6:00am. A six in the morning wake up? Really? I didn't sleep that well last night.... Even when I get a bunch of excercise in, I tend not to sleep that much, so going to bedat 8:30doesn't completely work for me. The kids were unconscious until we woke them upat 7:00am.
7:15am. We kind of forgot we had bright peanut butter, until the Belgian girl we were talking to last night told us how much she missed peanut butter. Beth remembered she had a jar, so she brought it out and insisted the girl have a spoonful, her preferred method of eating peanut butter.
So it was peanut butter on rolled chappati, and it really hit the spot.
8:10am. It was steady pathways to start, gradually rising upwards, but over pretty easy terrain. Any change to climbing stairs was very welcome. We passed a number of small streams, but nothing too big that forced us to descend then climb back up, which was nice.
About halfway to the village of Himalaya, we passed a very small Buddhist temple adorned with old and new prayer flags. We were passed by a large group of university students from the U.S. along the way - I wondered what exactly they were studying to get them to Nepal in October - what an awesome opportunity for them.
Shortly after, we passed three Chinese people, one of which was a woman who was limping and had a huge black eye.... The mystery of the helicopter continued.
9:40am. The village of Himalaya was as good a place as any to rest. We had tea and crackers, reloaded on toilet paper which seems to be disappearing at an alarming rate with three well hydrated females, and relaxed for a bit.
10:15am. We started out along the same terrain - fairly gentle incline along a nice path.
10:55am. The path turned sharply upward and was pretty technical - large rock outcropping that you had to navigate carefully. It was my turn to help Robin. She was struggling during this section, and needed a bit of a mental boost. It was nice to return the favour, and she had a big smile whenever we reached our goals.
There were a couple of narrow bamboo bridges that crossed over streams - they looked intimidating but were quite solid. We started to notice a lot of people coming down the path - most who had come from ABC that morning. The way down seems so much quicker than the way up.
11:40am. Deurali. We made it. Robin and I once again held hands up the stairs to the finish. She did very well and you could almost see the self esteem boost as it happened. Two hours and fifty five minutes of hiking in all. When we were settled, everyone seemed to be in good condition... Some sore legs but in general, not bad at all. Our strategy of taking it relatively slow today after making a bigger push yesterday seems to have worked.
We ordered some pizzas for lunch - I smartly figured out that there would have been egg on my mixed pizza, so I had it excluded, however I did not have the foresight to nix the canned tuna from the pizza.... Ew.
When we got outside after lunch, Beth said "oh look, it's getting foggy". I said "that's not fog, we are in the clouds." It hit home just how far up we'd come, but we have a long way to go.
We had a bag full of wet laundry, so we introduced ourselves to the big, gruff owner of the Inn named Argen. He eventfully agreed to wash and (hopefully) dry our laundry by the time we pass back through here. He seemed to like us after I did a bit of "killing him with kindness" (and intentionally ordering a ton of overpriced snacks and drinks) and he started showing us magic tricks. Robin pulled a card trick on Argen, and he was blown away at the result.
I asked Argen how long he had owned the place, and he told me how he'd started. Thirty years ago, Deurali was nothing more than a patch of grass where trekkers and climbers would stop and camp for the night. They had to do all their cooking by campfire so he saw an opportunity to sell firewood. He gradually turned that small business into the hotel we were staying at tonight.... Quite amazing.
7:00pm. We were all tucked into bed - Abby and I paired up, and the midnight bathroom trekkers paired up. Word games in the dark led to more jokes and humour led quickly to falling asleep.
To Bamboo or not to Bamboo, that, was the question.
6:00am. A deep sleep was had by all. Beth and I definitely felt a little old last night as we were tucking into bed when others were just getting started. To make us feel better, we were going up and they were coming down. To make us feel worse, they were mostly fifteen to twenty years our senior.
I went outside while everyone else was slowly getting out of bed. I went up on the roof above the restaurant and stared at the tips of the high mountains that slowly lit up with the rising sun. We were still far away, but it still gave me overwhelming chills.
The whole town was gradually coming to life. A lot of groans and moans for sure.
