Annapurna Circuit, Pokhara, and Kathmandu: May 29 to June 12

Note: Quite a few pictures at the end of this final post of 2017

On the 29^th, Gopal and I trekked from Timang (2700m) to Upper Pisang (3410m), crossing three suspension bridges along the way. In the early afternoon, we saw a villager herding his yaks down the road. We were told to stand way to the side of the road while the yaks passed, as they do not like it when anything stands in their way. In addition to the yak herding, we saw many people carrying firewood and harvested crops in large woven baskets with a strap around their forehead to distribute the weight of the basket. This type of carrying method—a woven basket or makeshift wooden plank “backpack” with one strap around the forehead instead of two straps around the shoulders—was the status quo for carrying large loads in Nepal. I am not sure if it is better from a health standpoint to distribute weight to the head/neck region or if it is better to carry it all on the back, but nevertheless this was the ubiquitous method for carrying loads. We reached Upper Pisang just after lunch. At the end of the day I summed my costs: $17.50 for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and the hotel room. The food and lodging gets progressively more expensive the higher into the mountain you stay, but it is very reasonable. This same amount of money per day would not even pay for a campsite in Iceland, not including any food costs.

The next day we hiked from Upper Pisang to Manang (3540m), leaving around 8:00am. On our way out of Upper Pisang, we climbed up the hill to a beautiful Buddhist monastery, taking a moment to look inside at the brightly colored artwork. Along the trek we almost saw the peaks of Annapurna II and Annapurna III; the tops were continually covered with some stubborn clouds. We also saw camps of orange and yellow tents on the far hillside. Gopal informed me that the people in these camps are collecting a special species of caterpillar sold in China as a cure blood disease and as an aphrodisiac. My hunch is that the latter benefit is more popular. The caterpillar grows with a fungus (the biological details were somewhat unclear; my hunch is that it is some kind of symbiotic relationship or that the fungus grows uninvited on the caterpillar), and the pair is harvested together by the gatherers in the mountains who sell it to traders. Eventually the caterpillars make it to China, usually in powder form, where they are made into pills or sold as powder for up to the equivalent of $10 per caterpillar. Each of the middlemen along the way get to take his cut, so the caterpillar gatherers are not necessarily rich, but it is clear that there is quite a lot of money to be made in Himalayan caterpillar trading.

Update: After further investigation, I found this article about the caterpillar fungus: http://www.npr.org/2011/10/09/141164173/caterpillar-fungus-the-viagra-of-the-himalayas

Upon arrival in Manang, I indulged in a cinnamon roll from a bakery run by a hotel in the village—a welcome treat after multiple days of hiking. I had a chance to return to the bakery again the next day because Gopal and I spent two nights in Manang for acclimatization. On our second day in Manang, we hiked to Milarepa Cave (4100m). There is a small monument in a cave commemorating a Buddhist monk who lived there in the 11^th-12^th century. Nearby the cave are a few buildings where at least one family lives. One old man was around; he opened the gumpa (small prayer room) for us to look at and made us some very sweet tea. On our way back to Manang, we visited another gumpa in the village of Braka that was much larger and more ornate than the gumpa near Milarepa Cave. In the evening, I learned how to play a simple Nepali card game. Gopal and I played for quite a while with a couple other tourists and their guides.

On June 1^st, Gopal and I continued along the Annapurna Circuit to Yak Kharta. After about two hours of walking we took a long break in a village perched on the hillside overlooking a deep valley. I tried yak cheese for the first time, had some tea, and enjoyed the view from the sunny rooftop table. The yak cheese was pretty good. It is a hard cheese made with a lot of salt; I did not eat it again during the trek because it is not a great mid-hike snack, but I am glad I got the chance to try it. We arrived in Yak Kharta fairly early in the afternoon, so I decided to go on a walk on my own up a hill next to our hotel. It was deceivingly large, so it took almost two hours to reach the top. On the way I sighted some grazing yaks, a dead yak, a yak skull, and some large raven-like birds. There were a few animal trails for some of the time walking up, but at the beginning and end of the journey I was climbing straight up the side of the hill or inventing my own switchbacks. I also saw some seabuckthorn berry bushes, a small orange berry commonly harvested and made into juice. I had tried the juice previously and found it too sweet because of all the sugar added to counteract the somewhat bitter taste of the berries. I returned to find Gopal and some of the other Nepalese people in the hotel watching WWE, where they had been all afternoon.

