Trekking

As mentioned in a previous blog, Marks parents came to visit. We had a fabulous time with them including a seven day trek in the Annapurna region. It started out with a plane flight up to Jomsom at 7am. The plane flys up the steppest gorge in the world and the wind in the afternoon is really strong in this valley hence the early departure time.

Jomsom is around behind the Annapurna range and therefore is in the monsoon rain shadow. It is also 2750m above sea level and so in February it is a little colder than Pokhara!

Day 1 Pokhara, Jomsom and Kagbeni

The view out the cockpit of the 15 seater. The airhostess hands out lollies and cotton wool before take off, there is no safety announcement and then she sits at the back for the flight - what a job!

The seats on this plane were canvas seats with a steel frame and left me wondering if it was secretly from the American army or something!

Now we are in Jomsom - the planes stayed for about 10mins, just enough time to unload, reload and take off agaiin.

Jomsom sits either side of the Kali Gandaki river with the Dhaulagiri range on the right (looking down the river) as seen in the below photo and the Annapurna and Nilgiris on the left of the river as seen above

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From Jomsom we walked up to Kagbeni - about a three hour stroll up the Kali Gandaki river bed. It is like a totally different country as the landscape is so different. There is a 4WD road up this valley so occansionally vehicles would come up including a vehicle carrying two Aussies who were driving a toyota land cruiser with a cab from Oz to Britian!

 

These cows and lady are carrying firewood - I am still not sure where it came from!

And there were lots of people walking along the road - this lady told me she was off to the doctor, at this point she still had about another 1/2 hour to walk and I don't know where she came from.

The rock formations were incredible. It shows the power of earthquakes(!) and how quickly this land has been thrusted up to create the Himalayas.

The town of Kagbeni. The crops are buckwheat that is still young at this stage. In the summer before harvest the photos indicate that they are a really rick green colour - such a contrast to the barren landscape.

The Nilgiri range... The religion in this region is Buddhism (hence the prayer flags) and the language is very similar to Tibetian. Just north of Kagbeni is the forbidden kingdom of Upper Mustang. Here is costs $700US to get in and then $20US for each day you are in there - needless to say we didn't go there!

They have different school holidays here compared to the rest of Nepal. As it gets so cold and the school buildings have little heating they have long holidays in the winter and work through the summer as it isn't as hot as Pokhara. Therefore, it was school holidays while we were there.

We stayed in the Asia guest house. The people were really lovely and the view out the windows was great. The mainroom got lots of sun which was great in the afternoon as the wind was so strong being outside in the dust wasn't at all pleasant. This child is the youngest of the family - 14 months old.

There were cow/yaks around. Marks parents were amazed at what little they had to survive on.

And were glad that this wasn't their vege patch as the growing conditions are challenging....

Day 2 Golden Hill

This day we woke up to beautiful sunshine and decided that we would walk up to Golden Hill, a hill on the other side of the river that had reputatably good views. In true Nepali style the sign showed the way at the start and then ran out. New Zealand style navigation also doesn't work. Ally was confused as the sun was in the south and there aren't tracks up ridgelines as these are generally too steep and therefore people don't live there - they tend to meander up the flatter liveable hillsides which has confused Mark and I on numerous occansions!
We met this lady who told us that this was the road to the top. She was out taking her horses for a feed...

 

 

The view into upper mustang...

And towards the Annapurna's...

 

The other thing the sign didn't tell us is just how high this hill is - the GPS reading at the top was . It aslo wasn't the road up and the path just got steeper, and steeper. At one stage we were virtually rockclimbing through light snow and prickle bushes!

But the view up the top was worth it (honest - I am reading the map to work out what I am looking at)!

Upper Mustang... The valley floor is 800m below

Looking at the Thorong La (5400m) - the pass the Annapurna circuit goes over. A week later it was closed in snow.

Looking down to Kagbeni and the Nilgiri range.

Kagbeni from the walk....

A tibetian snowdog - they are much bigger than it looks in the photo.

Day 3 - Kagbeni, Jomsom and Tatopani

On the third day we left the lodge after receiving scarfes of thanks and blessings and headed back down the valley to Jomsom. Until we got into the sun it was very cold.

 

 A loaded horse crosses the bridge....

They are goats - that is a BIG herd for one person to have in Nepal.

