The overnight bus from Siliguri left spot on time, and turned out to be a very comfy bus, with loads of legroom and a seat that reclined way back. It meant I slept really well for most of the journey, and in fact it meant I slept all the way through a major cyclone!
The cyclone (Alia) swept up through Bengal, right along the route of our bus, and actually initiated a very early monsoon (12 days earlier that expected). The monsoon resulted in major landslides and flooding, and at least 60 people were killed, many of them in the region of Darjeeling. We saw on the TV, and read in the local papers, over the following couple of days that hundreds of tourists had been stranded in Darjeeling, as the access roads had been cut-off. It turned out we got out just in time - literally.
Although we didn't escape completely unscathed. At about 6am, when we were due to arrive in Kolkata, our bus suddenly stopped in blocked traffic. After about half-an-hour our driver realised that traffic wasn't going to get moving any time soon, and so turned the bus around, and dropped us all off at a very nearby train station (Krishnanagar). We'd gotten a cheaper bus, less than half the price of the luxury bus, and as we turned around, we passed that 'luxury' bus stranded in traffic.
Very luckily for us, Krishnanagar turned out to be a major train hub, and within 5 minutes of getting tickets (after queuing up in the huge, but quickly moving line), our train pulled out of the station and heading off toward Kolkata. We got seats straight away (as Krishnanagar was the starting point for the train), but of course it was completely packed well before the nearly 3 hour journey to Kolkata. Along the way we saw hundreds of uprooted palm trees and lots of general damage caused by the cyclone - it was just so weird that I'd slept all the way thought it (a French guy beside me on the train couldn't believe I hadn't noticed the bus being buffeted about!).
So it meant we arrived about 4 hours late, but I didn't mind that in the slightest - I realised we had been blessed to get out of Siliguri at all, and to be arriving at Kolkata at all. Kolkata had also been hit badly by the cyclone - I saw lots of uprooted trees, and apparently people were protesting about power cuts and stuff (I read that loads of ATM's where out of action too, but the first one I went to worked fine - luckily, as I really needed to get money to pay for our accommodation).
At Kolkata's Sealdah train station I decided to try and walk to the tourist area of Sutter Street, where we'd stayed before, and although I thought I'd screwed it up a couple of times, we eventually arrived at our destination of one of the best little local restaurants in all of 3 months in India (can't remember the name, but just down from Sutter Street towards Park Street).
That evening we went back to the restaurant Peter Cat for dinner. I'd seen Fried Chicken Liver on menus a few times, and had been keen to try it (Sarah hates liver, and as we always share it's awkward for me to order it). Anyway, seeing as how we were early to the restaurant and this was one of our last meals in India, I ordered the liver as a starter, and my god it was amazing! I reckon it was one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted. It came with a really tasty sauce, and was perfect with the slightly pickled red onions you always get in Bengali restaurants. It was a big serving though, so I asked if I could just eat half and take the rest away, but I just couldn't stop nibbling away at it, and so finished the lot. It had an amazing texture, like the best foie gras I've ever had, and was just so melty. Sarah tasted a tiny piece, but I swear she went 'Yuk!' before it even went into her mouth.
So given all the cyclone problems in Kolkata, I decided to play it safe the next day and make sure we could get to the airport in plenty of time for our 9:25am flight to Bangkok the following day. So it was back to our usual Kolkata breakfast spot for more of the delicious local fish dish (white fish fillet coated in tangy sauce and cooked in a banana leaf), before using the internet for a bit. Then it was on the metro to a famous restaurant called Kewpies for lunch.
Kewpies is a lovely fancy restaurant, and the food was great (Sarah getting a thali and me picking-and-mixing), although quite overpriced really (Peter Cat was a fancier place and much cheaper). Then after a relaxing coffee it was back to collect our rucksacks and head out towards the airport. This involved the metro, and then a local bus, which got well and truly snarled up in rush-hour traffic. We were in no rush though, and once out by the airport Sarah found a decent place to spend the night. After a light dinner I strolled over to the airport, just to see how far it was (it was only a 10 minute walk), and to see if I could re-confirm our flight. After a bit of mad running around I couldn't get any confirmation at all, and so rushed back to the hotel area to find an internet place to print off my online flight confirmation (online bookings usually just need a reference number, but Air India Express didn't give me one, so I was a bit worried).
Anyway, all was well the next morning, and we checked in no problem. The flight left Kolkata early, arrived in Bangkok early and we even got feed onboard. So we were back in Bangkok for a couple of days and needed to work out where to go next...
Friday, May 29, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Darjeeling
Oh boys, is Darjeeling a confusing wee town to arrive in, especially in the dark! Although we had two guidebooks, both with maps of the town, the fact that it's built sprawling over the ridge of a steep-sided mountain, and is made up of winding narrow streets and laneways made it a very tough job to find your bearings. It was poor Sarah's turn to do the route-finding to the guesthouses, and it took about an hour to find the first of those places.
But once we had our bearings, and Sarah raced around checking out the options we settled on a nice quiet place. It's high-season here at the moment, mainly due I think to the fierce heat down on the Indian plains - so there are far more Indian tourists than Western. It turned out that quite a few of the guesthouses were full, so I think we were kinda lucky to get the place we did (it isn't mentioned in the guidebooks). But it turned out to be quite damp, so we moved down the road to a much cheaper and drier place after just 2 nights.
One of the highlights of the Darjeeling area is trekking in the mountains, but after checking it out it turns out that guides are mandatory. I really hate the idea of having a guide for 5 or 6 days, and so decided to leave the trekking this time - also the weather forecast (such as you can forecast in the mountains), didn't bode well, and in fact it's turned out to be raining every day we were there, sometimes just briefly, at other times in prolonged bursts. So I reckon hiking with our lack of proper rain gear would have been pretty miserable.
Our first full day we spent getting the lie of the land, and checked out all the Top-End hotels. Obviously in such a famous tea place, all the top hotels do fancy High Teas, so I was hunting around to see which place looked the best. By far the best of the hotels, I thought, was the Elgin. It was modern and spotless and had a nice relaxed atmosphere, and so it won the day (the Windamere was nice, but just too old-fashioned, and not in a nice olde-world way either, more in a damp, musty, 1940's kind of way). Of course, the High Tea itself was quite a disappointment in the Elgin - it was just very plain sandwiches, a load of tinned biscuits and some tasty pakoras, and it cost a relative arm and a leg (we should have just ordered one between us - d'oh!), but at least the surroundings were lovely and relaxing and it was a nice place to read the local papers (so I came back a few days later to do just that again, but without the high tea).
The next day I went strolling about the town while Sarah lingered on the Internet. I visited the fairly impressive zoo, where they are successfully breeding snow leopards, red pandas and Tibetan wolves - all of which I saw close up and running about, and all of which were fabulous looking critters. Attached to the zoo is the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, which was worth a look, but at this stage I've read and seen so much about Everest it's getting a bit jaded.
Another of the 'things-to-do', is to ride the famous Toy Train that was the original means of getting to Darjeeling. This is a narrow gauge railway (the tracks are just 2 feet wide), and they still run steam powered locomotives along the route for tourists. We waited a few days before trying to book the train, in the vain hope that the cloudy and rainy weather might clear up a bit. But after 4 days we needed to try and book a train from Darjeeling to Kolkata to catch our flight to Bangkok on the 28th, so I planned on doing all the train bookings in one go. But when we arrived at the train station, the booking office was closed for the day, and so we had to come back the following morning.
Next morning at 8am there were large queues at the 3 ticket desks. As I said this is high-season, and so the Indian trains are always mad crowded. It turned out that there were no seats on any trains to Kolkata for the following 4 days, leaving us with the bus as the only option. We have to get back to Siliguri to sort that out, so fingers crossed we won't have any problems there. But at least we managed to book seats on the Toy Train for the following morning.
The next morning we woke to the best weather we'd yet had in Darjeeling, and so we were both looking forward to the train ride. We got to the station at 10:40 and took a few photos of the tiny (hence Toy) Train plodding along and connecting with the 3 small passenger carriages. So after the engineers spent about 5 minutes filling the water tank, and pouring oil all over the pistons and main workings, we set off. The going was pretty slow I have to say, but it really was quite a novelty to riding along been pulled by a steam engine. It really had to labour up the slopes, and the chugging was quite cute. But the poor old engine (literally 109 years old apparently), just wasn't cut out for it that day. About half-way to Ghoom we stopped for about half-an-hour for some repairs, then continued for a bit before attempting a steep section of track 3 times before the engineers called it a day and sent us back to Darjeeling in a passing jeep. At least we got a full refund back at the station with no fuss at all, so we ended up having 1.5 hours of steam-train travel for free - nice!
