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| some of the many books I read while in Nepal |
See all of those books? I read them all while I was in Nepal. Those, and many other volumes, along with DVDs, online articles, music and yoga classes, were my food during 2.5 months in Nepal. It’s almost like I’ve been putting myself through a course – digesting large amounts of material, consuming knowledge and information, and, learning and reminding myself of things and feelings.
I’ve not always been a big reader - especially through schooling and university where the subject matter of prescribed texts was often grim, boring, or just pretentious crap. However, I have always gravitated toward the mystical, or things that have that sense about them. It’s not about escapism, it’s because I have an affinity with such subjects. I can feel power in them, and reading them provides me with comfort and stimulation for the seeker within.
I landed in Nepal on the 8th of October with only a few aims in mind.
1) To go trekking with Sim and Nae.
2) To engage in hedonistic consumption.
3) To devote some serious time to the study of yoga.
I am pleased to say that I achieved all three of these aims with great success, but of course – not at the same time!
The first day in Nepal was spent mainly on buses from Sunauli. Not long after we had crossed the border from India I felt a slight change in the ‘tone’ of things. Yes, indeed, Nepal is a lot more relaxed than India. There is less urgency, though there is as much chaos – and there are more smiles, though there is more adversity.
The smiles are what won me over. It was the same in Thailand. People were just willing to smile, make fun and help out. It doesn’t take much effort and makes things so much easier for everyone.
The dude that sat next to me for most of the journey from Sunauli was a cool guy. Somewhere in his mid-forties I guessed, he had worked many years in Saudi Arabia as a truck driver before returning to Nepal with his financial bounty. He now lives a simple life in the hills near Pokhara. He has enough money to educate his daughter, and he enjoys his simple existence in the beautiful hills near Nepal. He is Hindu - but a Nepali hindu. The guys wear special hats that indicate this. This dude was unique in that he was Brahman hindu. He showed me his cool pony-tail that he had hidden under his special hat. He was relaxed, smiley, and was trying to learn English – but wasn’t too frustrated by the shortcomings he had with his learning. Anyhow, this was my welcome to Nepal. Already I was sensing that there was something here that I would find, that I couldn’t find in India.
Early the next day it was relieving, but also strange to see familiar faces of Sim and Nae. Outside of Australia, here in Nepal, friends meeting up...it's a novel experience! After months of novelty and being a lonesome traveller, suddenly a big part of me relaxed. Pokhara also helped in this endeavour. Within hours of catching up we shared a delicious Indian banquet, complete with a nice bottle South-Eastern Australian wine (quite a good drop from memory) – all for less than 15 bucks each.
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| Dinner with Sim and Nae - 2nd night in Nepal |
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| Amazing banquet- 2nd night in Nepal with Sim and Nae |
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| Sim, Nae and I by lake Phewa Tal, Nepal |
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| World Peace Pagoda, Pokhara, Nepal |
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| on the walk down from the World Peace Pagoda, Pokhara, Nepal |
I wonder if the travel had already caused a change in who I was. I certainly felt a lot different being among familiar friends. I felt a bit weird being ‘me’. But perhaps that ‘me’ wasn’t who I was anymore. Get it?
Anyhow, the fun ensued, with little effort. And after a couple of days of organising we had all of our gear ready – and we set off on a 10 day trek to Annapurna Base Camp.
The first day of the trek I was wondering if this was really a good idea. There were so many steps going up just from our start point of Phedi. How many more steps would I be climbing on this trek?
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| climbing the steps from Phedi on the way to Annapurna Base Camp |
This was what I was to learn of trekking. It’s a physical test – which inevitably leads to an emotional, psychological and spiritual conquest. The arena for such a test is long deep valleys full of clean mountain air, sunshine, mossy high-altitude rhododendron forests, waterfalls, bridges and amazing views of snow-capped mountains luring you on in the distance.
One of the things you figure out is that you’ve got to pace yourself. Go too fast and you get buggered real quick. Go too slow and your body doesn’t warm up enough or have enough momentum to make your travel efficient. And when trekking, your body really is your temple – it’s your vehicle. So you’ve got to look after it, but at the same time – your body teaches you that it’s quite capable of doing things you never thought it could do, but it is also very quick to tell you it’s limits.
We did a self-guided trek which means we organised our own permits and stayed at lodges along the way. This was quite easy and we paced and planned our days using the map that I bought for a buck in Pokhara – and using the guide in the Lonely Planet. We quickly figured out that the 10 day trek that we’d planned would be over much quicker than we’d anticipated, but a lot more expensive! This was walking for only 6 hours a day on the ascent.
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| steps to Chomrong |
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| steps to Chomrong - notice the lack of enthusiasm from trekkers |
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| MORE steps to Chomrong |
As you go higher up the trekking path (above 3000m) you need to take time to acclimatise to altitude every 500 metres in altitude you climb – even though the total altitude you’ve climbed (up and down in total) for the day may be more than 4 times that amount. Furthermore, the higher you go up, the more the food costs! This is because (we assumed) you have to pay for a Sherpa to carry the food up the mountain on their backs (you see them on the path when doing the trek). This cost factor helped me to discover the beauty of Nepali food. Dal Bhat. Mmmmm. Let me tell you that after a day’s trekking, nothing quite satisfies like a huge plate of hot rice, steaming dal soup and a salty potato curry. Despite it costing ten times as much as it normally does, it is still the best value, and, they will come back with second and third helpings until you ask them to stop! They have a saying in Nepal “Dal Bhat; power, twenty four hour!”. I can’t argue with that.