When we got to Jomsom we got on a bus. Sounds like cheats trekking but they have built a road down the valley that buses ply all day. A few bits can be walked on the other side of the river but most is on a dusty road with vehicles. If you can't beat them - join them. This we did and it was an experience!!

The valley initially was a wide open and very beautiful valley. This is Nepals top apple producing area. In the paddocks buckwheat was being grown under the apple trees. The Nilgiris are in the background.

We had to stop as there was a mob of sheep in the road.. sounds like another country I know!

spot the sheep later on....

They valley then started to get steeper and steeper. This is the worlds steepest gorge. The road was gravel all the way. Initially it started out well but this also got rougher and rougher. We had to get out at one point, walk over an area of road that had been bombed and was getting fixed up and get onto another bus. When we reached Ghasa the bus that we were one was turning back so we had to get onto another one. This third bus was, well.... a little worse for wear. There was no windows in parts and this was where we had to put our bags - my camera nearly went out the window and down the gorge never to be seen again. The cushions of the seats had to be picked up from the floor and put back on the steel framing, The driver can't have been more than 14 and fancied himself as a racedriver on a 1 way gorge road with cars going both ways and bollards that would blow over in strong wind, let alone a bus hitting them! The bus drivers assistant (every bus has one here - much like the conductor on the Wellington trains) had to manually pump the petrol at times! Ally rightly called it a white knuckle ride! Marks says that it would be a good thriller ride at Rainbows end!

P.S. - don't you like in the interior decorating - that is very typical for a nepali bus.

The photos really don't show how steep the gorge was - on one side is a 8000m peak and the other side another one and we are just over 1000m at this point!

Those are the concrete bollards I was talking about

That was the road we had just come along...

And this is the road ahead! Told you it was a one way road!!

As some light relief dinner came by while we were stopped at one point!!! (They are chickens if you can't work it out - the photo has got warped somehow).

The highlight at the end of that day as a soak in some hot pools at Tatopani (literaly means hot water in nepali).

Day 4 Tatopani to Ghorepani
This day was by far and away the hardest day. We climbed up 1700m of stone steps to Ghorepani.

We are interested in what a common bed is......

The trail passed through rhodendren forests (a little early to see them flowering) and the smell of daphne was fabulous.

The steps were all worth it for the view from Poon Hill
Day 4 Ghorepani, Poon Hill, Tadopani

 

Poon Hill is 3210m above sea level - just a little hill here. From here are amazing views of the himalayas and on this day a front that was coming in. Unfortunately there was no sign of Dhaulagiri that day.

We then left there and walked to Tadopani (means far from water as it is on the top of a hill). On the way we found yaks much to Helens delight.

The path was through rhodendren and oak forest initially

And dropped steeply into a valley and then out again - yes, more stone steps.

The hotels in Tadopani were all much the same. They were rocks stacked on top of each other to form a house etc and didn't appear particulary structurally sounds. The airconditioning also wasn't really needed as it was winter. All the food was cooked over a fire and then the embers put in barrels under the kitchen table. Such an easy and effective way to heat a room and there wasn't smoke either.
There was a viewing tower at the hotel we stayed at. It was a dodgy plywood structure on a pile of blocks and didn't look very structurally safe. However, from it we watched languar monkeys. Two of them came out of the jungle and stole cabbages from the field and ran away. While people to our left were making more rocks, the locals were throwing rocks to them to scare them away. The locals gave up quickly but the monkeys didn't, coming back for more. This time 7 came back, took cabbages under each arm and ran away. The poor locals lost half their crop in 2 minutes. By the time Ally got his camera the action was over but here are the monkeys!

Day 6 Tadopani to home - ooops Ghandruk

The next day we set off with the plan of coming back to Pokhara. We reached Ghandruk at lunchtime just as a massive thunderstorm started. We thought we could be kiwis and keep going on an exposed and slippery rock trail for three hours or we could be lazy and stay the night. We were glad we stayed the night as the thunderstorm was still going at 2am in the morning and some of the claps were very very close!

Day 7 Ghandruk to Pokhara

This day was abotu 3 hours going down stone steps. Highlights were monkeys - this time rhesus monkeys...

pretty flowers..........

A hydro powered rice mill....

And really structural unsound buildings!!

(hint - foundations of the above building)

And iron being carried in!!

It was a fabulous trip although a few days without stone steps are in order. And look, we found our sheep on the road back to Pokhara while we were driving back! They were going where we were but I don't think they were going to last much longer!