Darjeeling is also blessed with some mighty fine restaurants, although I think you can say that about just about any town in India. But I was particularly delighted to find that the nicest and most atmospheric of these places was also really, really cheap (it's rightly mentioned as the 'Best Pick' in the Lonely Planet). Obviously, given the history of this trip so far, I have no problem paying out a lot of money for good food in a nice restaurant with great views, but when you get all that and for pennies, it really is a joy to just sit back and relax. So needless to say, given the weather and everything, I've been pretty much camped in Glenary's since we arrived! In fairness though, the town has another cheap top spot, The Park, but I think I still prefer the atmosphere at Glenary's.
All-in-all we spent a full week in Darjeeling. It rained every day I think, although mostly intermittently, and I only got fleeting views of the distant mountains, usually in the later afternoons. But it was a lovely spot all the same, and the weather, apart from the rain, was very pleasant and cool. The morning we left it was raining hard though, as apparently the monsoon rains have arrived in India 10 days early, and so after a nice pongol breakfast at the Frank Ross cafe, we hopped in a jeep to take us to Siliguri to connect with a bus for Kolkata. Due to the trains being chock-a-block I was a bit worried about getting a bus on spec, but of course the first bus company I tried had seats for that evening.
So we left our rucksacks in the bus office and headed across the road for a fantastic lunch in the well-known local restaurant Khana Khazana. After our huge lunch there we just killed time on the Internet avoiding the rain and waiting for the 5:30 overnight bus back to where it all started in India nearly 4 months ago, Kolkata.
All-in-all we spent a full week in Darjeeling. It rained every day I think, although mostly intermittently, and I only got fleeting views of the distant mountains, usually in the later afternoons. But it was a lovely spot all the same, and the weather, apart from the rain, was very pleasant and cool. The morning we left it was raining hard though, as apparently the monsoon rains have arrived in India 10 days early, and so after a nice pongol breakfast at the Frank Ross cafe, we hopped in a jeep to take us to Siliguri to connect with a bus for Kolkata. Due to the trains being chock-a-block I was a bit worried about getting a bus on spec, but of course the first bus company I tried had seats for that evening.
So we left our rucksacks in the bus office and headed across the road for a fantastic lunch in the well-known local restaurant Khana Khazana. After our huge lunch there we just killed time on the Internet avoiding the rain and waiting for the 5:30 overnight bus back to where it all started in India nearly 4 months ago, Kolkata.
Getting to Darjeeling
So our bus from Janakpur arrived at the border on time, and we completed the effortless formalities very quickly (no queues at all). The next problem became how to move on to our next destination - Darjeeling. I had thought we could get a shared jeep from the border direct to Darjeeling, but everyone was telling me we had to go to Siliguri first.
Of course, you can never, ever trust the information taxi or bus-drivers give you, but after checking around a bit (and changing the last of my Nepali money into Indian), I decided to hop into a nearly full jeep that was clearly leaving for Siliguri immediately. I think you do have to get to Siliguri first, and our jeep, although crowded, was quick and not too uncomfortable.
At Siliguri I started asking around for another shared jeep to take us to Darjeeling, and initially it seemed that it was too late in the day (being about 4pm). I checked across the road at the local bus terminal, but it was definitely was too late for a bus, so I checked around a bit more, and I found a couple of jeeps advertising Darjeeling. So after the usual nonsense over the price, I went back to get Sarah (who was looking after the bags), and we hopped into another jeep for the trip up to Darjeeling.
Again this jeep was quick and fairly comfy, although unfortunately the weather quickly turned very cloudy as we climbed the mountain roads, and so any views were obscured. It was just before dark when we arrived at the famous hill station town of Darjeeling.
Of course, you can never, ever trust the information taxi or bus-drivers give you, but after checking around a bit (and changing the last of my Nepali money into Indian), I decided to hop into a nearly full jeep that was clearly leaving for Siliguri immediately. I think you do have to get to Siliguri first, and our jeep, although crowded, was quick and not too uncomfortable.
At Siliguri I started asking around for another shared jeep to take us to Darjeeling, and initially it seemed that it was too late in the day (being about 4pm). I checked across the road at the local bus terminal, but it was definitely was too late for a bus, so I checked around a bit more, and I found a couple of jeeps advertising Darjeeling. So after the usual nonsense over the price, I went back to get Sarah (who was looking after the bags), and we hopped into another jeep for the trip up to Darjeeling.
Again this jeep was quick and fairly comfy, although unfortunately the weather quickly turned very cloudy as we climbed the mountain roads, and so any views were obscured. It was just before dark when we arrived at the famous hill station town of Darjeeling.
Janakpur
The bus to Janakpur was scheduled to leave at 6pm, so after strolling round Kathmandu for the day we decided to head to the local bus station early, as having been there a few days before we knew there was a good internet place nearby. After the usual haggling with the taxi driver we got dropped off near the station, but the internet place had no power.
Throughout our 6 weeks in Nepal power cuts have been extremely frequent. In fact, in Kathmandu load-shedding was in operation for 16 hours every day! Apparently this was due to a lack of rain water over the previous months, and since so much of Nepal's power comes from hydro stations, they have been severely affected. It's interesting that life and business seem to continue fairly normally though - many places have generators, and those that don't just use candles, and the restaurants all use gas of course.
So we had a couple of hours to wait around, but at least the bus left on time. It was quite a comfy bus too, and I would have had a decent enough sleep if it hadn't been for the kid behind me. She was on her mother's lap, and so every time the kid turned over or moved about she'd kick the back of my seat. I guess this is perfectly acceptable behaviour for Nepali's though, as no amount of complaining on my part made any difference.
The bus also arrived in Janakpur pretty much on time, so after a very confusing walk into the town Sarah sorted out the accommodation. The guidebooks had alluded to the fact that this town caters mainly to Indian pilgrims, and not Western travellers. This became very quickly apparent when Sarah checked out the recommended guesthouses, as all of them were pretty grim and all of them expensive. Anyway, the place we stayed was actually pretty nice (and the owner guy claimed he was giving us a room upgrade at no extra charge, which I think was true).
So, as usual after an overnight bus journey, we slept for a couple of hours before checking out the town. The main temple complex was pretty cool alright, and very busy later that evening, with loads of Indian pilgrims milling about and the ladies all wearing mad colourful saris. We also strolled up to the Big Monkey Temple, which houses (imprisons really) a poor overfed monkey, and checked out a couple of the towns many water tanks (sacred washing places).
We ate in the excellent air-conditioned Family Restaurant for lunch and later, while Sarah rested back in the room, I returned for tasty snacks, a couple of beers, and one of my favorite things to do on the whole trip - poring over the guidebook deciding where and how to get to our next destination.
I decided to head towards India early the next morning, and so after haggling with a cycle-rickshaw guy he drops us off on the main road (I had asked for the bus park, but it turned out that the buses did stop at this point too - I was just worried about getting a seat, but it was fine). And so we headed to the border, and again after zero border queues or troubles, we were back in fabulous India.
Throughout our 6 weeks in Nepal power cuts have been extremely frequent. In fact, in Kathmandu load-shedding was in operation for 16 hours every day! Apparently this was due to a lack of rain water over the previous months, and since so much of Nepal's power comes from hydro stations, they have been severely affected. It's interesting that life and business seem to continue fairly normally though - many places have generators, and those that don't just use candles, and the restaurants all use gas of course.
So we had a couple of hours to wait around, but at least the bus left on time. It was quite a comfy bus too, and I would have had a decent enough sleep if it hadn't been for the kid behind me. She was on her mother's lap, and so every time the kid turned over or moved about she'd kick the back of my seat. I guess this is perfectly acceptable behaviour for Nepali's though, as no amount of complaining on my part made any difference.
The bus also arrived in Janakpur pretty much on time, so after a very confusing walk into the town Sarah sorted out the accommodation. The guidebooks had alluded to the fact that this town caters mainly to Indian pilgrims, and not Western travellers. This became very quickly apparent when Sarah checked out the recommended guesthouses, as all of them were pretty grim and all of them expensive. Anyway, the place we stayed was actually pretty nice (and the owner guy claimed he was giving us a room upgrade at no extra charge, which I think was true).
So, as usual after an overnight bus journey, we slept for a couple of hours before checking out the town. The main temple complex was pretty cool alright, and very busy later that evening, with loads of Indian pilgrims milling about and the ladies all wearing mad colourful saris. We also strolled up to the Big Monkey Temple, which houses (imprisons really) a poor overfed monkey, and checked out a couple of the towns many water tanks (sacred washing places).
