, farmers, only survive from what they plant. Also we learned how hard their life is, the few options of food they have in the mountains and how the young generation don't want to follow the same life anymore.
The first night of sleep was with the relaxing noise of the river.

3/23/05 Day 2
From: Bhulbhule, 790m
To: Jagat, 1314m

The second day was much harder than the 2-hour walk from the day before. Here, we started to feel the load of the backpack. We had 7 hours of walk under a steaming hot sun and gained 500m. There are lots of villages along the Annapurna trail. Every two/three hours we crossed one and our attention was alternating between the landscape, the amazing mountain views and the life of the locals.



The terraces are larger at the lower altitudes where the inclination is not too steep.



Their farming techniques and tools are very ancient and electricity is luxury in the some of the villages. So manual work is the rule...



Living here is not always easy, but the scenery can make you think twice. No crowd, no cars, no noise, just peaceful mountains...



We came across caravans of mules, which are all along the way. Since it is not possible to use vehicles in these trails, the only way of transporting goods is to use mules or porters.
Since there are many villages on the way, it is very pleasant and easy to have a cup of tea during the breaks before resuming the hard path. On that day we stopped for a tea around 10 am and for lunch around 1 pm. At the end of our first long walking day, we were really tired and Angie collected five blisters.
During dinner we continued our chat from the night before getting to know better our guide. He is studying management at the university in a 5-year course, because he has realized that trekking would not always be fun and easy when getting old. So, he is wisely preparing an alternative future now. In a quick estimation he told us that the university costs around 1700 US dollars for the 5 years and that it is very expensive for a regular Nepalese income. He received some help from a Swedish client that became his friend.
Also he explained to us how he started as a porter and became a guide later. Guides are submitted to training in mountain and they have to pass a government test. They must carry a trekking guide id to be allowed to take people around.

3/24/05 Day 3
From: Jagat 1314m
To: Bagarchap 2164m


The 3rd day started earlier. From our room we could hear that the Nepalese people are already awake and getting ready at 5 am.
Sappa, seeing our struggle on the day before, offered to carry some of our stuff, so we gave him both sleeping bags and some other items.
The view was just astonishing and changing every time we were going around a hill.
As we gained altitude, it got colder. Also, when we entered the Manang district, it started raining.

Over the Himalayas is a hidden valley. Surrounded by the 8000m Annapurna Range and the great peaks of Pisang and Chulu, the valley is wild and wonderful. Tibeto-Burman people who followed the nomadic tradition of moving across the mountains, hunting and searching for food, found the valley and settled in it centuries ago. Today the upper Manang or Nyeshang Valley is home to an age-old, relatively-unaltered way of life, evident in the valley's many monasteries, its numerous festivals, and the hardness of is people skilled itinerant traders who call themselves Nyeshang. Also, it is the place of the world's highest lakes and where endangered species like the elusive snow leopard and blue sheep hordes at yak roam



The villages started to have gates like in Tibet. Terrace fields were not so common anymore. The vegetation changed to rock and pine trees.
Because of the rain we had lunch at our actual tea break time hoping that the rain would stop after we had finished eating. Unfortunately it didn't and we resumed at 1 pm and walked in the rain until 3:30.
After the rain stopped we saw that not only mules and porters are carrying load.





The houses that we saw along the trail are very simple; the first floor is just composed of a little room with a stove and there is usually a ladder to go up to the bedroom. That's it.
After 6:30 hour of walk we arrived at the lodge at 2164m which had a nice view of the Annapurna II mountain.
For dinner Angie tried a Tibetan dish called Stukpa (noodles with vegetables and spices).

3/25/05 Day 4
From: Bagarchap 2164m
To: Bhratang 2919m

We started the 4th day a bit late, only hitting the trail around 8:15 am.
Angie, in her gastronomical tour, tried another Tibetan dish, champa, a kind of porridge made of barley wheat.
The scenery changed to a pine tree forest and the view was breathtaking.





Crossing a village ...