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| This was one of the better Dal Baht - I had this one in Pokhara. |
Day 3 was pleasant enough, the terrain was much easier than the first two days, and we walked under the shade of trees for most of the day. It was on day 4 that things started to change. The path went up above the tree line and for most of the day we traversed one huge valley with a glacial river running through the middle. The scenery was absolutely breath-taking. This was not good – I needed my breath! Sure, I was getting a little fatigued – but every time I stopped to look up all around me were beautiful mountains and amazing nature. This was the most beautiful part of the Annapurna Sanctuary for me.
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| Rhododendron and bamboo forests - ABC trek |
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| Mount Machapuchachre hanging above bamboo and rhododendron forests, ABC trek |
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| Trekkers lunch: tin of tuna, a coupla hard boiled eggs, cold chapati, choccy biscuits and an apple |
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| Annapurna Base Camp trek - Hinku cave |
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| ABC trek |
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| ABC trek |
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| ABC trek (that's Ted and Nae's in this shot) |
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| ABC trek |
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| ABC Trek |
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| ABC trek |
By lunchtime on Day 4, we made it to Machapuchachre Base Camp. And not long after we had settled in to our 5 bed dorm, it started to rain – and it was cold. I put on my thermals, and we ordered a big pot of lemon tea in the lodge to warm up while we played cards. Later that afternoon, the rain stopped and the fog lifted briefly to give us a little glimpse of the mountains. The scale of things there really gets you. You are so high up, but the mountains then tower above you at twice your height!
We went for a wander in the sanctuary; along precarious ridges that crumbled away randomly down some 700 metres down into a deep glacial ravine, through soft alpine heath and boulders. Thousands of metres above us towered the peaks of the sanctuary hidden by the misty drizzly fog. An hour before sundown,though, the fog finally lifted for a brief 20 minute preview of the huge snow capped peaks before it closed over us again.
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| Ritz at Machapuchachre base camp. That's Ted! Hi Ted. The door and keytag indicates that the room used to be a bathroom, which was also a store room at some point. Now a 5 bed dorm... |
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| Fog coming up from the valley into Machapuchachre Base Camp |
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| Me at Machapuchachre Base Camp |
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| exploring the terrain at Machapuchachre Base Camp |
The next morning we ambitiously woke up at 5.30 to make the last part of the ascent to Annapurna Base Camp. The mission for the day being to get to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) for the big show at sunrise, then to descend back to Machapuchachre Base Camp (MBC), and hopefully descend all the way back to Chomrong before the end of the following day. At 5.30am it was very cold – bitterly cold. We trekked in thermals, beanies, gloves – the works. This was the only point in the trek all this gear was needed. And when we hit base camp as the sunrise illuminated the eerie fog, the icy wind penetrated all those layers. It was extremely busy at ABC that morning. Trekkers who’d stayed at ABC as well as all the trekkers from MBC were there to witness the spectacle of the mountains in the morning before the fog. Unfortunately for us, the fog had beat us to it that day, and there wasn’t much to see. So we hung about for a while waiting to see if it would lift.
Even with the fog, it was amazing to be there. The fact that we had walked for four days to be here with our packs on our backs must have been part of it. But even not seeing it you could feel the huge amphitheatre of icy mountains up and around, despite not actually seeing them. Luckily though, as the hour approached 8am, the fog started to move, and slowly the Annapurna Sanctuary slowly slipped off her fluffy gown to seductively reveal a bit of glacier coming down here, the odd snow capped peak there... and slowly but surely, the whole shebang was on show – with just a delicate lacy veil of fog to maintain her dignity!!! But as soon as the strip show was over we were already pushing 9am – and we had a big day ahead. We made down the mountain with a great deal of haste to get our packs on and to make our way back out of the sanctuary.
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| Trekking in the rain |
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| trekking in the rain |
By about 5pm on day 5we got to Sinuwa – not quite our goal of Chomrong – but we were drenched through, cold, tired – and we’d done almost two days worth of trekking in one huge 12-hour day. Not a bad effort. We haggled for a room, had a hot solar (ie. cold) shower, tried to dry out our wet gear and settled in for a meal and a big sleep before our sixth day.
On day six we set out much later than usual to head towards Chomrong. Thankfully, it wasn’t raining and it was actually quite warm trekking weather – instead of being wet from rain, we were wet from sweat! I’m not sure which is better actually. At Chomrong we parted ways with our English friends as they journeyed west to Poon Hill, and we headed down to the East back through Jhinu and Newbridge before taking the less beaten path on the western side of the valley to pass through villages we hadn’t yet seen.
With the advantage of more oxygen due to the lower altitude and the promise of cold beer and a chicken dinner back in Pokhara we were making really good time. In fact we walked all the way out of the mountains in that one day – and in time to make it to Nayapul by nightfall as it started to rain again! Unfortunately the buses had finished for the day, but there were a couple of taxi drivers there ready to prey on our vulnerability. The 1650 NPR taxi fare was steep – but it got us back to Pokhara in about two hours where we could get a warm meal and a beer very cheaply and spend some time chilling out, and coming to grips with the feats we had made over the past six days.
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