We ate in the excellent air-conditioned Family Restaurant for lunch and later, while Sarah rested back in the room, I returned for tasty snacks, a couple of beers, and one of my favorite things to do on the whole trip - poring over the guidebook deciding where and how to get to our next destination.
I decided to head towards India early the next morning, and so after haggling with a cycle-rickshaw guy he drops us off on the main road (I had asked for the bus park, but it turned out that the buses did stop at this point too - I was just worried about getting a seat, but it was fine). And so we headed to the border, and again after zero border queues or troubles, we were back in fabulous India.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Kathmandu
The plan for this, my second visit to Kathmandu was to explore the town a bit more than I did 10 years ago (last time we didn't have a Nepal guidebook, just one focused on trekking).
I also really liked the idea of cycling to Daman, which is supposed to have one of the very best viewpoints in all of Nepal. But it's also supposed to be one of the toughest, most gruelling bike rides in the country, and obviously being Nepal, that's saying something. I really fancied the challenge, although of course Sarah was nervous about it. I thought we could just give it a go, and if it turned out to be too much we could just turn back or stay in the nearest guesthouse. I really thought Sarah'd be able for it, as she's been really strong on the hikes, and we've cycled some tough roads on this trip already (riding up mountains is far more mental than physical anyway - it's really all about finding a steady rhythm, and simple self-belief of course).
Anyway, I finally decided against it, as Sarah was too worried and it would have been pretty hard on an unfamiliar bike. Still, if she had done it she would have been really impressed by what she's capable of, but it'll just have to wait until next time (I reckon when I come here again I'll hire a decent bike for a week, get used to it by riding around the Kathmandu valley first, and then tackle Daman once I've 'broken-in' the bike).
So instead we walked the 3 walking tours in our guidebook, which was a lovely way to spend the day. We also popped into the Snowman Cafe, a place famous for it's cakes. I went here 10 years ago too, but don't remember being overly impressed with it. It's just a simply little cafe, but I thought I'd give it another go. This time I was completely blown away by their chocolate cake - definitely the best cake since Brazil, and we went back there 3 more times for more of the same.
We only hired a bike for 1 day to ride to Patan, which is just a few kilometres from Thamel, where we were staying. It was a great day, and having the bikes gave us the freedom to check out buses to our next destination, and head back to a cheap internet place we'd found a couple of days before. Patan was very impressive I must say, and the museum there was interesting (although I certainly wouldn't class it as one of the best on the entire sub-continent like the Lonely Planet claims).
Another place I really wanted to go back to was a fantastic Indian restaurant attached to one of Kathmandu's fancy hotels - Ghar-e-kabab (which sounds like a really bad name for a Bollywood actor), which is in the L'Annapurna Hotel. I'd gone here loads of times with Hanno and Ray last time, and was keen to try it again. When I checked it out, it turned out the whole hotel has been remodelled, and the restaurant has moved buildings. But it was a really fantastic meal, one of the highlights of the trip, even better than I remember from years ago. I think we were lucky to have a good number of other people in the restaurant, which gave the place a nice ambiance, and they had really great unintrusive live music from a 4-piece traditional Indian band.
After such a great meal at Ghar-e-kabab, I decided to really treat ourselves with dinner at Nepal's best restaurant, the Chimney in the famous Yak and Yeti Hotel. The menu here was continental, with lobster and Chateaubriand steak being the obvious choices for me. This time however, it turned out to be probably the biggest disappointment of the whole trip. The restaurant was almost completely empty, and the food was terribly bland - the lobster was tough, and the steak quite tasteless (we ordered a bottle of French Merlot though, and that was the best part of the whole meal). It all cost literally 3 times what the fabulous Ghar-e-kabab cost (6000 rupee as opposed to 2000), but what made the whole thing really disappointing was that I woke up at 3am that morning feeling decidedly ill. 10 minutes later I was throwing the whole lot up into the toilet. Incredible to think that the only 2 times on this trip that I've had any kind of illness at all have both been caused by fancy-dancy restaurants.
Anyway, again I was really lucky, as after throwing up I felt much better, and the next day I felt OK, but just a little 'stomachey'. We decided to stay an extra day in Kathmandu so I could rest and recover (we had booked a bus to Janakpur for 6pm that evening), and by the next morning I was feeling 100% again.
So with another full day in Kathmandu, we got up early, strolled down to Durbar Square (and the Snowman again for one last chocolate cake), used the internet and then just strolled around the lovely old town.
It's been nice to re-visit Kathmandu again. It actually seems less polluted than last time, and the traffic seems less chaotic (although maybe I'm just more de-sensitised to crazy traffic these days). The shop sellers also seems less 'hassley' than I remember, something I noticed in Pokara too. And thankfully the Ghar-e-kabab restaurant is still a knock-out.
So now we head back towards India, breaking up the journey by stopping off in the pilgrimage town of Janakpur, an 11-hour overnight bus journey.
I also really liked the idea of cycling to Daman, which is supposed to have one of the very best viewpoints in all of Nepal. But it's also supposed to be one of the toughest, most gruelling bike rides in the country, and obviously being Nepal, that's saying something. I really fancied the challenge, although of course Sarah was nervous about it. I thought we could just give it a go, and if it turned out to be too much we could just turn back or stay in the nearest guesthouse. I really thought Sarah'd be able for it, as she's been really strong on the hikes, and we've cycled some tough roads on this trip already (riding up mountains is far more mental than physical anyway - it's really all about finding a steady rhythm, and simple self-belief of course).
Anyway, I finally decided against it, as Sarah was too worried and it would have been pretty hard on an unfamiliar bike. Still, if she had done it she would have been really impressed by what she's capable of, but it'll just have to wait until next time (I reckon when I come here again I'll hire a decent bike for a week, get used to it by riding around the Kathmandu valley first, and then tackle Daman once I've 'broken-in' the bike).
So instead we walked the 3 walking tours in our guidebook, which was a lovely way to spend the day. We also popped into the Snowman Cafe, a place famous for it's cakes. I went here 10 years ago too, but don't remember being overly impressed with it. It's just a simply little cafe, but I thought I'd give it another go. This time I was completely blown away by their chocolate cake - definitely the best cake since Brazil, and we went back there 3 more times for more of the same.
We only hired a bike for 1 day to ride to Patan, which is just a few kilometres from Thamel, where we were staying. It was a great day, and having the bikes gave us the freedom to check out buses to our next destination, and head back to a cheap internet place we'd found a couple of days before. Patan was very impressive I must say, and the museum there was interesting (although I certainly wouldn't class it as one of the best on the entire sub-continent like the Lonely Planet claims).
Another place I really wanted to go back to was a fantastic Indian restaurant attached to one of Kathmandu's fancy hotels - Ghar-e-kabab (which sounds like a really bad name for a Bollywood actor), which is in the L'Annapurna Hotel. I'd gone here loads of times with Hanno and Ray last time, and was keen to try it again. When I checked it out, it turned out the whole hotel has been remodelled, and the restaurant has moved buildings. But it was a really fantastic meal, one of the highlights of the trip, even better than I remember from years ago. I think we were lucky to have a good number of other people in the restaurant, which gave the place a nice ambiance, and they had really great unintrusive live music from a 4-piece traditional Indian band.
After such a great meal at Ghar-e-kabab, I decided to really treat ourselves with dinner at Nepal's best restaurant, the Chimney in the famous Yak and Yeti Hotel. The menu here was continental, with lobster and Chateaubriand steak being the obvious choices for me. This time however, it turned out to be probably the biggest disappointment of the whole trip. The restaurant was almost completely empty, and the food was terribly bland - the lobster was tough, and the steak quite tasteless (we ordered a bottle of French Merlot though, and that was the best part of the whole meal). It all cost literally 3 times what the fabulous Ghar-e-kabab cost (6000 rupee as opposed to 2000), but what made the whole thing really disappointing was that I woke up at 3am that morning feeling decidedly ill. 10 minutes later I was throwing the whole lot up into the toilet. Incredible to think that the only 2 times on this trip that I've had any kind of illness at all have both been caused by fancy-dancy restaurants.
Anyway, again I was really lucky, as after throwing up I felt much better, and the next day I felt OK, but just a little 'stomachey'. We decided to stay an extra day in Kathmandu so I could rest and recover (we had booked a bus to Janakpur for 6pm that evening), and by the next morning I was feeling 100% again.
So with another full day in Kathmandu, we got up early, strolled down to Durbar Square (and the Snowman again for one last chocolate cake), used the internet and then just strolled around the lovely old town.
It's been nice to re-visit Kathmandu again. It actually seems less polluted than last time, and the traffic seems less chaotic (although maybe I'm just more de-sensitised to crazy traffic these days). The shop sellers also seems less 'hassley' than I remember, something I noticed in Pokara too. And thankfully the Ghar-e-kabab restaurant is still a knock-out.
