Annapurna trek part 2

Here is the looong overdue second part of the Annapurna trek

After the two days of acclimatisation in Manang took off with our new porter Ram and trusted Tej towards the highlight of this trip and the Tarungla pass. The hike to Yak Karkha was steep and short. At this altitude you definitely feel it, but not too difficult. The accommodation was getting even more basic and after an initial 'no' and intervention by Ram got a 4 bedder for the three of us.  After an hours rest and the usual omelet for lunch, took off to Letdar for another acclimatisation. Tea break there and back to yak karkha for rest and sleep at 4100 mts. This was the first place with no power. So it is camping with stone walls. Took off early to ensure the room availability is not an issue on the higher camps.  The walk to Letdar with the bags and the freezing cold in the morning took a bit longer than last day, but manged within half an hour.  Reached Thorungpedi in about three hours and took a break. Met a couple of Americans who had their own oxipulse meter, checked ours and found it was pretty good and >85%. So after an hours rest decided to do part of the climb and reach the high camp at 4900 mts and thus have a slightly easier climd next day.
 Took another hour and ten mins to get to the high camp. The accommodation here was really rough ( rustic as Paddy wanted to call it) and very very cold.  Think the temperature never went above -5c. Went for a lovely walk to the near by hillock and fantastic views of the Annapurna ranges.

This was our first experience of camping in high altitude (close to 5000mts) and it was no fun. We could hardly sleep and even with all our layers on it was freezing. You invariably woke up panicking as you were breathless. Good news is that waking up at 4 am is no hassle. Took off at 4:45 am when it was still a bit dark but enough moon light to follow the path. The going was very slow as it was freezing and very very steep. With the high altitude you got breathless and wanted to stop, but every time you stopped the toes and fingers would go number and you had to move to warm them up.  The result was tat the water we were carrying was frozen within the first hour of the climb  :( . Around an hour or so into the climb there was a icy stretch with a steep incline where you had to be careful.
Tej was leading followed by Gina and then Ram, followed by me and Paddy. Paddy  slipped a wee bit and managed to stop, and came to a complete halt. Ram came back and asked "problem"? Our answer was Yay... how do we go ahead?  And Pat cam the reply " Think problem, walk no problem" Must admit we followed the advice and went through the icy patch with no issues. It was a case of trust your boots, hold your core and keep one step in front of the other at a steady pace.  Finally reached the Thorungla Pass after almost a couple of hours around 7am.  The views were magnificent, but where everyone headed to was the  tea shop there. No idea what the cost of it was BUT that hot lemon tea was worth every penny.
There was a crazy Israeli up there who took his shirts off and on his bare body got someone to write "Happy Birthday ...." to wish his friend. Gina took the photo and the bloke was checking it was OK all in topless condition at -15C and we were shivering through our multiple layers.

The tea shop obviously did roaring business, and guess the couple running it have earned it. The tea there is about 4 times what it costs in all other tea houses, but I don't believe anyone complained.

The climb down was a bit of an anticlimax and quite long. After a couple of hours hike, a lunch break and another hour or so, made it to Mukthinath and Ranipur, walked onto Jarkhot and stayed there.


Mukthinath temple is worth a visit even if you are not religious just to see the frozen water spouts :) Its still quite high at 3800 mts. Next stop was Kaghbeni where we stayed at the "New Annapurna Hotel" but for free as we had the guides room. The owner had to remove the blankets there ( and that took away the gym smells) and change the sheets.

Marpha accommodation

Next stop was Marpha via Jomsom a 5hour trek including stopping in Jomsom for some money changing, and bus enquiry etc.  Jomsom is where you can finish this trek if you want to and take a flight back to Pkhara. However, even if you wanted to do this, I would go to Marpha for  a day and then head back to Jomsom. Marpha has some really nice accommodation, we had one such with lovely gardens. This village is almost European with flagstoned streets and at the same time very tibetan with a lovely monastry. Then it was time to pig out with one of the best apple crumble and carrot cake in this part of the world.
From Marpha the plan was to bus it to Tatopani. This worked out to be two two journeys first a jeep to ghasa and a bus (ride from hell) to Tatopani from there. The speciality here is the hot springs which we really enjoyed and then relaxed in the gardens of our guest house "Daulagiri".