... can always reserve a surprise and in this particular one there were lots of kids running around...


We had completely forgotten about the Color Festival but, some locals celebrating it and reminded us in a way that we won't ever forget.



Not even the army, where we had to stop to present our trekking permits, escaped the tika powder.



We stopped for lunch in a lodge with a view to the bridge. Butter tea was Angie's drink. (blargh)



We got to Brathang at 4:50 pm. We rested
the rest of the day. For shower we had a bucket of hot water and the temperature of the bathroom was not higher then 5C, it was The Shower. It was so cold that we spent as much time as possible with the cook in the kitchen just to stay close to the wooden oven, only leaving it to go to sleep. It was full moon and the white snowcapped mountains reflecting the light at night is a view that my simple English finds no adjective to describe.

3/26/05 Day 5
From: Bhratang 2919m
To: Manang 3351m

We didn't gain much in altitude but we walked a lot on day 5, stopped in Hungde for lunch where life goes slowly. It was chilli, so people are outside in the sun to do the everyday tasks like washing and pealing vegetables for lunch.





They are always receptive but, older people usually don't want to be photographed. Exceptionally, Angie got a yes for a picture from these two lovely ladies while we waited for lunch.



Approaching Manang less and less pine trees composed the view. At the end of the day thee were only rocks and bushes left.

Manang is a 'big' village on a 3351m plateau. It is all made of stones, since trees are not an easy material to be found around here. We went straight to the lodge to rest and didn't do anything else.



For dinner, Sappa ate a local dish made of buckwheat called Dero. It looks really weird but tastes good. They often joke with the tourist telling them that they are eating Yak shit since it looks quite similar to it.

3/27/05 Day 6
From: Manang 3351m
To: Manang 3351m

This was our acclimatization day, so we only hike around the village. Wandering around without a heavy backpack was a weird sensation after five days of hard walk.



Locals were working in the fields, probably the same way they have been doing it for the last 200 years.



The village is quiet and the view spectacular.



Among the terraces and fields there were bluesheep -an endangered specie- roaming around. And of course, the bluesheep isn't blue at all. It is called like this because the owners often paint their horns in blue.



We tried to visit two monasteries but both were closed and we walked more than an hour to get to them but all we could see was the outside.



In many villages that we crossed, walls with stone inscriptions like the one from the picture below were pilled in the middle of the path. Sappa explained to us that when somebody dies, the family brings a stone and puts it there to help the person in the after/next life. Curiosity: all the stones have the same text, they don't carry the name of the person or anything else.



Then we went to the turquoise Gungapurna lake at the bottom of the Gungapurna mountain. The water comes from melted ice and the lake is getting smaller each year.



Manang has even theaters showing movies like 7 year in Tibet, Kundu or Into thin air and Caravan.

Hordes of yaks, were also roaming around.




3/28/05 Day 7
From: Manang 3351m
To: Yak Kharka 4150m


Here we started to go slowly due to the altitude, a short 4-hour walk was the mission of the day. Since we were getting higher and higher, we had to allow our body to acclimatize to the lack of oxygen, otherwise we can have AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) which can, in rare cases, lead to death. We stopped in Yak Kharka at 4150 m. It was very COLD and snowing.

From Kathmandu again ...

Hello,

Hope you are enjoying our stories so far. We are back from our trek earlier than expected since Angie can walk pretty fast making our guide and me eat dust on the trail. We did the whole Annapurna circuit plus the Annapurna Base Camp in 20 days instead of 25. We walked over 200 km up and down hill and selected over 100 pictures to publish, so keep posted.

On April 17th we are heading to Jakarta.