On June 2^nd, we trekked about four hours to high camp (4800m). It was a fairly flat walk to Thorong Phedi (4450m) where we ate lunch, then very steep for the last hour up to high camp. During our lunch stop, we relaxed for a while in a hotel’s sun room that trapped sun’s rays despite the chilling wind outside. I met a couple from Seattle—the man asked if I was from Seattle because he saw the 206 area code written on my open backpack. Small world for sure. Up at high camp, there was not a lot to do and it was too cold to spend much time outside. I had finished my book the previous day, so I chatted with the other hikers staying for the night: a few Canadian guys, a South Korean, and a few people from the US.

Finally the day of the ascent to Thorong La Pass (5416m) had come. Gopal and I awoke early in the morning and left high camp shortly after 5:00am. There were a few groups that had started before us, but eventually we caught up with them. The air was brutally thin; I had to stop and catch my breath very frequently. I never felt as though I could not take another step, but I lost my breath more quickly than I have in recent memory during any other hike. We reached the top of the pass at 7:15am and took a long break to take pictures and rest after the ascent. Surrounded by mountains over 6000m tall, it was hard to believe that I was standing about 3000ft above the top of Mount Rainier! I had ordered some Tibetan bread, a fried substance, from the hotel to take along with me to eat at the top of the pass only to be sorely disappointed—it was much too oily and not enjoyable. I fed it to the dog that followed us up the pass. He must know that hikers will feed him—what other reason would he have to walk for hours on end up and down a huge hill?

Then began the long descent to Muktinath (3800m). Along the way we stopped at a hotel where we ate lunch, had tea, and saw an intricate weaving setup. I inquired about the scarves and walked away with a couple yak wool scarves for only $5.50 each! Both the price and the quality needed to be great if I was going to buy scarves that I would then have to carry for another few days of hiking up and down mountains. We finished our steep descent to Muktinath and arrived at the Hotel Bob Marley, a more westernized hotel than others where we had previously stayed. The food, though a little more expensive than at previous lodgings, was tremendous. I had penne Bolognese made with yak meat and a mint lemonade before laying down to nap. The shower, my first in three days, was cold. Dinner was shak shuka, an Israeli dish consisting of tomato sauce with poached eggs served with bread. I sopped up every last bite of egg and tomato, thoroughly satisfied with my dinner choice.

My experience at the Hotel Bob Marley ended with another great meal, eggs and potatoes with toast, before Gopal and I began our journey down the western half of the Annapurna Circuit. We took a bus from Muktinath to Jomson (2800) then walked a couple hours to the town of Marpha. It was a dusty walk but we got a great view of a nearby 8000m peak. Waiting for a bus in Marpha, we had some great homemade apple juice. It was bottled during the previous apple season and was delicious, though I think the woman in the shop overcharged us. After waiting two and a half hours for the bus, we finally boarded and began the bumpy ride to Tatopani (1150), about a four-hour ride. I stood the first 30 minutes before a seat opened up—it was pretty uncomfortable because the ceiling of the bus was far too short for me. Hunched over, I endured until passengers had shifted after a couple stops. Upon arrival in Tatopani, Gopal and I visited the nearby hot springs. The first pool was brutally hot while the second was much more enjoyable. We had a nice dinner before heading to bed early to prepare for the next day’s long hike.

On June 5^th, Gopal and I hiked uphill all day from Tatopani (1150m) to Ghorepani (2800m). The significant elevation gain caused our hike to take about 7 hours. The first hour or so were stairs up through the green valley and hillside, then the rest of the trail was half dirt and half stairs. This hike was the prettiest of the trip. I enjoyed it the most because of all the greenery visible throughout the whole day. Each hill gave a different view; fog down in the valley and on the opposite hillsides produced an interesting effect when looking out into the distance. We reached Ghorepani at around 3pm, just before it started pouring. I glimpsed Gopal in the courtyard on the ground floor from the window of my room as he did his laundry, hanging it to dry in the rainstorm. I ventured out later to a bookstore to buy a Mars bar. I also found a pint of locally-made apple brandy that I felt it necessary to buy and bring back to the US. After dinner, a friend of Gopal’s at the hotel said I look Punjabi or Pakistani because of my beard. I had not heard that before, but had to agree with him.

