Nepal, Kathmandu, Pokhara, Annapurna, Bhaktapur

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! For those of you who read this after the holidays, I hope you and yours had a great holiday season.

I returned this week from four weeks in Nepal. It was just about everything I expected and wanted. For sure, the experience I had was much different than one would have had thirty years ago when Nepal’s mystique began to rapidly develop. It’s modernizing as is every other country. Most notably, the tourist industry is well developed, and along with that comes tourist ghettos, somewhat jaded Nepalis at times, and the westernization of traditional culture. But isn’t that true everywhere? If one went there thirty years ago, likely he would say it wasn’t the same as before. Thirty years from now, people will say it isn’t the same as 2011. It’s the way of the world. The natural beauty of Nepal is it’s main attraction, and that isn’t going to change much any time soon. Besides, for many Nepalis who live out of the way, life hasn’t changed that much. The political strife has jerked many of these people into the modern world, but Nepal is a developing country where fire is still the usual way of cooking and heating, brute labor and use of animal power predominates in many areas, cultural and spiritual practice remains traditional, and so on.

My trip was not much of a cultural experience. Most of it was a 16 day trek around the Annapurna mountain range, on a 150 km trail known as the Annapurna Circuit. The first few days were in the capital, Kathmandu. Then came the trek, followed by a few days in the tourist capital and jumping off point for most treks, Pokhara. My last day was in the old city of Bahktapur. So, that is what this blog will be about.

When I first got to Kathmandu, I met up with my friends, Ale and Marcella, who you may have read about in my last two blog posts. After visiting with Myung and me in Chongqing, they went different places for a month or so, then had spent a month or so together in Nepal. Meeting up with them removed all the need for thinking on my part. They were familiar with Kathmandu, and my experience for the couple of days we were there together before they headed for Lumbini and India was going around Kathmandu with them while they took care of some stuff and met up with other people they knew. Kathmandu isn’t that interesting as a tourist destination, anyway, except that you do get an intro to Nepal where all roads lead to Kathmandu. We happened to be at a temple site near where they had to go for something, and here is a picture of us.

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Late afternoon of the second day, we met up with people they knew, a Nepali named Stamdip and a Croatian who was hanging out with Stamdip, Alex. We went to a local dive and had some local fermented grog I forgot the name of. It’s fermented millet served in a bamboo mug. You pour hot water over this and suck it up through a straw, adding water as you polish it off. I added water maybe one or two times too many. It kind of snuck up on me.

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It was nice to see Ale and Marcella again. Who knows? Maybe we’ll see each other again somewhere. I’m already thinking I might make my March visa run to Nepal again, and Alex wrote me a few days ago that she might be there again about then, And Stamdip will likely be there. So….

Like I said, Kathmandu isn’t particularly interesting from a tourist standpoint, unless you are a newbie at visiting developing countries or have a particular interest in Nepali culture. Next time, maybe I’ll learn more. The main thing you can’t miss is that the two religions are Hinduism and Buddhism, Hinduism being the more common. I’m more drawn to Buddhist stuff. Here are some pictures from a Buddhist temple in Kathmandu. It’s distinctively Nepali, while much the same as Asian Buddhist temples elsewhere…

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…including the presence of monkeys…

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…and of course the ubiquitous souvenir hunting opportunities. Here are all the little Buddha statues you could ever want.

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That’s about all I have to say about Kathmandu. The rest of my time there was spent snarfing down western food which is difficult or impossible to find in Chongqing, like decent BREAD! and getting a few things I needed to start trekking.

My trek around the Annapurna Circuit began where most trekkers begin, Besi Shahar, about five hours by van or six or seven hours by bus west of Kathmandu. Besi Shahar is little, and the end of the line for public transport drops you right in front of the trail check in. You have to get a $40 permit to go in there, and there are several checkpoints along the way. From there, it’s a one minute walk and you are on your way.