:D

Kathmandu - Nepal

3/19/05
As you already know we went by car up to the border, Sonauli, in Nepal, so our driver picked us at the hotel at 4 am. The trip was quite pleasant and Angie could rest and recover from her food poisoning, since she couldn't sleep well last night. Around 30 minutes after we left our driver kindly asked permission to put the radio on. "Of course!" we said. Oh hell, he right away put Indian music as loud as his sound system could play and started singing along. As we drove north we could see that there were more and more fields and it was getting less crowded. After 4 or 5 hours of drive, listening to the same tape being played over and over, we stopped for a break in Gorakpur and went to visit a nice Hindu temple. Gorakpur is a big city where the specialty seems to be sweets. On every corner there were shops with nice colorful Indian sweet. 1.5 hour later we got to Sonauli. We stopped at the Indian border to regularize our passports and there was an exchange bureau next to it where we got some Nepalese Rupees. The bus leaving for Kathmandu was scheduled to leave at 3:30 pm and since it was only 1:3p we had some spare time for lunch. Angelique only ate only plain rice. Then the driver took us to the border to the Nepalese office where we got our visa done, it didn't take more then 15 min. He gave us the bus ticket and showed us where to take it. An Indian guy told us that the bus won't make it to Kathmandu on the same day since there was a curfew due to the Maoist and of course tried to sell us a cab drive. Already aware of the Indian mentality we did not believe him, he just wanted to sell us his trip and when we asked to the Nepalese authority they confirmed that there was no curfew anymore and that we should not worry. They were really nice and welcoming. When we arrived at the bust stop some people came to help with the luggage and to find our seat. The bus was called Express, but we learned later on that Express in Nepal means that it will stop only around 50 times, as a Nepalese guy explained to us joking. The bus stopped just after 5 minutes of the departure. It was a check point made by the army. A soldier came in with a machine gun looked around while other soldiers investigated the luggage on the top of the bus and in the trunk. Also we realized later on that it is a routine check and it happens quite often all along the road in order to stop drug and arm traffic, especially regarding goods for the Maoist. The bus kept going with the door open and people were jumping inside since it was driving so slowly. A little boy jumped in playing Nepalese music with a little instrument that looks like a rustic violin and after collecting enough tips jumped out again. He was singing terribly bad and he played uninterruptedly the same song for about 1 hour. The streets were clean and there little well-maintained houses, each one with a haystack next to it. 20 minutes later, the bus stopped again. This time it was to replace a flat tire which took us more than an hour. It was getting dark and unfortunately it was where the landscape started to be nice. We could see the high mountains. We stopped again and again for different reasons: food, add air in the wheel, change again another wheel, fix some stuff. It was getting scary because the road was really narrow and it was more and dirt path than a road and there were huge drops. Luckily we could not see everything. We finally reached Kathmandu at 5:00 in the morning. The bus stopped in the middle of the road and asked us to wait few minutes. After a very long wait, people asked what was going on and they told us that there was a load on the top of the bus that had to be picked up before we could head to the bus station. We decided to jump off and take a taxi since we were close and a Nepalese guy kindly help us without asking anything. He called a taxi and went with us to the hotel where we had our reservation. Hot shower and bed after a 26 hours trip in a stop-move-stop bumpy road is an indescribable pleasure.

3/20/05
The hotel was really nice with a garden where we had a nice breakfast chatting with the owner, Mr. Harry. They were really friendly. Since we did not book any trek, they called their associate who came right away to speak to us about the different treks. Also he gave us some advices about Nepal, gave us a map of the city and showed us the places to visit which we did right away. Our first stop was the Syambhu Nath temple, also known as Monkey temple due to its inhabitants, at the top of a hill from where there is a great view of Kathmandu. This is probably the most famous symbol of Kathmandu.



There we watched a praying ceremony and the monks playing Tibetan worshiping music and meditating.





Also, outside the the Buddhist temple you can see Hindu priests.



The monkeys are really everywhere and they were quite aggressive. It’s not rare that some tourists get attacked. The architecture was quite different from the Hindu temples and another History student showed us around.






After that we crossed part of Kathmandu walking to go to Durbar Square. It is located at the heart of ancient city Kathmandu. It is a complex of beautiful and old temples and stupas, both Hindu and Buddhist.



