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| kalebhut |
Posted
on 16-Dec-03 12:07 AM
It had been a year since I was working on a plan for a trek around the Annapurna Region in Western Nepal. It was the month of October and our biggest festival “Dusain” was near approaching. And, I had not yet made up my mind about when and what to do next. It had been 3 years I was away from home then. And the thoughts of being home with my families and friends were incessant in my mind. I decided I would give up my job and book the next flight to Katmandu because there was no chance I’d get a month long vacation from my job. Six days after i quit my job, i was on Royal Nepal airline’s flight 405, having a can of Carlsberg. I was without a job but a whole month of freedom ahead of me. I knew that my lifelong yearning to elude myself in that nature’s most beautiful retreat was coming true. And, the joy of being back home again is always there. I had no qualms and worries about my decision, but what worried me was the mass of flab I was gaining at my buttocks because my job entailed neither such intelligence nor any diligence. It was a sinecure.
It took our national carrier RA405, four hours to a safe landing on Tribhuwan International airport. The weather outside was cool to the perspiring humidity of Hong Kong. And, the infrastructure between the two international airports was incomparable. Chep La Kok airport has all the state-of-the-art infrastructure and technology whereas our international airport was an embarrassing sight. Our airport had nothing but a few kilometers long runway and a small passengers’ hall to boast its international recognition.
I spent the first week just eating and enjoying the festive mood. It was only after the end of a week long festival I worked on my itinerary. My cousin agreed that he would accompany me on the trek. We hit off the road with our backpacks on the morning of 19th, October 2001. The first day was an 8-hour drive on a coach from Katmandu to Pokhara.By the time we reached Pokhara; it was already 4 pm in the afternoon. We decided that we’d spend the night there in a Hotel and start our estimated 6 days long trek the next morning. We booked a room in a hotel, showered and went out for a stroll. We roved around lakeside and what attracted my attention was an advertising board of a trekking agency. The board was chalked up with an itinerary of the trek we had decided to follow. It read “ CLASSIC ROYAL TREK” on top and an itinerary tabulated under; that illustrated Nayapul as a starting point followed by Ghandruk, Tadapani, Deurali, Ghorepani, Poon hill and back to Nayapul, with each night’s stay at these spots. The ambience around lakeside was getting livelier with the mellowness of the starry night. An alfresco type sitting area of a restaurant provided us a superb view of Phewa Lake glistening with the vibrant lightning of numerous bars and clubs in the area. We had dumplings with beer. Since we had to hike a long day uphill to Ghandruk from Nayapul the day after tomorrow, we went to bed early that night.
We woke up at 6 am the next morning and headed out to hire a cab, with our trekking boots on. The cab drive led us to a winding road north up to the valley of Pokhara and up to a steep hill that followed a twisting descent, again. The rising sun from the horizon cleared out stars and melted dews that splattered on our cab’s windscreen. We got our first view of Machapuchre with the rising sun’s rays that struck straight at its tip before it revealed the gleaming front wall of the imposing peak in her purest form. It was a stunning and an unforgettable sight way beyond the charisma of photography it can offer an eye. The view obstructed in the lush alpine forest, our drive followed. We reached Nayapul at 9 am. That was the starting point of our trip uphill to the Spartan world far from all the modern luxuries of life.