So now we head back towards India, breaking up the journey by stopping off in the pilgrimage town of Janakpur, an 11-hour overnight bus journey.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Last days in Pokara
So the following 3 days where spent in Pokara literally just sat in front of a computer using the Internet. Basically I was telling all the folks back home, and mates around the world, about the engagement, and to look into what the hell we're going to do with the remaining few weeks or months of this trip (i.e. what flights/trains/buses to get to where, for how much, and when). Luckily we'd found a really cheap Internet place when we were cycling around town sorting out permits and visas before we went off hiking (30 rupees an hour as opposed to 100 rupees in the tourist Lakeside area - they have a price-fixing thing going on there too, and they are obviously ripping off all the clueless tourists).
On our last full day in Pokara I wanted to get away from the Internet so we decided to hike out to see a local waterfall (but I took a wrong turn and so we missed it), and also to hike up to the World Peace Pagoda that is situated on a hillside overlooking the town. This was quite a hike really as we went around the long way, but the views of the town were great. By the time we reached the top the distant Annapurna mountains were well and truly hazed-over, but over the past few days we'd gotten various glimpses of them, and obviously we'd been well and truly in amongst them while hiking the big treks.
We'd also found a great local restaurant while cycling around the town - it was up a small side street and served up fantastic Tibetean food like momos and thenthuk. It was also the cheapest beer in town by far, so I did the budget many favors by dining there regularly. The owners were really friendly too of course and always greeted us with big smiles - it's uncanny just how often these tiny little no-name hole-in-the-wall places turn out to be real gems.
So the next morning we strolled to the nearby tourist bus park (the local bus park was too far away), and haggled a price for the bus to Kathmandu. Thankfully the tourist bus really was direct and didn't stop every 100 meters to pick up locals, so it was a really quick, easy and sight-filled 6 hours to Kathmandu.
Being a tourist bus it drops everyone off near the tourist enclave of Thamel, and although I didn't recognise were I was, after asking the bus guy for general directions and then just following a loose sense of direction we strolled into the very familiar surrounds of downtown Thamel. Outside the landmark Kathmandu Guesthouse we bumped into a Dutch girl we'd met trekking and she recommended a nearby place to stay. It turned out the Holy Lodge was a lovely wee place, very central and quite, and so we settled in there straight away.
On our last full day in Pokara I wanted to get away from the Internet so we decided to hike out to see a local waterfall (but I took a wrong turn and so we missed it), and also to hike up to the World Peace Pagoda that is situated on a hillside overlooking the town. This was quite a hike really as we went around the long way, but the views of the town were great. By the time we reached the top the distant Annapurna mountains were well and truly hazed-over, but over the past few days we'd gotten various glimpses of them, and obviously we'd been well and truly in amongst them while hiking the big treks.
We'd also found a great local restaurant while cycling around the town - it was up a small side street and served up fantastic Tibetean food like momos and thenthuk. It was also the cheapest beer in town by far, so I did the budget many favors by dining there regularly. The owners were really friendly too of course and always greeted us with big smiles - it's uncanny just how often these tiny little no-name hole-in-the-wall places turn out to be real gems.
So the next morning we strolled to the nearby tourist bus park (the local bus park was too far away), and haggled a price for the bus to Kathmandu. Thankfully the tourist bus really was direct and didn't stop every 100 meters to pick up locals, so it was a really quick, easy and sight-filled 6 hours to Kathmandu.
Being a tourist bus it drops everyone off near the tourist enclave of Thamel, and although I didn't recognise were I was, after asking the bus guy for general directions and then just following a loose sense of direction we strolled into the very familiar surrounds of downtown Thamel. Outside the landmark Kathmandu Guesthouse we bumped into a Dutch girl we'd met trekking and she recommended a nearby place to stay. It turned out the Holy Lodge was a lovely wee place, very central and quite, and so we settled in there straight away.
Impressions of hiking in Nepal again
Hopefully Sarah will get around to updating her blog from the daily notes she took as we bopped around the Himalaya, so I just thought I'd give general impressions of the 23 days we just spent in the mountains.
As I already mentioned, the main difference on the Circuit trek is the new road, which is a big pity from a hikers point of view. I certainly wouldn't hike the whole route again (why would you hike along a busy road?), although currently the route from Khula and up over the pass is still worth it for the Upper Pisang road and the physical challenge of the 5410m pass itself - but then I hear the plan is to continue building that road right over the pass itself, so in the future it will be bus loads of fat American tourists having hot lemon tea in the tiny hut at the pass.
Another big change was the constant price fixing amongst the various guesthouses in all the villages along the treks. As was the case 10 years ago, the price of everything increases the further you move away from the access roads, but as I remember those increases were gradual and started at reasonable local prices. Nowadays though, the increases are rapid and start at inflated tourist prices. The prices have apparently being agreed by village committees, and all the lodges in a village have identical menus and room prices. This all came as a bit of a shock and a disappointment, and as another trekker pointed out, it made you feel a bit 'managed' all along the trek (like we were part of an organised tour group or something).
But it's kinda low-season at the moment, or towards the end of the season anyway, so in fact many of the lodges were prepared to offer big discounts, or even free rooms, so long as we ate in their restaurants (the first time we got a room discount the landlady didn't explain we needed to eat there too, and she got quite angry with Sarah when we came back from another restaurant - Sarah got a wee bit upset about it, but I just told her to ignore it - the whole system seems cheeky to me anyway, as clearly not all the lodges are the same although they all charge the same prices).
Anyway, over the 3 weeks we managed to haggle down the prices nearly everywhere, which resulted in about a 20% reduction on costs in general. Although the price-fixing is annoying, the prices were still cheap-as-chips in relative terms, and so I reckon the month we spent in Nepal is probably the cheapest month of the whole trip so far (but then so it should be I suppose, as we were trekking without porters or guides, and walking is free!).
In terms of the weather, the first 2 days or so were quite cloudy, but we found that the cloud built up gradually during the morning, so we just started getting up really early in the morning when the skies were at their clearest. Also, as we gained altitude the skies seemed to get clearer and clearer (this time of year is famous for hazy, dusty skies), and from day 3 onwards the weather was just perfect.
The day we arrived at Pisang we had skies as blue as the bluest skies in Bolivia, which really surprised and delighted me. It meant perfect skies for proposing to Sarah the next day, and the weather stayed clear right up until we reached the Thorang La pass.
I remember the day of climbing the pass 10 years ago as being a really tough day. But that time, myself and Hanno were a bit clueless and got out of bed to leave the camp at about 10:00am. Many people, especially those with hired guides, start to tackle the climb over the pass from 3am! This is crazy of course, but last time I felt I had to race over the pass to make sure I got accommodation on the far side (that time was high-season), and so I spent the whole day passing out other people. I did manage to find accommodation, although not in the first town of Muktinath, which was full.
Anyway, this time I knew the score, so myself and Sarah headed off leisurely at about 8:30am, and we were still the last people to leave the camp (we overheard lots of other people worrying about the conditions and the altitude and just general paranoia, which is why they all started off so early). The weather approaching the pass was very cloudy and it had been snowing the night before, but that just made for gorgeous snowy surroundings, which was nice, and the trail was still fine without any ice or dangerous sections.
When I reached the pass (about 20 minutes before Sarah, as I was getting cold waiting for her to catch up at various points as we climbed up), the weather was clearing nicely and after a nice (and expensive!), cup of hot lemon tea we headed down the far side of the pass in beautiful sunshine.
The weather stayed fine and clear all the way down to Ghorapani, where the really hazy conditions re-appeared. This was a pity as the valleys here are high and narrow, and although we could see the far valley walls, they were really just outlines. It also meant the view from the famous Poon Hill was completely washed out, without a single distant mountain visible through the haze.
From here we had a very long, hard day's hike to Chamrong to join up with the Annapurna Sanctuary hike. Once we started gaining altitude again the weather cleared day by day, and as we approached the Sanctuary it was perfectly clear blue skies again. With such great weather I decided to stop at the Machapuchare Base Camp, since it had fantastic views of the impressive pyramidal peak of Machapuchare mountain, and anyway the sanctuary up-ahead had started to cloud over.
It was a great decision, as early the next morning the skies were perfectly clear again, and the final 1-hour hike up to the end of the trek at Annapurna Base Camp was in clear blue skies. We sorted out a room for that night and then spent the morning exploring around the incredible location, just gawping at the glaciers, lakes and surrounding mountains. The whole area is basically a huge mountainous bowl, with the camp positioned right in the very middle of the bowl.