7:05am Breakfast time - muesli, fruit and cold, thin powdered milk for three and somewhat runny porridge for Rob. Masala, milk and mint teas have been staple drinks. For water, we have water bottles that we fill out of the taps that stream delicious, freezing cold mountain stream water, though we still use Aquatabs to ensure the water is clean. Robin is the little task girl, filling up our water bottles and hanging our soaking wet clothes (it hasn't been raining - that would be sweat!) in the evening.
7:40am. Already packed, we departed from Jhinudanda and immediately started climbing ... Steep steps went on forever. My legs actually felt fine from yesterday, but it was hot and a very quick sweatfest. We were pacing ourselves as Suresh and Keshab had, in so few words, indicated this was a marathon, not a sprint.
On the way up, we bumped into a family of five - kids ages 11, 14 and 15, and we stopped to chat. I asked them where they were from, and they answered "Australia.... Actually Tasmania." Wait a minute, I wondered if they knew the Mudford's. Sure enough, two of the kids took surfing lessons with Kylie and Andrew's kids. I can't believe we ran into a family, in the middle of the Himalayas, that knew the only people we knew in Australia. Their name was the Calligans, so we will call them the Callies - the Muddies, the Tinnies and now the Callies. Weird!
8:50am. We arrived at the top of a very long stair at the village of Chomrong. Chomrong is on a few different routes, so it's pretty big and established. There was even a basketball court! We saw lots of school kids walking up the steps from below and I noticed a lot of them were sweating too - it always makes you feel better when the locals find the terrain difficult!
We took a break to refill our bottles and have a small snack.
9:10am. The ground was flat, then sloping downward as we made our way through Chomrong and down to the lower end of the town.
9:40am. Right at the end of the town, we saw a store that seemed well stocked. I picked up three pairs of flip flops for $2 each for Robin, Abby and I - not 100% required but they would be nice when we were chilling after a long day of trekking. Beth also picked up a knee bandage - I tell you, the guy was well supplied!
Abby noticed a picture that she identified with of a trekker with a thought bubble containing a big slice of chocolate cake. I wasn't sure how many cake opportunities there would be higher up, but it was nice to dream!
9:50am. The valley leading out of Chomrong was right out of the Lord of the Rings movie. Terraced rice fields, stone houses and people going back and forth on the path with baskets hanging from their foreheads full of all kinds of different things.
10:20am. The downhill led to a long suspension bridge that indicated the start of a big climb that ended in lunch. We made our way slowly, step after rocky step, occasionally broken up by a short flat section.... But only very occasionally. It was tough going.
10:45am. We reached Lower Sinuwa and though the time was early, we were ready for lunch. After two hours and thirty five minutes of solid up and down walking, we were ready for a good recharge.
Beth and I went for vegetable fried rice - it has seemed to do the trick the last few days - large quantities of relatively bland rice, but still, rice is life. The kids both had huge bowls of macaroni. We've been drinking a lot of tea to stay hydrated during the stops.
The little town was like many - perched on the side of a hill with spectacular views of the valley below and an even nicer view of what lay ahead. Just after lunch, about ten or fifteen mules passed us going up. The pack animals were mostly empty for some reason. It always seems weird to me that they know where they're going. The driver was well back of the pack.
12:15pm. Ready to go after the long break, we put our day bags on, Suresh and Keshab put the big bags on and we were off. We passed all of the mules minutes later, grazing by the side of the path. I guess they were on some kind of regular schedule.
We passed a sign indicating we were entering vegetarian country.... Ok then!
We began to climb again, hitting a lot of steep stairs with small flats between. It was again, tough going. The last ten minutes were flat as we arrived in Upper Sinuwa.
1:00pm. In Upper Sinuwa, we took a short break. We discussed with the porters where we should stop for the night. We could either stop at Bamboo, about an hour and a half away, or push on to Dovan that was another hour up the path. The advantages of going to Dovan were hot showers, better views and shorter days on the next two days. We decided to wait and see, though I knew Beth really wanted to make it to Dovan. Robin starting to struggle mentally, so we didn't want to push it.
1:15pm. The porters anointed Robin with the name "Kanxi" meaning little sister, and Abby with "Thuli" meaning big sister. I think the nicknames are going to stick for a while. "Slowly, slowly Kanxi" they said. And we were off.
We climbed and climbed.... It was a familiar sight. Steeps stairs with the occasional slope to break it up.
