Day 149: Finishing up

7:30am. You'd think this was the army.... Our last day of trekking, and a short one at that, yet we were still up early and down to breakfast around eight o'clock. However, when we saw Keshab a little after getting downstairs, we figured it would be a slow departure - he looked a little rough again. Beth went so far as plying him and Suresh with Tylenol and making them drink water.

We ate breakfast slowly and played cards while sipping masala tea. Very nice.

9:50am. What a background. The sky was blue and Annapurna South and Machhapuchchhre were in full view as we trundled off down the path towards the end of the trek at Syauli Bajar.

Originally, we'd intended on staying the night there then getting picked up in the morning to go to Pokhara then to the airport for the flight to Kathmandu, but it didn't make sense to stay and if we could borrow more time in Pokhara, we could really make more time for Kathmandu.

It was downhill all the way, and a really easy path at that. Abby was grilling me about the ozone layer and global warming. She couldn't believe that a lot of people still believed that people were not the cause of climate change (names withheld to protect the guilty!). Then it was on to evolution and similar disbelief to anti Darwinism.... She gets on these topics and likes to go pretty deep on the them, which is pretty fun to see and hear.

10:30am. Kimche was right near where we oringally started. We made our way through the nice little town, stopping for ten minutes to get ABC patches for the girls and some other small souvenirs from the lonely vendors.

11:45am. And just like that, we were done. One hour forty five minutes trekking and we wrapped it up. Keshab had been on the phone in the way down, trying to figure out transport. India had imposed a fuel ban (petroleum, diesel and propane) on Nepal because they were unhappy with recent changes to Nepal's constitution and it was really starting to cause problems. Ramesh was unable to send his car to pick us up so Keshab figured out a local guy to drive us.

But first, we had lunch and a well earned, freezing cold Tuborg.... It was just above ice temperature and so refreshing...

Lunch was fun. Keshab gets a kick out of Robin.... He makes light of the fact that she's always got a different expression on her face, saying "I don't know what your real face looks like Kanxi, you're always making different faces". We need to get this kid into acting or something....

I felt sorry for the two hotels in Syauri Bajar. They had built a road above the town (the one we took to Kimche) that had bypassed this little town, and essentially made it far less in demand from a trekking perspective - it just gets passed by. And that's what can happen if they build these access roads - they are talking about building one to Ghandruk or even Chomromg, and that would devestate some of the tourism in towns along the way.

We had fond memories of the Annapurna Circuit back in '97 (the loop that goes around the mountains that surrounds ABC and the entire Sanctuary Trek). The path was similar - small footpaths, horse trains, yaks, sheep, local people making it work. It used to take a full 21 days to walk the entire circuit. Now? The entire circuit, with the exception of a small, tough climb over the Thorong-La pass, is essentially on a dirt road, where you can just as easily be passed by a jeep or bus as a pack of yaks. It now takes about 12 days to do the circuit, and the way it has been described, the feel of "trekking" has been cleansed on the circuit.

1:40pm. After lunch, our driver loaded us in the jeep and we were off on a rough, grassy trail that passed through several small creeks and over really large rocks, eventually joining the Kimche road.

2:10pm. We reached the trekker checkpoint at Birethanti, and Keshab notified the TIMS that we were leaving the area. It reminded us of the large numbers of posters of a missing Malaysian man we'd seen all over Chomrong and Ghandruk. He had been trekking without a guide on little used routes, and had not been seen since April 2015. Sad.

2:40pm. Once we got to Nayapul, we changed jeeps and were on the highway before we knew it. The girls in the back were not fans of the way the guy was trying to save money by gliding quickly down the switchbacks and not using his brakes so he could save gas.

Eventually, Keshab put a word in the driver's ear and he slowed down to a more fuel effecient pace on the flats of the Pokhara valley road.
4:00pm. It all happened very quickly. By four, we were back and checked in to two air conditioned rooms. We dumped all of our laundry down at the front desk, and rearranged all of the bags so we were more or less ready for the next day. Beth and I took a walk while the girls chilled out and got reacquainted with their iPads.
Sadly, the effects of the fuel ban were becoming very apparent. Lots of closed stores and restaurants, and the ones that were open had reduced menus and signs out front like this....

These Nepalese people are resilient - they get hammered by a huge earthquake in the Sping which devestates the tourism sector for the year, then they get a fuel ban imposed on them by one of their big brothers. They are a tiny little country between the two most populous countries on the planet, and yet through it all, they maintain their composure and their smiles.

Beth and I had a drink at the nearby, brand new Harbor Hotel, where I found my new favourite Asian beer... The German craft beer made in Nepal called Sherpa - awesome!

We liked Harbor so much, we brought the girls back for dinner. We had a very civilized meal, talking about the trek and the porters. We had such a great experience and you could see the glows of confidence on our newly crowned junior trekkers.