In the late morning, and still with clear skies I decided to climb up a huge glacial moraine right beside the camp. Our guidebook had made a passing reference to better views from the top, and our lodge owner also recommended it, so off I went. There is no clear trail up the moraine though, and so you have to scramble up through some hairy sections and along a very narrow ridge (which was why Sarah didn't come with me), but the views from the top of that moraine were simply stunning. I really thought I'd found the most beautiful place in the world 10 years ago, but honestly the views from here were even better (well, at least I'll have somewhere new to propose to my next wife I suppose!).
I just sat on a narrow ridge near the top of the moraine for over an hour just soaking up the panorama. The views here are better simply because you're viewing from high up on one of the sides of the 'bowl', as opposed to looking up from the base. The snow capped mountains and glaciers literally encompass you in a full 360-degree vista that really is spell-binding. I would have stayed there longer, but the clouds began coming in and I was a tad worried about the steep descent if the visibility suddenly deteriorated. But in fact I was down in about 15 minutes with no problems at all - it just seemed mad steep on the way up.
Earlier that morning we'd heard that a Ukrainian trekker had been badly injured (he'd broken his leg), and that they were trying to organise a helicopter to evacuate him. Apparently he was part of a delegation from the organisation behind the European Soccer Championships due to be held in Ukraine in 2012, and the group had left the camp early that morning to climb up to a glacier to play a game of soccer for the cameras. Apparently this guy had taken a tumble and broken his leg. Anyway, while I was sitting on the moraine I had a clear view of the group of Ukrainians and Nepalese porters carrying this guy back on an improvised stretcher towards the camp from the glacier.
When I got back to the camp I sat watching the group tending to the injured guy (there's nothing much to do at the camp), but after a while I got the distinct impression that the guy had died. It turned out he had also badly injured his head in the fall, and he had actually died about 30 minutes previously. The helicopter arrived about an hour later and his mates bundled him into it quickly and off it flew. It all sounded like a rather silly accident - playing soccer on a glacier at over 4000m - but it was still very sad to see the poor guy being bundled away.
Strangely, that was the 3rd dead body we've seen on this trip - we saw an armed robber who'd been very recently shot dead in Panama City, and a tourist being given CPR in Durban.
After all that the camp was a bit subdued, although of course, newly arriving trekkers were oblivious to the recent tragedy and would shout and congratulate each other on arriving at the camp.
Early the next morning I had planned on climbing the moraine again to catch the sunrise, but when I got up at 5:15am it had just started snowing heavily. Obviously there was no visibility in the snow, so I just went back to bed. When Sarah got up it was snowing even more heavily. People were getting worried that they might be stranded in the camp for days (it can happen apparently, although very rarely in May), but at first I just reckoned we could easily spend another day just sitting out the bad weather. But after another hour or so, and with no let up in the snow, a group of porters and guides decided to make a run for it, and this got me kinda worried - if the locals were making a dash for lower ground, then maybe we should too.
So we both packed up in about 2 minutes, paid our dues and left. It turned out the snow wasn't as heavy as it looked, and visibility was actually quite good. I had been afraid of losing sight of the trail through the snow and becoming lost, but in fact enough people had left before us to mark out the trail quite clearly. In fact we left at a good time, as the snow still gave good purchase and hadn't been compacted into ice yet by other trekkers.
So after about an hour, when we got back to Machapuchare Base Camp, we could see down the valley that the weather was clearing nicely. So we relaxed there and had our usual porridge breakfast, after which the trail down was clear and easy.
On the way back down I was looking forward to a fairly scary river crossing that we'd made on the way up. The river was strong and the stepping stones across it looked quite precarious, but Sarah bravely led the way and just strolled straight across (if any of the rocks she'd stood on had been slippery or loose she would have been in real trouble). Anyways, on the way back I was just a little disappointed to see that officials had created a sturdy bridge across the river from lashed together tree trunks.
As we descended the valley back towards Pokara the snow and rains had cleared the hazy air quite a bit, and so we were rewarded with great views of the lush terraced valley walls. The last few days we hiked through fabulous forest too, some of it the famous rhododendron forests, although unfortunately they weren't blooming when we passed.
Last time hiking in Nepal I can't remember seeing any wildlife of note, but this time it seemed to be a veritable menagerie! I saw a mad playful and inquisitive pair of civets (at least I think they were civets, big as otters with black head and shoulders and hind quarters and fawn brown middle), quite a few gorgeous woodpeckers, a 2-foot snake that I nearly stepped no (it seems I always nearly step on snakes), and later a big 6 footer right across the path in front of me on the way to the World Peace Pagoda in Pokara, but it had recently died (I don't know how, but it looked perfectly fresh).
One day we hiked through dense forest with loads of small leeches - you know they're leeches as opposed to wee worms since when you simply touch them they go into a mad frenzy of twisting and turning for about 2 seconds, desperately trying to latch on to the animal that just touched them. When we got into the second hot spots of the hike (both called Tatopani, which literally mans 'hot water'), Sarah noticed one on her ankle. The pool attendant guy quickly picked it off and squished it with a rock before it had managed to start 'feeding'. All I got leech-wise was one lost critter on my sock, soon dispatched back to the forest, and not even killed.
Another major difference between this time and 10 years ago was the number of other trekkers. Last time was during high season, and so I was constantly passing out, or being passed by, other western trekkers. It gets pretty annoying saying 'Hi!', 10 times a day to the same people every day as you leapfrog each other (you overtake someone, but then take a short break during which they pass you out, and an hour later you pass them again while they have a short break, etc., etc.). But at this time of year there are far fewer tourists (due to the season of course, but also maybe due to the recession and maybe lingering paranoia about the Maoists), and so we had many days where I really felt we had the entire trail all to ourselves - some days we literally only saw 1 other trekker in 6 or 7 hours of walking.
All-in-all the hike took us 23 days, and that was with 2 full rest days and a couple of half-days. I had originally thought it might take us a leisurely 30 days or so. It turned out we both felt really good all along the hike, and so we really powered along. In fact I felt probably better than I ever have in my life. The whole trek just seemed so easy, much more so than I remember it being 10 years ago - I must be getting stronger in my old age as opposed to weaker.
When we reached the road again I decided to try and walk back all the way back to Pokara (as our guidebook said it was only a 15 minute drive), but it turned out Pokara was 17km away. So after a local bus, and then a taxi we were back in the cozy Karma Guesthouse again, and it was only early afternoon. We dropped off our rather stinky laundry, had lovely hot showers and went out to celebrate an amazing 3 weeks of hiking. Oh, and an engagement.
As I already mentioned, the main difference on the Circuit trek is the new road, which is a big pity from a hikers point of view. I certainly wouldn't hike the whole route again (why would you hike along a busy road?), although currently the route from Khula and up over the pass is still worth it for the Upper Pisang road and the physical challenge of the 5410m pass itself - but then I hear the plan is to continue building that road right over the pass itself, so in the future it will be bus loads of fat American tourists having hot lemon tea in the tiny hut at the pass.
Another big change was the constant price fixing amongst the various guesthouses in all the villages along the treks. As was the case 10 years ago, the price of everything increases the further you move away from the access roads, but as I remember those increases were gradual and started at reasonable local prices. Nowadays though, the increases are rapid and start at inflated tourist prices. The prices have apparently being agreed by village committees, and all the lodges in a village have identical menus and room prices. This all came as a bit of a shock and a disappointment, and as another trekker pointed out, it made you feel a bit 'managed' all along the trek (like we were part of an organised tour group or something).
But it's kinda low-season at the moment, or towards the end of the season anyway, so in fact many of the lodges were prepared to offer big discounts, or even free rooms, so long as we ate in their restaurants (the first time we got a room discount the landlady didn't explain we needed to eat there too, and she got quite angry with Sarah when we came back from another restaurant - Sarah got a wee bit upset about it, but I just told her to ignore it - the whole system seems cheeky to me anyway, as clearly not all the lodges are the same although they all charge the same prices).
Anyway, over the 3 weeks we managed to haggle down the prices nearly everywhere, which resulted in about a 20% reduction on costs in general. Although the price-fixing is annoying, the prices were still cheap-as-chips in relative terms, and so I reckon the month we spent in Nepal is probably the cheapest month of the whole trip so far (but then so it should be I suppose, as we were trekking without porters or guides, and walking is free!).
In terms of the weather, the first 2 days or so were quite cloudy, but we found that the cloud built up gradually during the morning, so we just started getting up really early in the morning when the skies were at their clearest. Also, as we gained altitude the skies seemed to get clearer and clearer (this time of year is famous for hazy, dusty skies), and from day 3 onwards the weather was just perfect.