The next morning, I woke up at 3:36am to a group of college students from the University of Wisconsin who were not at all quiet as they got ready for the sunrise hike up to Poon Hill. I had planned to wake up at 4:00am, but the walls were paper thin so I ended up getting up a little early. I left at 4:20am to hike up the 400m to Poon Hill, a popular sunrise destination in the Himalayas. This was the first day of hiking where I felt very fast. It must have been the acclimatization, having spent the last couple of days hiking and sleeping at high altitude. I tore up the trail, finishing the hike in about 30 minutes and beating people who had departed Ghoremani 20 minutes before me. Unfortunately, it was fairly foggy, but some of the mountains were visible for a little while before the cloud cover became complete. After the sunrise, Gopal and I walked about 5 hours to get down the mountain to Ngadiwal, where we then took a local bus to Pokhara, the nearby city that is a popular pre- and post-trekking destination for many Annapurna hikers. After we arrived at a hotel, I bid a farewell to Gopal as he departed back to Kathmandu.

I spent the next few days in Pokhara relaxing and exploring the city. I ate multiple times at a Tibetan restaurant where I had momos of various kinds, noodle soup called thinthig, honey curd, custard pudding, rakse (local wine), an empanada-type pastry, and millet beer. The momos were delicious, as always. The millet beer was the most interesting thing I tried in Nepal. Fermented millet is put in a thick aluminum cup. Hot water is then poured into the millet and allowed to sit for a few minutes. Then, using a special straw that does not allow pieces of millet to be sucked up, the beer is consumed warm. The cup can be refilled with hot water up to five times until the millet begins to lose its flavor and alcohol. It is unclear what the alcohol content of this drink is, and it probably varies quite a lot from the first pour to the last. The taste is fairly bitter and sour, and the temperature is such a surprise that I never quite adjusted to over the one and a half glasses I had.

In addition to Tibetan food and drink, I ate at multiple western cafes in Pokhara. I had a craving for baked goods that could not quite be satisfied with the Nepali versions of coffee cake, cheesecake, and cookies. I also got a 60-minute massage at a place called Seeing Hands that employs blind masseuses. This was the first massage I have had, and it was enjoyable except for the intense pain in my calves, tight from a week and a half of hiking after little training. On my final night in Pokhara, I found an awesome weaving shop where women were weaving beautifully-colored bags by hand using traditional techniques. The bags are strong, made sustainably, and were reasonably priced—I bought many of them and wish I had had room for more.

On June 9^th, I took a 7-hour bus ride back to Kathmandu. I had two cinnamon rolls in the bus loading area in Pokhara which cost 60 cents each. The bus ride was relatively uneventful and I arrived back at the Sparkling Turtle Hostel in one piece, happy to be back in Kathmandu for my final few days of travel. At the hostel, I met Wes (a recent UConn grad) and Chris (a former Jimmy Johns manager from Olympia). I spent some time with them over the next couple days at the hostel and visiting some famous monuments around the city. Both were in the midst of 6+ months of travel, and it was great to hear some about where they had been and what they had seen during their adventures.

I visited most of the UNESCO World Heritage sites in Kathmandu, including the Bouddhanath temple (Buddhist), Pashunpati temple (Hindu), Swayambhu temple (Buddhist), Kathmandu Durbar Square (former palace), and Patan Durbar Square (former palace). The temples are some of the oldest, largest, and most revered among people of these faiths; it is amazing how some cities that have been in existence for hundreds or thousands of years have so many important monuments congregated in a small area. There are still a couple more UNESCO sites I need to visit in Kathmandu if I am to visit all seven located in the nearby area, so I still have plenty to do during my next trip to Nepal.

The most interesting thing I ate in Kathmandu were buff (buffalo) momos at a hole-in-the-wall place that did not appear to serve tourists often. The French fries with onions and cheese at the Sparkling Turtle Hostel were also great, but not really a traditional Nepalese food. My trip to Nepal ended with a $9 “cab” ride (the hostel manager drove me in his car) to the airport. If any of my readers travel to Nepal, I highly recommend the Sparkling Turtle Backpacker’s Hostel. The staff were friendly, interested in making conversation with the hostel inhabitants, and my 3-night stay (plus a few meals, tax, a beer, and my ride to the airport) totaled $35.

Late at night on June 12^th, I passed through Nepal immigration on my way out of the country. I had an easy and enjoyable trip home to Seattle, glad to be headed home and feeling happy with my time in India and Nepal. A long early morning nap on the carpeted floor of the Guangzhou, China airport gave me the strength to stay awake during the longest leg of my journey home (Guangzhou, China to Vancouver, Canada) so that I could complete the most important task of my trip: watching five and a half movies in a row.

I have enjoyed documenting my travels and hope to be posting here again soon. Thank you all for reading my blog!

Until next time,

Tavish