One thing I hadn’t expected was electrified villages and towns the whole way around. There is a halfway decent dirt and rock road for the first maybe 25 kilometers. Then for the next 25 or so km there is a very bad 4 wheel drive road which is almost unused. Especially for the first part, the trekking route is either on the road or near it. My first idea was to just go it alone. Then, on the second day I was still strolling along nearly flat farmland at only 800-some meters elevation when a village guy came up to me and offered to be a porter for my pack for $9/day. I wasn’t tired, especially since I had lightened what I needed to about 11 kilos, but all along I was thinking about the climb to 5416 meters (17,778 ft) ahead of me, my rather bad balance, my tendency to fall down and my weak knees. He said he had done it four times, so I decided to take him up on it. We went to his home, whereupon he introduced me to his brother, Ganesh, and asked if Ganesh could go instead, even though he had never done it. Ganesh is college educated and speaks English quite well. With that in mind, I accepted. An hour later, he had is 2-3 kilo daypack packed, kissed his new wife goodbye, and we were off again, him carrying my big pack and me carrying his little one. All on all, I’m glad I chose to do it. Ganesh is a really nice guy, was good company, and was helpful along the way, especially with communicating. He is ethnic Gurung, but the Sherpa, Tibetans and others in that region speak a common Napali.

For me, this post is getting a little wordy. Let’s go to some pictures. Here’s Ganesh. My pack looks huge, but he’s only 160 cm (5′ 3″) and the pack space is mostly taken up with a fluffy non’down sleeping bag I rented and my bulky non-down warm jacket. He got by with no sleeping bag and less clothes he washed as he went. The guesthouses all have blankets enough.

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Instead of giving all the details of all the villages and specific views and mountains, I’ll just post the photos with as much discussion as seems worthwhile or I have energy to write about, and see how it goes. Those of you who know me know it’s one take and onward, correcting only for spelling. Looking back ain’t my thing.

After a couple of days, the trail starts going up. Most people take this counter-clockwise route because it’s usually a pretty gradual ascent, rather than taking the steeper clockwise route. The well-worn trail is nearly impossible to miss, as many thousands of people have gone before on this best known of all Himalayan treks. As I said, I was surprised at the advanced state of the route and villages along the way, with proper guesthouses and electricity in anything like a significant village or town. Still, soon people and pack animals are the means of getting there and conveying goods. There are about twenty bridges like this we would cross before it was over.

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Most of the large quantities of goods are transported by mules and horses, but there are many short, one or two day hauls by people. Of course, individuals and families often carry their own stuff. this woman would consider carrying my pack to be practically a day off.

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A lot of pictures I have are just random shots of this or that thing that looked picture worthy. Here’s a typical village we must have passed early because it’s early in my list of pictures and below the tree line.

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Most villages along the trail have a gateway or arch like this.

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Here’s one of the dozens of waterfalls.

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Here’s another little one, hardly worth uploading, looking at it now. You get a little blase after a while.

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Some of the guesthouses are basic.Some are quite nice. Often they have solar hot water which is just right at about 3 PM when we usually stopped walking. Rooms cost between 60 cents and $2.50, often with attached bathrooms. That’s if you agree to eat there, too. The porters sleep and eat for free until more than halfway down the backside.

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There’s a menu for the tourists, usually having noodle dishes, rice dishes, spring rolls, yak or cow meat and other stuff for lunch or dinner. In the morning, there are usually eggs, bread or Tibetan bread, yogurt, sometimes meusli, always oatmeal, maybe potatoes and various cold weather, high altitude veggies. The mainstay in all of Nepal is dhal bhat, which is much like Indian thali. That’s a platter with a heaping pile of rice, with veggies, or meat if you want, plopped around it, and of course dhal, a thin lentil based soup. Nepali’s never tire of it. Ganesh ate it even when he had a choice, which he often didn’t if he was to eat for free. I thought he’d want something else, but he was happy with that twice a day.

As you get higher up, the peaks start appearing, mostly as you look up ahead above the river valley you are more or less following. I remember this was one of the first views.

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That was looking back. It gets better.

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Here are, I believe, the gateway to Lower Pisang.

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From Lower Pisang is the first hard set of switchbacks going up about 300-some meters to Upper Pisang. You can follow the river, but this way is much more scenic. This is where Ganesh started to really earn his pay. I remember how bad the food was at this Sherpa restaurant we arrived at. A two day old brick of cold rice and potato dhal. The veg curry was alright.

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But the view was good.

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I wouldn’t want to be in one of these buildings in an earthquake.

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Here are a couple of other scenes around town.

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I guess I got a little trigger happy with my camera there because it was starting to get interesting.
Anyway, we left out of there after going up to a monastery (this white building)…

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…heading toward the district “capital”, Manang. It leveled out again and we met up with the river again.

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Manang is at 3550 meters, so both of us were getting a little winded. Everyone recommends you take a day off at this point, not only to rest up for the nearly two FULL day 2000 meter push through the pass, but to minimize the risk of elevation sickness. Ganesh was knackered totally, though he wasn’t the only one. These tea stalls pop up just about when you need one.