Tatopani to Chitre was all on steps and relentless climb, but we were away from the roads :) Next morning to Deorali pass after a break fast stop at Gorepani before ending the day at Tadopani. This was the first afternoon where it rained. This village is just a few lodges and hence a bit more expensive with toast costing Rs140 :) The walk to Ghandrukh from Tadopani was not very long and where there by lunch time. Lovely little town and stayed in Milin on recommendation from Tej, and turned out to be a lovely little place.  This is a reasonable sized town and has a museum :) The track from here on is quite busy and popular for shorter trips from Pokhara.
Ghandruk to Pothana was a down, up , down again and up and down through some million steps :) The route is down to Landrukh, some up and down walking to Tolka, followed by a steep down to Bhan Karkha. From here it was again a steep and stiff climb to Deurali no 2 Pass, and another short down hill to Pothana our last tea house stop before heading to Pokhara.  Beers with the porters before we say good bye to them tomorrow. Thanks for looking after us guys.

The final day of trekking was another steep down hill to Phedi. More steps and more kids way laying us and demanding money ( they have a queer way of begging here :))  Got to Phedi by 9.30 am and got a very talkative and friendly taxi driver who dropped all 5 of us at the hotel.

Great to be in a decent hotel (Trekkers Hotel) with hot showers that worked well. AND had some dinner that as not dhal bath, and even got a Pizza.
Phokara was very well decorated and a lot of Tihar dancing by kids in front of businesses to get Bakshish. A lovely two days including an early morning ride to the Sarangkot View Point. The half hour walk up the steep steps there seemed so easy after the two days rest and all that we had done, that we kept over taking most people there. The views there was really worth the early wake up.

Nepal Trek - Annapurna Circuit - Part 1- Basisahar to Manang

After a few attempted trips ( 1994, 2006) we finally made it. The idea of doing the indian trek before attacking the longer and more strenuous Annapurna circuit worked beautifully. So here is a long overdue account of that trip.  Since it is a 20 day long hike, I am doing it in two parts... This section includes the organising and the trip up to Manang at 3500 Mts. Part 2 , will detail the Torungla Pass and beyond.

The entire plan had been made and tickets booked before I realised that our date of landing in kathmandu is tech start of their Dashian and that everything will be shut over the next three to four days. Yep Dashian in 2010 was from October 15 to 17, with almost all travel agents and govt offices shut most days. fortunately, the permit office was open on 16th for the morning.
The organising of the trek was a bit more of an adventure than we had expected thanks to dashian. As planned we arrived on Oct 15th and Gina was expected to join us on 17th, to start the trek on 18th. However, when we tried meeting the two guys whom I had emailed before they turned out to be a bit of a disiater. One of them tried putting on too much airs, and the other had already gone home and was not interested.  So walked around Thamel and met a couple of agencies. One was http://www.adventureasiatrek.com/ , run by Dilip Lama and was new agency and hence very keen to help. The other was one of the bigger group, who said they can organise porters but only starting on Oct 19th.

Dilip promised that he would get us to meet the porter(s) on the following day. So accepted to see him at 11am, on Oct16th and wandered around. Then found out that the permit office is only open on Oct 16th till 1PM, and only re-opened on Oct19th.  So decided that we would get the permits done regardless of the group we go with, even though the agencies wanted t do it themselves. So on oct 16th walked all the way to the permit office and found out you need cash! Had to go ATM hunting ( there are heaps but only very few take international cards) got the necessary money and headed back to the office. The permits could only be got for yourselves and any family member who was not with you. So we became an international family with Gina being our sister In law :) This done went to meet Dilip and his porter/guide was not there, but he did manage to get him after lunch. So met him at about 2 pm. The bloke ..... claimed he had done this trip many times and spoke a few sentences in english, later we found that he could say a few words in english, but doubted if he could understand any. As regardless of what you asked you got the same answer :)At that stage he seemed OK, and after Dilip promised to get us to meet the young guy who would be our second ported on 17th, and set things up for the drive to Besisahar and a airport pickup for Gina for the next day went off to our hotel. The taxi diid not arrive as promised but Dilip found us another and it was very comfortable ride back from airport. On 17th met up with our guide number 2, ..... . On Oct 18th, we found the first impact for Dashian. We had both our porters turn up at the promised 6:30, however we had no vehicle, After a few frantic calls found out that the driver had drunk too much due to dashain and was not cmng. Dilip managed to get us the same vehicle that took us yesterday, and we were happy.  The ride was OK but he would not go any further than Besisahar. had lunch/ breakfast at a dhaba en route , and it was not too bad. Reached Besisahar around 2 pm.