The day we arrived at Pisang we had skies as blue as the bluest skies in Bolivia, which really surprised and delighted me. It meant perfect skies for proposing to Sarah the next day, and the weather stayed clear right up until we reached the Thorang La pass.
I remember the day of climbing the pass 10 years ago as being a really tough day. But that time, myself and Hanno were a bit clueless and got out of bed to leave the camp at about 10:00am. Many people, especially those with hired guides, start to tackle the climb over the pass from 3am! This is crazy of course, but last time I felt I had to race over the pass to make sure I got accommodation on the far side (that time was high-season), and so I spent the whole day passing out other people. I did manage to find accommodation, although not in the first town of Muktinath, which was full.
Anyway, this time I knew the score, so myself and Sarah headed off leisurely at about 8:30am, and we were still the last people to leave the camp (we overheard lots of other people worrying about the conditions and the altitude and just general paranoia, which is why they all started off so early). The weather approaching the pass was very cloudy and it had been snowing the night before, but that just made for gorgeous snowy surroundings, which was nice, and the trail was still fine without any ice or dangerous sections.
When I reached the pass (about 20 minutes before Sarah, as I was getting cold waiting for her to catch up at various points as we climbed up), the weather was clearing nicely and after a nice (and expensive!), cup of hot lemon tea we headed down the far side of the pass in beautiful sunshine.
The weather stayed fine and clear all the way down to Ghorapani, where the really hazy conditions re-appeared. This was a pity as the valleys here are high and narrow, and although we could see the far valley walls, they were really just outlines. It also meant the view from the famous Poon Hill was completely washed out, without a single distant mountain visible through the haze.
From here we had a very long, hard day's hike to Chamrong to join up with the Annapurna Sanctuary hike. Once we started gaining altitude again the weather cleared day by day, and as we approached the Sanctuary it was perfectly clear blue skies again. With such great weather I decided to stop at the Machapuchare Base Camp, since it had fantastic views of the impressive pyramidal peak of Machapuchare mountain, and anyway the sanctuary up-ahead had started to cloud over.
It was a great decision, as early the next morning the skies were perfectly clear again, and the final 1-hour hike up to the end of the trek at Annapurna Base Camp was in clear blue skies. We sorted out a room for that night and then spent the morning exploring around the incredible location, just gawping at the glaciers, lakes and surrounding mountains. The whole area is basically a huge mountainous bowl, with the camp positioned right in the very middle of the bowl.
In the late morning, and still with clear skies I decided to climb up a huge glacial moraine right beside the camp. Our guidebook had made a passing reference to better views from the top, and our lodge owner also recommended it, so off I went. There is no clear trail up the moraine though, and so you have to scramble up through some hairy sections and along a very narrow ridge (which was why Sarah didn't come with me), but the views from the top of that moraine were simply stunning. I really thought I'd found the most beautiful place in the world 10 years ago, but honestly the views from here were even better (well, at least I'll have somewhere new to propose to my next wife I suppose!).
I just sat on a narrow ridge near the top of the moraine for over an hour just soaking up the panorama. The views here are better simply because you're viewing from high up on one of the sides of the 'bowl', as opposed to looking up from the base. The snow capped mountains and glaciers literally encompass you in a full 360-degree vista that really is spell-binding. I would have stayed there longer, but the clouds began coming in and I was a tad worried about the steep descent if the visibility suddenly deteriorated. But in fact I was down in about 15 minutes with no problems at all - it just seemed mad steep on the way up.
Earlier that morning we'd heard that a Ukrainian trekker had been badly injured (he'd broken his leg), and that they were trying to organise a helicopter to evacuate him. Apparently he was part of a delegation from the organisation behind the European Soccer Championships due to be held in Ukraine in 2012, and the group had left the camp early that morning to climb up to a glacier to play a game of soccer for the cameras. Apparently this guy had taken a tumble and broken his leg. Anyway, while I was sitting on the moraine I had a clear view of the group of Ukrainians and Nepalese porters carrying this guy back on an improvised stretcher towards the camp from the glacier.
When I got back to the camp I sat watching the group tending to the injured guy (there's nothing much to do at the camp), but after a while I got the distinct impression that the guy had died. It turned out he had also badly injured his head in the fall, and he had actually died about 30 minutes previously. The helicopter arrived about an hour later and his mates bundled him into it quickly and off it flew. It all sounded like a rather silly accident - playing soccer on a glacier at over 4000m - but it was still very sad to see the poor guy being bundled away.
Strangely, that was the 3rd dead body we've seen on this trip - we saw an armed robber who'd been very recently shot dead in Panama City, and a tourist being given CPR in Durban.
After all that the camp was a bit subdued, although of course, newly arriving trekkers were oblivious to the recent tragedy and would shout and congratulate each other on arriving at the camp.
Early the next morning I had planned on climbing the moraine again to catch the sunrise, but when I got up at 5:15am it had just started snowing heavily. Obviously there was no visibility in the snow, so I just went back to bed. When Sarah got up it was snowing even more heavily. People were getting worried that they might be stranded in the camp for days (it can happen apparently, although very rarely in May), but at first I just reckoned we could easily spend another day just sitting out the bad weather. But after another hour or so, and with no let up in the snow, a group of porters and guides decided to make a run for it, and this got me kinda worried - if the locals were making a dash for lower ground, then maybe we should too.
So we both packed up in about 2 minutes, paid our dues and left. It turned out the snow wasn't as heavy as it looked, and visibility was actually quite good. I had been afraid of losing sight of the trail through the snow and becoming lost, but in fact enough people had left before us to mark out the trail quite clearly. In fact we left at a good time, as the snow still gave good purchase and hadn't been compacted into ice yet by other trekkers.
So after about an hour, when we got back to Machapuchare Base Camp, we could see down the valley that the weather was clearing nicely. So we relaxed there and had our usual porridge breakfast, after which the trail down was clear and easy.
On the way back down I was looking forward to a fairly scary river crossing that we'd made on the way up. The river was strong and the stepping stones across it looked quite precarious, but Sarah bravely led the way and just strolled straight across (if any of the rocks she'd stood on had been slippery or loose she would have been in real trouble). Anyways, on the way back I was just a little disappointed to see that officials had created a sturdy bridge across the river from lashed together tree trunks.
As we descended the valley back towards Pokara the snow and rains had cleared the hazy air quite a bit, and so we were rewarded with great views of the lush terraced valley walls. The last few days we hiked through fabulous forest too, some of it the famous rhododendron forests, although unfortunately they weren't blooming when we passed.
Last time hiking in Nepal I can't remember seeing any wildlife of note, but this time it seemed to be a veritable menagerie! I saw a mad playful and inquisitive pair of civets (at least I think they were civets, big as otters with black head and shoulders and hind quarters and fawn brown middle), quite a few gorgeous woodpeckers, a 2-foot snake that I nearly stepped no (it seems I always nearly step on snakes), and later a big 6 footer right across the path in front of me on the way to the World Peace Pagoda in Pokara, but it had recently died (I don't know how, but it looked perfectly fresh).
One day we hiked through dense forest with loads of small leeches - you know they're leeches as opposed to wee worms since when you simply touch them they go into a mad frenzy of twisting and turning for about 2 seconds, desperately trying to latch on to the animal that just touched them. When we got into the second hot spots of the hike (both called Tatopani, which literally mans 'hot water'), Sarah noticed one on her ankle. The pool attendant guy quickly picked it off and squished it with a rock before it had managed to start 'feeding'. All I got leech-wise was one lost critter on my sock, soon dispatched back to the forest, and not even killed.
Another major difference between this time and 10 years ago was the number of other trekkers. Last time was during high season, and so I was constantly passing out, or being passed by, other western trekkers. It gets pretty annoying saying 'Hi!', 10 times a day to the same people every day as you leapfrog each other (you overtake someone, but then take a short break during which they pass you out, and an hour later you pass them again while they have a short break, etc., etc.). But at this time of year there are far fewer tourists (due to the season of course, but also maybe due to the recession and maybe lingering paranoia about the Maoists), and so we had many days where I really felt we had the entire trail all to ourselves - some days we literally only saw 1 other trekker in 6 or 7 hours of walking.
All-in-all the hike took us 23 days, and that was with 2 full rest days and a couple of half-days. I had originally thought it might take us a leisurely 30 days or so. It turned out we both felt really good all along the hike, and so we really powered along. In fact I felt probably better than I ever have in my life. The whole trek just seemed so easy, much more so than I remember it being 10 years ago - I must be getting stronger in my old age as opposed to weaker.