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The next two days was going to be long and hard, so we basically chilled out at the most popular guesthouse, the Bob Marley Guesthouse, actually the only happening guesthouse in Manang in December after most of the tourists have left Nepal for warmer climate. You can guess what the favorite way to chill out there was. Like India, if they care about dope smoking in Nepal, you wouldn’t know it, at least where westerners go. On our day off, we went up the side of the mountain a bit for a look around. That little glacier used to come all the way down. It’s disappearing, like most of the others in the world. It’s quite dry up there now during the dry season, but people say it’s even drier than normal this year. In Kathmandu, all the power is all hydro and with the rivers running so low, there is electricity only about 50% of the time.

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Ganesh just wasn’t going to make it all the way with my pack, so I hired another porter to the top. When we met him in the morning, he had a pony. Now, that’s the way to do it. He said we could ride the pony if we got too tired, but both of us would have none of THAT. We have our pride.

The first night, we stayed at low camp, Throng Phedi, at 4450 meters. There was a comfortable guesthouse open there. Here is my room.

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In the morning at 5, we started up, the trail illuminated by our reading (mostly) head lamps. The worst part was up the switchbacks right out of bed. The good news was that by about 7-something the steepest part was done. From there is was a steady climb over the top. The view wasn’t particularly spectacular. I didn’t take any pictures. The other factor was it was so cold. It’s hard to say what the temperature was, maybe 5 or 7 C. (40 or so F.) but the wind was blowing at least 50 kpm. We were basically making for the tea shop at the top. After warming up in there, we went out for the obligatory photo shoot. Here we are, engulfed in prayer flags in front of a sign in English which says something to effect of congratulations for reaching the top and enjoy the walk down.

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Already leg weary, my knees didn’t like the rapid 1600 meter descent too the first village on the back side. Thankfully, not too much of it was scree.

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Finally, we got to Muktinath. It’s famous for it’s monasteries and a nunnery.

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A few trekkers turn north into the deep Himalaya, but the $500 permit keeps that number to a minimum. We headed on south and, as they say, it was all downhill from there. There was only one climb of about 200 meters. There were several cute towns, these all linked by a passable dirt and rock road, with public transportation if you choose. Here’s a town photo. There are lots of these kinds of places.

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One last mountain peak photo. This is Dhaulagiri, to the west. At 8167 meters high, it is the seventh highest peak in the world. To the east, maybe 20 Km away is Annapurna 1, also over 8000 meters. (Everest is about about over 300 km east of there.) You look up at these, even from the higher parts of the trail, and you think it’s not so far away or so high. Obviously, looks are deceiving. Daulagiri wasn’t climbed until 1960.

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From there it was about a two day stroll down to Tatopani, which means “hot springs”. Going in the springs was a nice end to the trek. When I went down, I didn’t bring my camera, so no pics. It didn’t look like much, but it was just right. There were showers with the hot spring water and two cement pools about five meters across, one warm and the other hot. There was a little restaurant. Very nice. It cost 60 cents to enter.

Many trekkers continue on to the last leg of the Annapurna Circuit, to at place with a good overall view of the whole Annapurna Range called Poon Hill. I had to choose whether to do that and have a day or two in Pokhara, or go to Pokhara for a few days, as many suggested would be fun. I chose the fun in Pokhara, so we took the bus there from Tatopani.

In Pokhara, Ganesh did some shopping, went out for a steak with me, then went home the next morning. He’s a good guy. I wouldn’t mind hooking up with him again if I go back. There is no computer near his home. Emailing would be nice.

There are many short and few day walks around Pokhara, but I was finished. I could have gone to a few places with views, but it was socked in with fog and clouds the whole time I was there. It’s not particularly picturesque itself. No pics. Basically, I ate great food like there was no tomorrow. Steaks, Mexocan food, gourmet pizzas, the works. Finally I returned to Kathmandu.

I had one whole day to kill before returning to Chongqing, so I went to the old city of Bahktapur. It has a long history you can google if you want. It’s very photogenic and well preserved, maybe in part helped by the $15 admission. yow. Here are the pictures.

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That’s it. I came home and I’m living the domesticated life again. This Nepal trip was a satisfying break, and now I’m happy to be back. Christmas isn’t much in China, but again I hope you all are having or had a wonderful holiday, and be well, all of you.

By the way, I shaved off my cold weather face blanket when I got home.

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