We started our trip after we drank a cup of tea by the roadside kiosk at Nayapul. It followed a dirty trail by the banks of Modi River. We challenged our way forward on human excretes, animal dung and through peasants heading out to fields. We met a number of trekkers returning from a trek on the way. They looked exhausted but in high spirits, in their arduous endeavours. We walked steadily for an hour until we reached a suspension bridge over the Modi River. The other side of the bridge was an Annapurna conservation area project (ACAP) office, from where our trail followed an ascent. We took a rest overlooking the river for a while and started our journey again. After few steps up the trail, I felt a terrible illusionary blow with a diminishing sound in my head. I realized that trekking was not as easy as it seemed in travel magazines and websites. My heartbeat grew faster and breathing louder. I was breathing the shush-shush of an asthma patient. However, I moved on and on with my cousin’s you-can-do-it kind of back up from time to time. As we climbed up, the gushing sound of the river grew fainter and fainter and the river was nowhere to be seen below the chasm. At 2 pm we stopped for lunch at a small village on the way. By then, we had already covered half of our crossing for the day. The other half of our descent followed rice terraces fields, thatched cottages, rocky trails and closer view of Mount Annapurna and Machapuchre engulfed in the clouds. We gained an excellent momentum of speed and determination as we neared closer and closer to our destination. The air felt cooler and the breathing thinner. The chirping of the birds and insects grew clearer and louder after the sun set down in the horizon and the dusk crept in. A distant plip plop of dim lightning from the village lured us on and on as we dragged and crawled ourselves over a paved pathway with railing before the threshold into the village, that was stone-carved “Welcome to Ghandruk” We had finally arrived at our destination after an eight hour long ascent and we were as solid as stone with exhaustion. We sneaked into a lodge of whose name we didn’t bother to read. We got ourselves a double bed room for the night at Rs250. During dinnertime, we met a German group who were just back from their successful trek up to the Annapurna base camp. We had a brief chitchat but it seemed too out of track due to the differing state of mind we were in. After dinner we bade everyone in the hall goodnight and went to sleep.
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| kalebhut |
Posted
on 16-Dec-03 05:01 AM
A soft knock on the door woke us the next morning. The man standing outside was a hotel staff with two mugs of coffee on a tray. We had asked him to wake us up the night before, for, the best view of Mountain is possible only when the sky is cloudless in the morning. We shuffled upstairs at the topmost floor of the Guesthouse with our sleeping rags wrapped. We stood shivering and waited for the sun to rise. Ghandruk looked much more populated and clustered with stone-slab houses than what i had imagined in the dark of the night yesterday. At an altitude of 1,950 metres above sea level, Ghandruk boasted the finest of lodges and hotels in the region. It perched right at the flank of the hill with a towering Himalayan mountain range on the other side.
A little while later the sun rose up slowly casting its prismatic rays on the gigantic Mount Annapurna and Machapuchre. The view looked celestial and hypnotic. The massive barren rock veiled in glittered flakes of snow silhouetted, that’d leave any onlooker mystified. And, the serenity of the instant with the freezing breeze added much tension to its mystic view. It was a moment later when the crimson red sun changed its color into a yellowish yolk of an egg that sparked daylight and brought me back to consciousness. I was completely lost and mesmerized by the spectacle.
We set out for our second day’s journey with a bowl of chicken soup that provided us much needed heat in that chilly morning. As we moved on, the sun got brighter and the view clearer and clearer. Our ascent accompanied a view of the Mt Annapurna and Machapuchre at a corresponding angle that loomed over on the other side of the gorge till we came along a wet trail in the alpine woods. I didn’t feel any pain nor I was having any difficulty breathing. The air was fresh and the walk was pleasant. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant on the way. We ate our staple diet. Rice and curry. The owner of the restaurant, a healthily built Gurung lady, cheered us both when she told us that we were only an hour away from our planned destination for the day. For a change, we chatted away an hour with a Belgian girl who was doing the same trip, the other way around. We asked her few questions about the places we’d be at and answered hers where she’d be at on her way down. We continued our ascent at snail’s pace and even managed to spare ourselves the whole evening at Tadapani. When we reached Tadapani at 4 pm, it seemed already dim at that hour of the day. The geographical mile and spot at which it lied was why the place looked dim and murky, I reasoned. It was 2,500 metre above sea level. The place was a cluster of thatched and stone-slab houses that encircled a big patio-like courtyard in the middle. There were Tibetans selling Tibetan antiques, turquoises, and handloom shawls. A group of young girls greeted us cheerfully and we waved them back with equal delight. Since we had a whole evening, we took time to bargain a double bedroom in a guesthouse at a good price and a hot shower for Rs100 each. After we freshened up and cleansed off our day’s dirt, we went out for a stroll. A sharp giggle caught our attention from an inside of the inn. We went inside it to find ourselves in the middle of drunken men and cheerful looking girls, busy serving them. We shared a table with a Chinese guy and his guide, ordered a bottle of locally brewed wine and started to mingle in the atmosphere. The Chinese guy looked too intoxicated in front of his guide who looked too calm and poised for his insatiable alcoholic yen. As I downed my third glass of wine, my perception levels increased so dramatically that I mistook a girl’s freckled cheek for animal dung layered on it. She looked pretended that she was shy when I commented of her freckles. I was unintentionally teasing her to let me feel her cheek before I downed my eighth glass of our third bottle of wine, and all I saw was haze. People took it as a joke and were shaking up and down and sideways with convulsions of unstoppable laughter. I laughed my heart out too. The last words I could make out were a stammer from my cousin.