When we reached the road again I decided to try and walk back all the way back to Pokara (as our guidebook said it was only a 15 minute drive), but it turned out Pokara was 17km away. So after a local bus, and then a taxi we were back in the cozy Karma Guesthouse again, and it was only early afternoon. We dropped off our rather stinky laundry, had lovely hot showers and went out to celebrate an amazing 3 weeks of hiking. Oh, and an engagement.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Upper Pisang route
One of the main highlights of the Annapurna Circuit hike for me 10 years ago was taking the Upper Pisang route (in fact, it was one of the main highlights of that entire year-long trip). At the village of Pisang hikers have a choice of taking a low trail along the valley floor by the river, or taking a tougher high trail that climbs steeply up to the village of Gharyu and travels high along the valley wall giving incredible views of the Annapurna mountain range.
Not many people take the high route, which is a real pity. In fact, I've heard that many of the guides hired by tourists actively discourage taking the high route, or never even mention it as an option. This is simply to make their lives easier, since the low route is physically much easier. The sad irony here is that those tourists, who probably paid a relative fortune for their guide, are missing probably the best section of the entire trail, and anyway, hiring a guide in the first place is a ridiculous thing to do on the Annapurna hikes, as the trail is blatantly obvious and you'd have to be severely retarded to get lost.
Anyway, 10 years ago I was feeling great when myself and Hanno arrived at Pisang. Hanno wasn't feeling the best though, and so we decided to split up for the day, with Hanno taking the low road and me taking the high road, the plan being to meet up again in the town of Manang. It was along this high road that I came across what I considered to be simply the most stunning view I've ever seen anywhere in the world. From a high vantage point about 25 minutes walk beyond the village of Gharyu, and only about 10 metres off the trail itself, is a tiny little lookout point with just a small rock to sit on. There are no signs, no information boards, no fence, no nothing really, just the most beautiful panoramic views of the vast valley with snow capped mountains in front of you running down through lush forests to the raging river below.
When I met up with Hanno later I told him I reckoned I'd found the perfect place to propose to my future wife - all I had to do was meet her first! So 10 years on, and here I am again on the Upper Pisang road, and after spending the night at the village of Gharyu we started walking to the 'spot'. Sarah was anxious to get moving early, so I'd had to delay our departure for about an hour to allow the sun rise high enough to illuminate the whole valley properly. And then when we did leave, a couple of Russian trekkers were just ahead of us. I was worried that they would stop at my 'spot' and start taking photos, but luckily they didn't even notice the tiny little lookout point, and so when we got there there wasn't sight nor sound of another soul.
Obviously a photo or a video can never do justice to a place like this (especially the sense of height above the valley floor, which is about 600m I think), but I've uploaded a wee video taken just after I proposed, with Sarah understandably delighted (of course!). It gives a bit of a taste of the place anyway (the first short pause in the video is of the town of Gharyu where we stayed the night before - the sun is rising behind the town, which is why it's in shadow and not very clear).
The actual proposal itself went along the lines of:
Well Sarah, I reckon this has got to be the most beautiful place in all the world,
And I'm here with the most beautiful girl in all the world,
And you'd make me the most beautifully happy guy in all the world,
If you'd agree to be my wife?
Yeah, pretty corny alright, but at least the location was a knock-out. Well, it was supposed to go something along those lines, but I got halfway through the third line of my little speech-let when Sarah cottoned on and kinda broke down in emotional tears, which got me going, and I can't actually remember exactly how the last part came out, but I'm pretty sure I bungled it a wee bit. Still, Sarah can't remember exactly what I said either, so that's alright.
Being 4000 meters up in the Himalaya meant I didn't have much opportunity to shop around for a ring (or phone Sarah's Dad to ask for his daughter's hand!), so I thoughtfully hand-crafted a marvelous engagement ring myself that morning - from a brochure on Gharyu town. All very romantic I'm sure you'll agree - but sure it's the thought that counts of course...
Not many people take the high route, which is a real pity. In fact, I've heard that many of the guides hired by tourists actively discourage taking the high route, or never even mention it as an option. This is simply to make their lives easier, since the low route is physically much easier. The sad irony here is that those tourists, who probably paid a relative fortune for their guide, are missing probably the best section of the entire trail, and anyway, hiring a guide in the first place is a ridiculous thing to do on the Annapurna hikes, as the trail is blatantly obvious and you'd have to be severely retarded to get lost.
Anyway, 10 years ago I was feeling great when myself and Hanno arrived at Pisang. Hanno wasn't feeling the best though, and so we decided to split up for the day, with Hanno taking the low road and me taking the high road, the plan being to meet up again in the town of Manang. It was along this high road that I came across what I considered to be simply the most stunning view I've ever seen anywhere in the world. From a high vantage point about 25 minutes walk beyond the village of Gharyu, and only about 10 metres off the trail itself, is a tiny little lookout point with just a small rock to sit on. There are no signs, no information boards, no fence, no nothing really, just the most beautiful panoramic views of the vast valley with snow capped mountains in front of you running down through lush forests to the raging river below.
When I met up with Hanno later I told him I reckoned I'd found the perfect place to propose to my future wife - all I had to do was meet her first! So 10 years on, and here I am again on the Upper Pisang road, and after spending the night at the village of Gharyu we started walking to the 'spot'. Sarah was anxious to get moving early, so I'd had to delay our departure for about an hour to allow the sun rise high enough to illuminate the whole valley properly. And then when we did leave, a couple of Russian trekkers were just ahead of us. I was worried that they would stop at my 'spot' and start taking photos, but luckily they didn't even notice the tiny little lookout point, and so when we got there there wasn't sight nor sound of another soul.
Obviously a photo or a video can never do justice to a place like this (especially the sense of height above the valley floor, which is about 600m I think), but I've uploaded a wee video taken just after I proposed, with Sarah understandably delighted (of course!). It gives a bit of a taste of the place anyway (the first short pause in the video is of the town of Gharyu where we stayed the night before - the sun is rising behind the town, which is why it's in shadow and not very clear).
The actual proposal itself went along the lines of:
Well Sarah, I reckon this has got to be the most beautiful place in all the world,
And I'm here with the most beautiful girl in all the world,
And you'd make me the most beautifully happy guy in all the world,
If you'd agree to be my wife?
Yeah, pretty corny alright, but at least the location was a knock-out. Well, it was supposed to go something along those lines, but I got halfway through the third line of my little speech-let when Sarah cottoned on and kinda broke down in emotional tears, which got me going, and I can't actually remember exactly how the last part came out, but I'm pretty sure I bungled it a wee bit. Still, Sarah can't remember exactly what I said either, so that's alright.
Being 4000 meters up in the Himalaya meant I didn't have much opportunity to shop around for a ring (or phone Sarah's Dad to ask for his daughter's hand!), so I thoughtfully hand-crafted a marvelous engagement ring myself that morning - from a brochure on Gharyu town. All very romantic I'm sure you'll agree - but sure it's the thought that counts of course...
Annapurna Circuit and Sanctuary
The plan was to do the Annapurna Circuit hike, and link up the end of it with the Sanctuary hike. This is a simple and common thing for people that have the time, and although I had hiked the Circuit 10 years ago with Hanno, I was looking forward to doing it again, and also of stitching on the Sanctuary hike which I had never done.
At the trailhead at Besishar though, another major difference between now and 10 years ago became disappointingly apparent. The government here has been steadily building a road further and further along the trail, from both ends of the hike, and now there is a bus from Besishar as far as Khudi.
I was thinking of getting that bus, as nobody wants to hike along a road, but the cheeky beggars were charging tourists a hefty fare. I decided to walk on a bit and flag the bus down as it passed, as I reckoned I could haggle a fair price then, but once we started walking Sarah decided she wanted to walk the entire trek, and so we didn't bother with the bus at all (and of course I greatly supported Sarah's determination, being of like mind myself, although I had hiked the circuit before so I hadn't been too bothered about getting the bus).
So although the roads the government are building are great news for the local people, who can now travel in a few hours what used to take days, it means the Annapurna Circuit will never be the same again. 10 years ago when I hiked the trail with Hanno we didn't see a single car, motorbike, or any form of a wheel for the whole 3 weeks. And that, apart from the stunning mountain vistas of course, was really one of the main highlights of the whole thing - just the feeling of getting totally away from everything, and especially from the noise and fumes of cars. The road is far more extensive on the other side of the Thorang La pass, and even if they do cut a new trail just for hikers away from the road, every time you stop for the night in a village you'll be surrounded by beeping jeeps and motorbikes. Ah well, such is progress...
Anyway, at the start of the trek, the road only runs for a few kilometers, so once we'd hiked that section I was looking forward to not seeing a car again for weeks (I didn't know at the time that the road from the other direction of the trail has reached all the way to Muktinath already!).