Most of them have been built in the Pagoda style between the 12th and 18th century. It is here that kings of Nepal are crowned and until the early 20th century Durbar square was also the king’s residence. Durbar Square is also the place where people meet for centuries during the festivals. We went in front of the house of the living Goddess, Kumari. It is a little girl that is chosen according to 20 physical signs. The pre selected ones are then submitted to other tests being a interesting one the scare test, when they leave the girl alone in the dark for more then 3 days. She must not cry or fear to be the one. A new Goddess will be chosen after her first periods. During her Goddess time she will be worshipped, people bring her food and presents and the only time she can leave the house in Durbar Square is for a festival. She is not allowed to walk, they carry her around in the crowd. She can not look at the sky otherwise she will loose her title of Goddess. After her Goddess time she will follow a normal life but probably nobody will marry her, because there is a belief stating that whoever marry a former living Goddess will die in the following 10 months. Heading back to the hotel, we meet several people that kindly spoke to us. One guy was a trek guide that provided us some information. We went to a tea place at the top roof of a restaurant on the corner of Durbar Square where we chatted and watched the busy street. We studied with him the different treks and prices. They were similar to the ones we got in the morning with NEAT (www.neatadventure.com). Back at the hotel, we then decided to book the trek the same night and start our trek as soon as possible.
The guy from the last morning, Shandra, came with his documents and we opted for the Around Annapurna trek, which is 21 days plus the Annapurna Base Camp which adds 4 days to it.

3/21/05
The next day we went to his office to pick up the tickets and meet our guide, Sappa. After our trek was arranged we just walked around in the busy streets of Kathmandu. it is a nice cosmopolitan city. There are lots of little shops: music, books, cool clothes and lots of trekking shops.
There are also all kind of restaurants with cuisines from all around the world. There are lots of Internet cafes but unfortunately it is slow. We enjoyed the typical Nepalese meal, the national dish, which is called Dal Bhat. Dal means lentils and Bhat rice, so now you know what it is made of... We went then back to the hotel to get our backpacks ready for the next morning.

Varanasi - India

3/17/05
After boarding on the train, at 12:30 am, we were so tired that we went straight to sleep and just woke up close to Varanasi, around 9 AM. We had tea from the train service, damn good by the way, and learned another interesting thing. The cups used to serve the tea, made of baked clay, were 'disposable'. After that we understood why there were so many broken clay cups trashed on the streets.
In the train station, somebody was waiting for us and brought us to the hotel where we rested from the trip. The traffic was, again, just like hell with all the odds we have already described.
In the afternoon, another driver picked us up at the hotel to take us to Sarnath, about 10 km away from Varanasi.
This is believed to be the place where Buddha preached his first sermon after he had attained enlightenment at Bodhgaya.



So, it is a pilgrimage place for the Buddhist and there were lots of monks walking around with their characteristic orange clothes.





After Sarnath, since Varanasi is the capital of silk, we visited a silk factory, and before that visit we thought that making a carpet was a lot of work, but making a silk bed cover for example is a much harder task to accomplish, because the silk is much much thinner then the wool used in carpets and also because of the design that is much richer in details. It is really complicated and and it can take months to get one done.



We saw all different types of silk and how they work with it. It was a very interesting visit. On the down side we had again to go through all their products one by one and bare this annoying selling strategy. Luckily I have Angie, and she can keep giving no's through out the whole repetitive selling show. And even though we didn't buy anything, this guide wasn't upset like the other one, that was nice. Enough of silk we wanted to start evaluating if it was reasonable or not to go to Nepal, so we went to the government Indian Tourist Bureau and also spoke with the tourist agency of our driver. We studied the several options to get to Kathmandu and Pokhara from Varanasi, but weren't sure yet about how safe it was regarding the Maoist issue in Nepal, so we postponed the decision to the next day. Before going back to the hotel, we stopped by the silk museum where they also sell all kinds of silk products; we saw all the stages of silk production. At the hotel, we experienced several blackouts and eventually there was no electricity anymore. It seems to be a common issue in Varanasi, as most of the hotels have diesel electricity generators.