to be contd..
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| kalebhut |
Posted
on 17-Dec-03 03:33 AM
Day 3 and 4..
I woke up late the next morning with a woozy hangover. But it felt better after a hot lemon tea we drank by the verandah with the view of gigantic Mount Annapurna soaring right above us. The view of the mountain was as spectacular than ever before. We continued our journey with a steep descent into the woods that followed a brook, and a steep climb up the hillock and down again, forming a trajectory trail. On our way up we bought a mineral-water bottle full of coagulated acidic milk (mohi) for Rs20, at a village. It tasted so hydrating I gulped down half a bottle in a single gasp. The result was a bloated stomach and an excess amount of gastric juices in it. We walked continuously into the alpine woods blossomed with poinsettias until we reached our next destination Deurali (3,080 metres), for lunch. The place comprised of only three guesthouses nestled in the woods. Given that we were only few hours away from our next destination we decided to continue moving ahead after lunch. But as I ate my first spoonful of rice and curry, I felt a trickle of water down my anus. I realized I had a diarrohea. I had a bar of snicker instead. Our walk followed a horizontal trail above the hill with coniferous trees. Between the trees emerged a stretch of Himalayan range that seemed infinite. Had it not been for the diarrohea I was suffering from and my frequent stopover into the bushes, it’d have been the most pleasant walk of my life. However, I would still recommend this trail to be one of the best in the region, to anyone. It was simply breathtaking.
The two hour long walk led us at the edge of the hill from where a cluster of blue colored rooftops were visible in the twilight, at a distant below. The other edge at the hill offered a view of chain of hills on the horizon. After a few minutes’ rest on the top of hill we started downhill. We estimated that it’d take us not longer than an hour to reach there which was our last and final stopover in the region. Within an hour, we reached Ghorepani that lay at the foot of Poon hill. By the time we reached Ghorepani, it was already dark and we had covered two days walk in a day. We wasted no time to find a place of stay in a nice guesthouse at a reasonable price. A guesthouse owner got his son to fetch me a diarrohea pill from the only pharmacy just nearby. Thanks a bundle to that snotty little young boy, I was back to normal in an hour before dinnertime. A fireplace blazed in the middle of the dining hall and all the guests were busy eating and chatting about their trips. We sat next to a Japanese trio of two old men and a young lady. We exchanged our formal Namaste and Hi hello, and in no time found out that the young lady was a student majoring in Nepalese language at Tribhuwan University, Katmandu. She was accompanying the two old men as an interpreter who knew no single Nepalese words or English, with a guide and a porter on their trek to Ghandruk. After dinner we left the hall for a good night’s sleep.
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| kalebhut |
Posted
on 19-Dec-03 11:43 AM
We woke up very late the next morning, as we were too tired to wake up early in that cold morning for a sunrise view from Poon hill. We took a stroll around the village that had a number of antique shops, cafes, restaurants and bookstores. Some young men said us that there’s a pool hall and a discotheque as well in the vicinity. That didn’t appeal me a bit, instead I bought a second hand copy of Heinrich Harrer’s “Seven years in Tibet ” for Rs300 which occupied me in the most of my day, while my cousin spent his entire afternoon playing pools.