The buses enroute to besishar 

Since had learnt that the walk up to bhulbule was on road ( or what passed for a road in nepal...read that as dirt track) tried finding out about the bus option. One look at it and we decided to walk the 10 KMs and it took 3hrs Bus apparently takes 2 :)

The bus from Besisahar to Bhulbhule...

Apparently that was the day( the day after vijayadashmi) that people visit their families for dashain hence the crowds.
The walk was actually quite pleasant, except to find that our lead porter had a bit of an attitude. This came out, when we found him trying to use the back pack straps to tie his bag on to the backpack and had no ropes etc , despite us asking him pervious day and him saying yes I will bring them... Should have seen the issue brewing, but that can wait. So on very first day, Gina's brand new rain cover had a tear, as he just plonked it close to a jagged rock, while the young fellow was a lot more careful.  The place in bhulbhule gave as a first glimpse of what to expect, squat toilets with a bucket to dip out water... and the views that make up.










The morning sun ( when we reached it was a bit cloudy so did not see anything) gave us the first view of what we can expect for rest of the trek. Yep the grand view of the magnificent mountains that was coming with us :)

Todays walk was along a few rivers and suspension bridges taking us from Bhulbule to Nardi with break fast at Hilton... the Nardi one

After a hearty break fast the walk continued through rice field and other amazing scenery to Germu our stop for the second night. 

Day three was a longish day, as we sated off from germu and after walking past Jagat to Tal. The walk was lovely with views along Marsyagudi river and the village of Tal was lovely. 

The accommodation (hotel Paradise) was also much better here, as we had hot water and could actually wash some clothes :) The sunrise views at Tal was lovely, and the walk to Darapani on day 4 was as beautiful as expected. The river ( marsayagudi) continued to weave its path and we followed it :) Breakfast stop was at Darapani where we had a lovely breakfast at this London returned entrepreneur... ( This lady went as a maid to London to ensure she made enough money to set up a cafe/tea house out here and educate her kids.) She has done that, and is now running this little tea house in darapani. The brekky was nice and the views are changing as we get further up into the hills as its becoming more Buddhist oriented.  The day was greta nd the walk with lots of steps and first views of the Annapurna range took us to Chame. The main guy Indra was not impressed and kept complaining about it being too long a distance to cover on one day. But it was worth it as the hotel Karma in Chame was very comfortable.

Views on the way to Chame

This one is the views in Chame as the sun was setting.

The next day was a walk to Pisang, and the day
did not start well. Indra our porter decide to  stop to buy some cakes or whatever and did not like it when we siad hurry up.. On top of it he was again showing too much attitude when we asked him to be careful with the bags. The result was we told him, taht we had had enough of him and will want to replace him once we get to the next big town... (which looked like Manang) he said he had had enough as well.... and started causing us a few issues, but we reached Pisang with a bit of drama and he refced to let us use his phone, in which we had put in crit ! Anyway, we managed to get in touch with Dilip to get the point across that we cant continue with this bloke and need a replacement. Were introduced to the commy Nepal, as the porters all tried ganging up on us and saying we had to keep Indra for our entire trip... Dilip had told him to go with us till Manang, where he was confidant of finding a replacement. After a stressful evening, fund that Indra left without saying anything next morning.

 Fortunately Tej stayed back. So, Day 6 of the trek, Paddy, had to be a semi porter :) He carried his bag ( except it was about 3 or so Kgs heavier at about 14Kgs) and the day pack( 3 or so Kgs), while I carried my bag (10 Kg) and decided to do the low route to Manang. Got there by about 1pm. AND gained the respect of the porter/guide group,  as we could do it our selves :) Today, they were all telling us how Indra can get drunk and be a bit rude and what not :)

At Manang we found a lovely hotel and good rooms. Also Dilip kept his word and managed to find Ram the gentlest of the porters for rest of our trip. More about the rest of the trip in next edition... or in tamil தொடரும் (English: Will Continue)