3/18/05
The next morning we left at 5:30 am for a boat tour on the Ganga at sunrise.



The ancient city of Varanasi is the religious center of the world for Hindus. Thousands of pilgrims visit the city from all parts of India and from across the world. The unique relationship between the sacred river and the city is the essence of Varanasi, 'The land of sacred light'. The Ganga is believed to have flown from heaven to wash away the worldly sins of mankind.



The city was funded some 10 centuries before Christ and it is mentioned in the holy scriptures of Hindus and in Buddhist texts. The life and activities in the city revolves around the holy river. Life on the banks of the Ganga begins before dawn when thousands of pilgrims - men, women and children - come down to the river to wait for the rising sun. The people immerse in the sacred river and wash away their sins.



From our little boat we could see the famous Ganga scenes and hear the monks and priest singing and reciting their sacred texts. The pilgrims are not alone; there are also hundreds of tourists with their cameras ready to register everything.



That brings business into the river, souvenir boatshops are always around trying to catch the tourist attention, flowers with a little candle in the middle is the top seller, so that the people put it on the water as good luck.





The sunrise was beautiful; the red color of the sun and the reflection in the river was amazing.





Right beside the spot where people were bathing there is a place where bodies were being burned and the ashes poured in the Ganga.





The boatman told us that around 100 bodies get burned every day at that place. Also not so far from there, pipes are bringing waste from the city into the river, so the whole thing is quite filthy.



He also showed us the different palaces that used to belong to the different Maharajas that used to come to Varanasi regularly.



Once the boat tour finished, the boatman took us to the local market place, as usual he is also trying to make his commissions. The market is composed of lots of 5-feet wide streets close to the river. The smell in these streets is disgusting; there are excrements not only from the cows walking around but also from the people that poured everything in the streets. There is garbage everywhere on the floor and floating in that sticky mud. There are people walking around everywhere, some even barefoot!!!. We stopped at several little shops and saris making places. We were offered tea but in such place it is quite scary to eat or drink anything.... After lots of looking and nothing of buying, we went back to the car where the driver was waiting for us.





He took us to a very nice local restaurant for breakfast, a nice garden with several little huts made of dry grass, each hut with a dining table in it, really cute. After breakfast we had to take the decision whether to go or not to Nepal. We already knew how to get to Kathmandu and Pokhara but weren't sure about how safe it was, so we tried to contact some information centers in Nepal, but none of the phone numbers given by Lonely Planet worked. Since we read a few weeks before that the phone lines and internet got cut by the government, we were wondering if the numbers were wrong or if the phone lines in Nepal were still not working? We finally succeeded to contact the Nepalese embassy in New Delhi which told us that the political situation had improved and that life in Katmandu is back to normal. There was no curfew anymore and the roads were not blocked anymore by the Maoists, but they added, the situation could change at any moment. Also, they gave us some other numbers in Katmandu in case we wanted more info. We succeeded to call the French embassy in Nepal which told us the same thing. So we decided, although a bit scared, to book our trip to Katmandu and two nights of hotel. There, we would evaluate how dangerous it would be to go on a trek far from the city. Angelique again managed to negotiate down the price of our trip from Varanasi to Kathmandu do, poor travel agents have no chance with her. We then went back to the hotel to get ready for our trip to Nepal with was estimated to be accomplished in 20 hours. After everything was set, Angie suddenly started to feel sick. It was her first food poisoning on the trip, probably from our nice hut garden breakfast. She had a complete hit, throwing up having terrible pain and also diarrheas. At her worst, even the water she was drinking to rehydrate was being refused by the stomach and put out. Moreover, there was no electricity, so she spent her afternoon in a dark bathroom! But even though she had probably the most miserable afternoon of the trip, she did not want to cancel the trip to Nepal. So, on the next morning, 4 am she was feeling a bit better and we were on the way to Kathmandu, 350 km to be covered by car, up to the Nepalese border called Sonauli, from there another 275 km were to be covered by bus.