In the evening, we sat by the fireplace and drank locally brewed wine. A moment later a Japanese trio we met last night joined us. The young Japanese girl said that they’d continue their journey the next day to Deurali. We asked them about geisha and samurai and explained them about kukuri and dhaka topi in return. The Japanese girl was so fluent and immaculate in her Nepalese language; we had the advantage of wooing her with lewd Nepalese dialect from time to time during the conversation. She replied us back with equal glee that added much excitement in the pursuit of courtship. The two old men would just sit and smile in wry apprehension. Later we ended up exchanging e-mail addresses and telephone numbers and promised to meet in Katmandu. (Unfortunately, the chit I’d noted their address would be lost somewhere on the way down to Nayapul, the next day. We didn’t hear from them too). We had dinner together with them and wished them a good journey. As we had a long way to go the next day up to Poon hill and down to Nayapul, we went to bed after dinner.
It was still dark outside when we woke up the next dawn before we got geared up on our warmest jackets, boots, caps and a torch. We shivered and staggered our way up with the light of a torch. Soon we were behind a group of trekkers on their way up, and a while later another crowd with their torches flickering, followed us. It looked more like a procession of some sort. We were told that during the peak season, people could hardly find a place to stand up and watch the sunrise from the top of the hill that lay flat on top like a plateau with an area of a basketball court and at an altitude of 3,193 metres. But, the number of people was little that day though the crowd looked huge. An hour later we reached the top of the hill. Breathing seemed suffocated and the freezing breeze was piercingly harsh into the ears in that altitude. I felt nauseous with every breath. I hold on and stood trembling and waiting for the sun to rise. Some trekkers were busy positioning their zooming lens on tripod stands .. A little while later, rays of light rose up from the clouds in the horizon that left all the onlookers agape and thrilled in its celestial radiance. Murmurs of joy followed after the sun rose up in its full reddish-glow. Its rays struck on the vast range of mountains that gave us a magnificient 360 degrees view. The view stretched so long that it’d take one to turn about to see its both ends. We stood still, watching the panorama till we’d had enough of it for the last time.
Half an hour later, we were back in the guesthouse. We cleared out our bills, thanked the owner for his warm hospitality and headed down with our backpacks. The journey down to Nayapul was a steep descent. Thus, we had already decided to complete it in a day what would have taken us a couple of days if we were climbing up. We ran down the hilly trails, slid on over the sloppy paths, and tumbled on over grassy plains in the joy of having completed our trek and being back home again the next day after. We passed through streams, villages, cow herders and donkeys carrying utilities on their way up. As we descended down, the sun became warmer and forests looked greener. We stopped for lunch at Birethanti. On our way down, we found the descent harsh and boring with our full stomach. The sun shone blazingly warm and we were sweating. Nonetheless, we continued our downhill slowly until we reach Ulleri from where our journey followed one of the most tedious trails in the whole region. It was 3,000 steps of a stairway. After a few minutes’ break we started descending down the steps. Each step-down felt like a menacing thrust that struck right into our brains. The stairs seemed endless. We went on and on and finally met by a bridge over the river at the end of the stairway. I thanked God that it was over. We bathed naked in the river and continue walking again. The track then was very flat by the bank of a river. By 5 pm we were already in Nayapul haggling with a cab driver for a ride to Pokhara. That last night, we had a blast in a lakeside bar at Pokhara. We toasted to the memories we had had on the trip and drank till we puked. The next day after, I was back home with sciatica, a bacterial infection at my nasal orifice and a withered skin that changed my look so horrible that people mistook my face for an orangutan’s, for few days.
Two weeks later, I flew back to Hong Kong in the hope of a fresh start. But, the weak economic situation deterred by the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus and the U.S war against Iraq, I was to remain unemployed for one whole year in that crisis. Still unemployed.
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