1:45pm. The end of the climbing section led to a downhill slope into Bamboo, we hoped. We passed a few guys coming up the slope that were carrying about fifty pieces of 3/4" bamboo that were about twenty feet long. I couldn't believe how quickly those guys, carrying that huge weight on one shoulder, were moving up the path. Crazy. From Chomrong on, most supplies are carried by people (the mules, as I found out, stopped at Sinuwa). Propane tanks, food, toilet paper, supplies - all carried over many kilometers, up and down to supply the various camps.
2:00pm. After a gradual descent, the path turned sharply downwards. Transitioning to a descent feels just like when you come off a climb when cycling, and drop into an easy glide downhill. The pressure is off, and you can just focus on where you're stepping and let gravity do the work. That is, of course, if your knees are doing well. Beth was starting to get pretty sore on the downhills, but overall she was doing great.
2:30pm. Bamboo was a cute little stop, in a bit of a valley section. We met an Australian family from Perth that had three kids also aged 11, 14 and 15. They'd just arrived from all the way up at ABC - the Dad and eleven year old were suffering a bit from altitude sickness, so they wanted to come down quickly.
We turned as we heard the sound of a helicopter coming up the valley. It's never a nice thing to see, as there aren't too many positive scenarios that involved taking a helicopter ride back from ABC or MBC to Pokhara, and at a reported $6,000US cost, it was an unlikely pleasure ride.
The question was raised again, continue on to Dovan or not. I will give Robin all the credit here - despite being pretty tired, she agreed that pushing on to Dovan made a lot of sense. This kid is surprising me so much - it really brought tears to my eyes when she said that.
3:10pm. And we were off. The path to Dovan was really tough. It basically climbed the whole way. I dropped back with Robin, and I can't even tell you if I was putting this on or not: I told her I was suffering and that I really needed her help to get through the tough climb. She lept into action, forgetting her mental barriers, and turned the "pick a goal" strategy around on me.
She was not completely convinced at first that "I" needed "her", but as time went on, it became clearer that that was true. She picked a goal "Ok dad, next up is the large boulder at the top of that stair". When we got to the goal, we had to touch the object, say out loud "we did it" and take a breath. Then it was on to the next goal. I was so inspired by this little dynamo. When we finally saw the last stairway that led up to the village of Dovan, we held hands and finished to the end together.
4:00pm. I realized later that I really had been suffering that last hour. I'm so proud of Robin, and she was on cloud nine at what she had accomplished. She will remember that moment for many years to come I'm sure.
We had trekked for a total of five hours and twenty five minutes, not including breaks. What a day. What a day.
The carrot at the end of the string was a beautiful hot shower for all. Up here, you pay for everything - recharging batteries, hot showers - everything. And that was just fine for us. The shower felt so good, and Beth was flying high.
As we busied our selves with showering and getting settled in, an older guy with white hair was giving us the real stink eye. We all noticed and couldn't help wondering aloud just what would make a guy seem so bitter chilling out in the middle of the Himalayas.
We even had other adults (yes, adults!!!) to talk to in the late afternoon and at dinner so all around the decision to go to Dovan was a great one. There were two girls, single travellers that had met in Pokhara from Belgium and Holland that were particularly nice to talk to. We even struck up a conversation with the stink eye guy and his wife, and it turned out they were from France (...) and were quite nice, in the end.
We heard speculation that a Chinese woman with leg injuries and a huge black eye was the one who needed the helicopter from ABC. Yikes!
Keshab and Suresh continue to treat us very well. They take our orders and serve us meals from the restaurants, keep us focused on the trails, call ahead for room reservations when possible, and in general, are constantly at our beckon call.
Physically, we are doing well. I feel like a I've gone for a really long ride each day - that certain body rush you get with a big day of exercise. The girls seem great. Beth has been a bit preoccupied with the impending cold as we climb further, as well as potential altitude sickness, but she is in good spirits.
We had a great night. We retired to the room after dinner and had an hour and a half of hijinx and hilarity. By 8:30, we turned off the lights and were out.
"You need to buy a jacket.... You're going to be cold!", she rasped.
"Can we talk about it when we're supposed to wake up?"
"I guess so....."
