Trekking in Nepal, part 1

Photos: Mine and Marits 🙂 They are same same, but different 🙂

Soundtrack: Resam Firiri 🙂

After spending three weeks with my best friend, I wasn`t looking forward to leave her and go to Nepal at all. The fact that I had just about done nothing more than lay on the beach for the past 7 weeks and now was getting ready for a 10 day trek hit me hard. Luckily for me it turned out to be the best experience so far (excluding Zim, cus that`s just in a whole other category) on this trip! 🙂 I`ll try to keep it short:

Kathmandu, Day 1: Horrendous city. It`s dirty, noisy, overpopulated and extremely poor. It is by far the poorest city I have ever visited, the infrastructure is so bad and the roads are horrible, and it`s so polluted that I was mildly shocked. But, meeting Marit here made up for all of it, SO good to see her ❤ The first day we had a short information meeting, and then we headed out to Thamel for a group dinner. I`d booked this trip via Kilroy and it was organized by Gadventures. So there we were, 15 people from all over the world ready for the trek of a lifetime! 🙂

Kathmandu, Day 2: Sightseeing the city. Our guide for the trek, Madhu (the most fantastic guide on earth) picked us up at the hotel in the morning and took us first to the Boudhanath Stupa, the third largest stupa in the world. Amazing place, and my first “I`m really in Nepal” chill. We then headed to Patan Durbar Square, and walked around here in the rain for some time. Beautiful architecture! Next off, we visited the Sisterhood of Survivors Project. This is an organization which Gadventures sponsors, helping victims of human trafficking back to normal life. Trafficking girls to India is a huge problem in Nepal, more than 12 000 women is sold every year. This organization helps them back on their feet with an education and a safe place to live. Really touching to meet the girls ❤
Last stop of the day was the Swayambhunath Temple, aka Monkey Temple. Cheecky monkeys all over! This temple has an amazing view of the Kathmandu Valley, which we didn’t get to see due to the rain 🙂 Oh well, it was still a good experience.

Day 3, Kathmandu to Pokhara: Driving 7 or so hours from Kathmandu to Pokhara is one bumpy ride but you also get to see a lot of Nepal, and I actually enjoyed it. Until it got really hot and I had on jeans and a thick shirt and almost died from overheating. Pokhara is completely different from Kathmandu, fare more chilled and relaxing atmosphere. She says, after visiting one street. But anyways, Marit and me went around to but the last gear for the trek and then we had a group dinner again later that night. For the trek we could only bring 7 ½ kg each, sharing a bag and having a bull strong porter carry it for us during the 10 days. After one last shower before heading into the wild, I fell asleep like a baby!

Trekking, Day 1: First a two hour drive from Pokhara to Nayapool. We were promised an easy start, and indeed it was. Three hours of trekking and we were at out teahouse for the night in Tirkhedhunga. We had just met all of our porters and assistant, and like Madhu said; For the next ten days we would be one big happy family 🙂
Where we spent our nights in the mountains: Teahouses. They are basic accommodations along the trek, but I was surprised by the good standard we had on most of them. The menu they provide is pretty much the same for the whole trek and was varied and good enough. All you really need is some masala tea, ginger lemon honey tea and dal bhat and you`ll be fine 🙂 Maybe some garlic soup for those days in the highest altitudes. Our room had two single beds, and there were for the most part shared bathrooms. Toilets: Squat. After trekking for some days it`s actually better with a squat than a western toilet, cuz you never want skin to porcelain contact. And holding a Michael Jackson pose over the western toilet is harder than a squat. Nice details for yah 🙂
We didn`t do much the first day, I think we all were still kind a nervous about what was ahead, especially since day two was allegedly one of the hardest.

Trekking, Day 2: Hello birthday girl! 😀 My 29^th birthday was to be celebrated in the most unusual way and with no mercy.  It was up early, and starting the 6000 stairs-day. Holy shits. HOLY SHITS. This mush have been the hardest physical challenge EVER. About 300 steps in I regretted not keeping up with my workout for the past weeks. Dayum.  You just walk and walk and walk, and when you think you see the top? Nah, another peek just hiding behind. In total, we walked about 1300 m straight up that day, moving up to 2873 masl. The highest up I had ever been. I cannot even begin to explain how if felt reaching Ghorepani that day, which was the target. The smartest thing was just to sit down by the fire and have a beer, Everest of course. Being the birthday girl, Marit and me lucked out and got a room with a bath room ❤ I was looking forward to a nice warm shower, but got a horrible cold one I stead. Oh well. After dinner I got a birthday pie from Madhu, and they all sang to me and I got a beautiful pashmina and some good luck powder on my forehead 🙂 Marit had written me an awesome poem, and at night it was time for a party, Nepali style!  Dancing, singing and love declarations, what an amazing way to celebrate another year older 🙂

Trekking, Day 3: Bright and early up a 04.45 am, going up to Poon Hill to see the sunrise. This was almost harder than the trek before. We were at 2873 and Poon Hill at 3200 masl, it was pretty hard walking up that early and with no food in the system. At the top, we could share the majestic view with some 1000000 other people. Obviously a very popular place Poon Hill. It was stunning though, a clear view to the mountains with beautiful light surrounding them. The Chinese lady next to me thought so too, as she was yelling in awe of the view. Thanks for ruining my moment lady. After getting down and some breakfast  we were ready for the next trek. We were now introduced to the Nepali flat, a little bit up, a little bit down. Mostly gradual.  Our target for the day was Tadapani, at 2500 masl it meant a whole lot of down. So after the whole previous day going up, I was crushed about going down again. But it was nothing more to do than to suck it up and start walking again. After a little bit down and up and a whole lot of rain, we made it to Tadapani. There was a nice fire place and we enjoyed an evening with the warmth, good food and company.

Trekking, Day 4: Getting ready for even more downhill. My calves were completely shot from the day before, and each time we stopped and started to move again I felt like crying. Our days went on pretty much the same: Get up early, eat breakfast and head out. Depending on how long the trek, stop for a tea break after some hours, keep on walking and have lunch at around 12-13. After some delicious dal bhat, trek for 3-4 hours to final destination, depending on the weather and speed. Arriving at location for the night, get a tea, change in to new warm clothes, pray they have a hot shower and that you have the physical strengt to actually take one and wait for dinner. After dinner, wait to the clock to be appropriate night time at 19.30 pm ish, then go to sleep. Our goal for the day was Chomrong, aka stair case city. I had a nice warm shower and then we all just sat in the dining hall, watching some TV, playing a heated round of Rummy, trying not to lose fingers and toes, updating journals and having fun with the porters.

I`ll split the post in two or three, so you don’t get too tired from reading. Stay tuned! 🙂