So all-in-all we spent 23 days hiking in the mountains, and it really was fantastic. The weather throughout was great, at times just stunningly clear, although we did have a couple of cloudy days at the start, and a couple of very hazy days in the middle and towards the end. But rather than try and recount the 23 days myself, Sarah will probably resurrect her long-dead blog and update it with the daily notes she took as we went along, which suits me nicely.
Although I suppose I should mention one of the days hiking, day 6, April the 19th in fact...
At the trailhead at Besishar though, another major difference between now and 10 years ago became disappointingly apparent. The government here has been steadily building a road further and further along the trail, from both ends of the hike, and now there is a bus from Besishar as far as Khudi.
I was thinking of getting that bus, as nobody wants to hike along a road, but the cheeky beggars were charging tourists a hefty fare. I decided to walk on a bit and flag the bus down as it passed, as I reckoned I could haggle a fair price then, but once we started walking Sarah decided she wanted to walk the entire trek, and so we didn't bother with the bus at all (and of course I greatly supported Sarah's determination, being of like mind myself, although I had hiked the circuit before so I hadn't been too bothered about getting the bus).
So although the roads the government are building are great news for the local people, who can now travel in a few hours what used to take days, it means the Annapurna Circuit will never be the same again. 10 years ago when I hiked the trail with Hanno we didn't see a single car, motorbike, or any form of a wheel for the whole 3 weeks. And that, apart from the stunning mountain vistas of course, was really one of the main highlights of the whole thing - just the feeling of getting totally away from everything, and especially from the noise and fumes of cars. The road is far more extensive on the other side of the Thorang La pass, and even if they do cut a new trail just for hikers away from the road, every time you stop for the night in a village you'll be surrounded by beeping jeeps and motorbikes. Ah well, such is progress...
Anyway, at the start of the trek, the road only runs for a few kilometers, so once we'd hiked that section I was looking forward to not seeing a car again for weeks (I didn't know at the time that the road from the other direction of the trail has reached all the way to Muktinath already!).
So all-in-all we spent 23 days hiking in the mountains, and it really was fantastic. The weather throughout was great, at times just stunningly clear, although we did have a couple of cloudy days at the start, and a couple of very hazy days in the middle and towards the end. But rather than try and recount the 23 days myself, Sarah will probably resurrect her long-dead blog and update it with the daily notes she took as we went along, which suits me nicely.
Although I suppose I should mention one of the days hiking, day 6, April the 19th in fact...
Pokara
As soon as the bus arrived at the bus station in Pokara all of us tourists were hounded by the guesthouse touts. Having little idea where we were and how much a taxi would be to the main accommodation centres we decided to go with one of the less boisterous touts. It turned out great, as we got a free ride to the Lakeside area and the guesthouse was lovely, cheap, clean and central (Karma Guesthouse, beside the Royal Palace).
So the whole point of coming to Pokara is that it's the main centre from where people set off on big multi-day hikes. I'd been here 10 years before on the last trip with Hanno, and the place all seemed fairly familiar. The main road is now paved, and the shops and restaurants all look a bit more dapper, and there are more of them, but otherwise the place seemed much the same.
But quite a few other things have changed, like the location of the hiking permit office, the location of the immigration office (to extend our visas - at the border we could only get a 30-day visa for $40US, it used to be $30US for a 60-day visa, the cheeky beggars!), the introduction of a new tracking system called TIMS (which I luckily found out about after passing an agency that was advertising it - it's free to get a TIMS permit, but if you arrive at the trailhead without it you're fined).
So to get everything organised we hired bicycles and rode around the various offices getting passport photos, permits, renting sleeping bags (only 20 rupees a day, as opposed to the 'official' price of 50), and cash for the trek itself (everything was quite spread out and far from the main tourist Lakeside area, so having the bikes was a godsend).
The money issue was fustrating though, as I didn't know how much money I'd need. I planned on hiking the Annapurna Circuit trek, which can take 3 weeks, and then linking it with the Annapurna Sanctary trek, which can take another 12 days. During all that time you're in the mountains and have little chance of finding an ATM (it turned out there are ATM's in Jomsom, but you can't relie on them working when you get there). Anyway, after checking online and asking people I picked a figure and hoped it would be enough. In the end we managed to keep the costs down with regular haggling and we finished the entire trek almost a week early, so it turned out I had loads more money than I needed.
I also had a fairly traumatic time dealing with my apartment management company back home, as the tenants had given notice to quit the apartment, and so I needed to get new tenants in quick. As I've said before on this blog, the only major anxiety I've had on this entire trip has been due to my apartment back home - and this situation was happening at the worst possible time, towards the end of the trip when the cash reserves are dwindling rapidly toward zero!
Thankfully though my mate Peadar from back home stepped into the breach and literally saved this trip from a premature finale. He took over the management of the apartment from the inept KPM, advertised and got new tenants as well as re-painting numerous damp patches, sorting out the decrepit sofa, organising new swipe cards for the gates, getting a new lock fitted on the patio door, etc. Without Peadar doing all that for me back home I would have lost an absolute fortune paying KPM to get all these things taken care of (and it took them 6 weeks to find tenants last time!), so needless to say I'm very deeply indebited to him.
So anyway, after 2 days of organising all the above we left everything we didn't need for the hike at our guesthouse, and early in the morning got a taxi to the main local bus station to get a bus to the trailhead at Besishar (paying half the tourist-bus rate). The morning hadn't started too well though, as the first thing I did that morning was put my foot through a small hole in my hiking trousers, thereby making it a huge hole! These were the only trousers I was bringing, and they had been fairly threadbare to begin with, but I just decided to head off anyway, and hoped to get them repaired in Besishar. Within 5 minutes of arriving at the town of Besishar I had the pants expertly repaired for 0.50cent and so we were all set for weeks and weeks of hiking along some of the best trails in the world.
So the whole point of coming to Pokara is that it's the main centre from where people set off on big multi-day hikes. I'd been here 10 years before on the last trip with Hanno, and the place all seemed fairly familiar. The main road is now paved, and the shops and restaurants all look a bit more dapper, and there are more of them, but otherwise the place seemed much the same.
But quite a few other things have changed, like the location of the hiking permit office, the location of the immigration office (to extend our visas - at the border we could only get a 30-day visa for $40US, it used to be $30US for a 60-day visa, the cheeky beggars!), the introduction of a new tracking system called TIMS (which I luckily found out about after passing an agency that was advertising it - it's free to get a TIMS permit, but if you arrive at the trailhead without it you're fined).
So to get everything organised we hired bicycles and rode around the various offices getting passport photos, permits, renting sleeping bags (only 20 rupees a day, as opposed to the 'official' price of 50), and cash for the trek itself (everything was quite spread out and far from the main tourist Lakeside area, so having the bikes was a godsend).
The money issue was fustrating though, as I didn't know how much money I'd need. I planned on hiking the Annapurna Circuit trek, which can take 3 weeks, and then linking it with the Annapurna Sanctary trek, which can take another 12 days. During all that time you're in the mountains and have little chance of finding an ATM (it turned out there are ATM's in Jomsom, but you can't relie on them working when you get there). Anyway, after checking online and asking people I picked a figure and hoped it would be enough. In the end we managed to keep the costs down with regular haggling and we finished the entire trek almost a week early, so it turned out I had loads more money than I needed.
I also had a fairly traumatic time dealing with my apartment management company back home, as the tenants had given notice to quit the apartment, and so I needed to get new tenants in quick. As I've said before on this blog, the only major anxiety I've had on this entire trip has been due to my apartment back home - and this situation was happening at the worst possible time, towards the end of the trip when the cash reserves are dwindling rapidly toward zero!
Thankfully though my mate Peadar from back home stepped into the breach and literally saved this trip from a premature finale. He took over the management of the apartment from the inept KPM, advertised and got new tenants as well as re-painting numerous damp patches, sorting out the decrepit sofa, organising new swipe cards for the gates, getting a new lock fitted on the patio door, etc. Without Peadar doing all that for me back home I would have lost an absolute fortune paying KPM to get all these things taken care of (and it took them 6 weeks to find tenants last time!), so needless to say I'm very deeply indebited to him.
So anyway, after 2 days of organising all the above we left everything we didn't need for the hike at our guesthouse, and early in the morning got a taxi to the main local bus station to get a bus to the trailhead at Besishar (paying half the tourist-bus rate). The morning hadn't started too well though, as the first thing I did that morning was put my foot through a small hole in my hiking trousers, thereby making it a huge hole! These were the only trousers I was bringing, and they had been fairly threadbare to begin with, but I just decided to head off anyway, and hoped to get them repaired in Besishar. Within 5 minutes of arriving at the town of Besishar I had the pants expertly repaired for 0.50cent and so we were all set for weeks and weeks of hiking along some of the best trails in the world.
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