And that's how we started our nine day trek into the Annapurna Sanctuary. The real wake up time was closer to 6:30. We "got up" and stuffed everything into the packs that we hadn't been able to put in yesterday. We had to buy an extra duffle bag (wtf?) so we are leaving the kids bags and duffle bag with the hotel, and we've got everything else packed into our two bags - Abby and I will be living out of my bag that also has the med kit etc, and a Robin and Beth are using her bag.
7:15am. We went down to breakfast and had muesli with cold fresh milk followed by delicious masala tea (chai). I recounted the 5:30 wake up question to the girls, and Abby said "What? Why would you..... Oh..... Mountain stress?"
We managed to run to one of the millions of trekking shops to grab a jacket for me and an extra base layer for Beth... It was the happy vendor's lucky day. When we got back, we met our two skinny, young porters named Keshab and Suresh. Beth had her doubts but we were trying to keep an open mind. I wasn't expecting Hercules after all, we were in the middle of Asia.
7:55am. We hopped in the jeep, me in the front, the ladies on the wide bench in the middle and the porters squeezed in the back with the bags. Porters make a daily fee - about $16USD a day - and we were more than happy to have hired two in order to give a little more income to the tired local economy. Of course they can earn tips at the end of the trip, and I suspect their overnight costs and food costs would be free or dirt cheap based on them bringing four clients to hotels and restaurants. Still, $16USD a day seems like very little by our standards.
The road out of Pokhara was choked with traffic - I guess it was their version of rush hour. We were on the main "highway" to Nayapul. It started to weave back and forth until we found a small, flat valley that was full of bright green rice fields.
Eventually, we climbed out of one valley, and dropped into another. On our way down, we stopped behind a bus that had stopped on a small bridge. Rubber neckers were outside and our porters hopped out, taking a picture of a small car that had gone off the road and into the creek about thirty feet below. Yikes.
Our driver didn't think twice about squeezing around the bus, almost scraping the edge of his jeep on the side of the bus as we passed.
9:05am. We arrived in Nayapul with little fanfare, and turned off on a gravel road. I saw a part of that road that had dropped away from the edge, leaving just a car width of the road left for 10 meters or so. As we approached, a man walking towards us gave the driver a little head shake and an open fingered twirl of fingers that usually means "that might not be the best idea". Our driver didn't flinch and continued right over the bad section. I'm not sure if anyone else noticed that little interchange, but I didn't hear anything from the back of the car so that was good.
The road got very rough - we were going over boulders that were up to 12-16" high and the jeep was jumping around quite a bit. We stopped near a bridge that crossed the Modi Khola, the river we'd be following for much of our trek, and the porters showed the guard there our trekking permits and registered us in the TIMS system (the Trekkers Information Management System that tracks people coming and going on treks).
We saw lots of little school kids with their uniforms walking towards us on the road. Very cute. At one point, we heard honking up ahead and a small bus with really big tires rounded a tight bend and passed us. I could not believe a bus was travelling on that narrow, bumpy road that fell away on one side about a few hundred meters to the river below.
10:00am. We arrived at the end of the road in a small village called Kimche. Ironically, a group of Korean Trekkers were just coming down the path in all their gear. It put a smile on our faces - we have had such nice interactions with the Koreans we've met on our trip. To generalize, they seem very open, outgoing and very engaging with other non-Korean tourists... The same can't be said for many western tourists we see on the road.
The boys changed into their work shirts, strapped their little bags onto our bigger bags and we set off on the trail leading upwards through the village.
The path was pretty easy going, though narrow and rocky. There are many ways in and around Annapurna Sanctuary, especially at the start. We were using one of the smaller paths to head northwards toward our highest destination, Annapurna Base Camp ("ABC"). The sanctuary is surrounded by some of the tallest mountains in the world, as well as Fishtail.
We passed through small farms that eked out a living on the steep slopes of the mountains. Every once in a while we would see the Modi Khola below, and across the valley there were lots of terraced fields.
Beth was able to limit her falls during that section of walking to two (she insisted I put that tidbit in here, though I normally feel quite reserved about making light of her gaffs) pretty minor slip ups. They were more embarrassing than painful, but it made her ratchet up her awareness of the bumpy ground we were walking on.
The kids would periodically stop on a dime, marvelling at one sight or another, so I had to institute cycling-like communication rules like shouting "slowing" or "stopping" if we were changing pace in order to let people know what was happening. You really had to balance looking at your feet and remembering to look up at the amazing landscape.
11:25am. We stopped in the middle of the path in a town called Kalchane for lunch - that's when the chicken lost its head.
We'd ordered some simple rice and noodle dishes and refilled our water bottles. We were all sweating a lot more than we thought we would (the sun was hot and the temperature was in the mid twenties), and we really had to watch our hydration levels with the coming gain in altitude.
The girls saw a local guy placing a bunch of chickens on a mat with some seeds. Then he began to examine each of them, apparently sizing them up for dinner. Robin got pretty teary at that, vowing to go vegetarian right then and there (though she followed that up with "but chicken does taste so good.... sniff...sniff"). The guy found his mark and took it over near an outhouse, washed it off, broke its neck and cut its cute little head clean off.
It's always a sad reality seeing how the meat we eat gets "processed", but I don't think we'll be eschewing the Costco meat section too soon....
12:30pm. Time to go. This was going to be a little tougher than the morning. We started climbing very quickly on steep paths, mostly made out of rough hewn stone stairs. Robin was having a tough time and needed some coaching. Shouts of "I can't do this, I'm weak!" interspersed with loud sobs. The tough thing with Robin is she can get down on herself pretty quickly, but the great thing is how quickly and strongly she can bounce back. After a little coaching and letting her know we'd be doing lots of "breath catching" while climbing steep sections, she was back on plan. In fact, soon, she was taking the point, leading our pack up the hill
1:15pm. Break time in the village of New Bridge. A nice little cobbled village that looked nice enough to stay in.... Nope. Keshab pointed across the valley and up, up, up to a little red roof in the mountains and told us that was where we would stop for the night.
1:30pm. Here we go. Steep steps led up to an eventual plateau in the path where we stopped for five minutes. We continued on, through an open farm area, passing a few huts and villagers at work. We looked over at the settlement across the valley at the top of the hill. The kids thought we had climbed up high enough as we were almost on equal footing with the town, but I looked where we were going and knew better. It was time to go down..... Then up.
Going down is sometimes harder than going up. Going down puts a lot of pressure on the joints - it's all about compression. Beth was getting sore knees so I made her pop an Advil. That seemed to help.
We crossed a metal suspension bridge that crossed a beautiful tributary to the Modi Khola, and then we gazed up at our final destination. Moving our sight line from the top to closer to us, we saw steps that disappeared straight up into the forest. Yikes.
Robin and Abby were amazing, chatting away and in their own world. I was more like a zombie and Beth wasn't much better. I felt like I'd prepared for this last year, then pretty much gone on an exercise hiatus for four months..... Oh yeah, I had. For the cyclists of the crew, the last section of the climb was pure suffering.... I got in my little quiet place and ground out the last few gazillion steps until we got into the village of Jhinudanda. I was pretty spent and the kids, those little buggers, looked just fine. Beth looked shattered.
After talking to Keshab, who looked a little tired himself, I guess we may have been going a little fast. We walked for 3:10 minutes today (only!) and we were told anywhere from 4.5 to 6 hours walking time. Hopefully we have not burned all of our matches too early (waddap cycling reference).
Our Hotel was a bit of a shock to Abby... I'm not sure what she was expecting, but she quickly lost the attitude and assimilated. The places are pretty much as we remembered - basic, clean and with shared toilet and shower facilities.
After an ice cold shower for Beth and I, we hung out in the restaurant, blogging and playing cards.
Beth and I shared a nice cold Nepal Ice beer which was enough to put her out for a nap.
I chatted with the woman who owned the hotel. She said they'd been very slow, though tonight was an exception. Tonight there were 29 of 40 beds full, but that was the exception this season.
We placed our dinner orders. All of the menus in Annapurna are the same,and prices are set by the agency, which all depend on how far the guest house is from a road.... The farther up you go the re expensive things are. I ordered the staple Dhal Baht meal set, which is like an Indian Thali with rice, papaddam, curried potatoes, pickle and Dahl... Delicious!
The kids ran around the village while I finished up the blog after dinner. It will be an early night tonight, our first in the Annapurna Sanctuary.
