Friday, October 16: Step by Step

This was the most physically exhausting day of my life. We decided to start the second day of our trek as early as possible, so we could get as far as possible before we got in the sun. Shailesh said it would take about 6 hours to get to Ghorepani, so we figured that it would take us at least 7.5 hours. Our day of treking started with 2 hours of going up steps. We saw on a map later that that section of the trail has 3,280 steps. This would be the hardest part of the entire trek.

This is what we did for two hours to start the day.

The weather was beautiful. It was clear in the morning and slightly cloudy in the afternoon with a high in the low 80's. This was actually the weather the whole time we were in Nepal. We couldn't have asked for better weather.


We stopped for lunch at a guesthouse on the trail, and as we were getting ready to leave, a group of schoolchildren came walking by us. They saw that we had our cameras out and of course wanted their pictures taken. They gathered around and kept saying "one picture, one picture" until we took a picture of them. Then of course after we took their picture, they kept saying "one picture, one picture." They got a couple of pictures, but we had to move on.





We finally arrived in Ghorepani in mid-afternoon. There were quite a few more people in Ghorepani. The popular thing to do is to get up early and trek to the top of Poon Hill to watch the sunrise. This was our plan too. Ghorepani had some things that the other little towns didn't have such as bookshops and a basketball court. We also saw some teenagers gambling in the street. They play a dice game. A couple of days later we also saw some younger children gambling in Pokhara. Of course we spent a good amount of our free time relaxing and recovering from the long trek that day.

Gambling

Thursday, October 15: Hitting the Trail

This was our first day of treking. It was supposed to be the "easy" day, but it was anything but easy. The day started off well. We woke up and watched the sunrise from the roof of our hotel. It was clear, and the view was amazing.

At 7:00, we met our guide and left for our trek. We had a two hour drive to the start of the trail. The first hour of the trek was fairly easy. We decided against hiring a porter to carry our packs. It was not very long before we questioned that decision. They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, but I think in Nepal every one of them is uphill. Now imagine going up and down stairs for about four hours with a full backpack on. After the first hour dad started to struggle. I was doing ok until the last hour. By that time, we were in the sun and it was pretty warm. We made it to our stop for the day at Tikedungha a little after 1:00. The net elevation change for the day was +525 meters (1,700 ft.). For reference, the Sears Tower is 1,450 ft. tall. Needless to say, it was an exhausting day, and the next day would be even longer.

Nepal is an absolutely beautiful country. We spent most of the day treking alongside a river in a valley. It's water was an amazing shade of blue that I'm sure pictures will not do it justice. We also saw several waterfalls.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing. We did some reading, and I went for a short walk. I took the picture below of some goats on the hillside with pack donkeys passing by on the path right below them. Two things that were a common sight on the trail were pack donkeys and people carrying large packs. The donkeys all had large bells and always knew where they were going. People would carry large packs on their backs and would also have a large strap that would go up over the top of their head to help support the weight. Our guide said some of the porters would carry over 100 lbs. this way.

Our accomodations were pretty simple. All the little towns that you came to had guesthouses. Our room had three beds with hard matresses and pretty much nothing else. The toilets were squat toilets that were shared with other trekers. There also wasn't much in the way of entertainment in Tikedungha. This was fine with us. All we wanted to do was take a shower and relax. We also didn't feel bad about being asleep by 8:00.

Wednesday, October 14: On the Road Again

This day was mostly spent traveling from Kathmandu to Pokhara. In the morning we met our guide for our trek. His name was Shailesh (pronounced soy-lesh). He is 26, and he said he just got back from leading a group to the Everest base camp. Compared to that, our trek should be a walk in the park for him. After we met him, we headed over to board our bus for the trip. It is only about 120 miles between Kathmandu and Pokhara. However, due to the traffic, curving mountain roads, and the potholes, it took us over seven hours to make it.

We eventually made it to our hotel in Pokhara at about 3:30. We had some time to check out the town, so walked around and eventually wound up by Phewa Lake. It was very beautiful and peaceful. It didn't take long for me to like Pokhara better than Kathmandu and Bangladesh. It was simply a lot quieter.

Phewa Lake

Phillip had been talking about eating at a steakhouse that is in Pokhara, so we decided to eat there. Phillip said his steak was good, but mine was pretty tough and chewy. Pokhara had many of the same shops as Kathmandu, so there really wasn't any new shopping. It was a little cloudy, but we did catch a couple of glimpses of the Annapurna Range through the clouds. We were really hoping it would be clear the next few days. The next day we drive two hours in the morning to where we start our trek.

Tuesday, October 13: On to Nepal

This day was basically a travel day. We left Bogra in the morning and drove to Dhaka. It was interesting to drive back to Dhaka when it was daylight the whole time and we were not jet lagged. Below are some of the interesting things we saw along the way.

Water buffalo on the way to the market in Dhaka.

If you're going to tow another vehicle, just tie the bumpers together. But don't forget to have someone in the vehicle being towed.

The cars in Banlgadesh ran of compressed natural gas (CNG). Here we are filling up. All of the large trucks were diesel.

When we got to Dhaka, we had just enough time to eat lunch and drop off some luggage at the MCC guest house there before we had to go to the airport. Our flight to Nepal was on Biman Airlines which does not have the best reputation. Unfortunately, we did not have another option unless we wanted to fly to India and then to Nepal. From flight from Dhaka to Kathmandu is less than 1.5 hours, so we decided that we'd take our chances with Biman.

The official tourist slogan of Bangladesh. Notice that "tourist" is not plural. Don't feel like you need to hurry to visit Bangladesh before the tourism rush. If you come in your lifetime, you will probably beat it.

Fortunately, everything went smoothly on the flight, and we made it to Kathmandu pretty much on time. We also got our flight glimpses of the Himalayas on the plane. I'm not sure if we saw Mt. Everest at any time, but all the mountains are impressive.

Our first glimpse of the Himalayas from the plane.

When we arrived in Kathmandu, we were met at the airport by Krishna. He is a travel agent that was recommended to Phillip. He took us to our hotel, and later we went to his office to make arrangements for the next several days. We stayed in the Thamel area of Kathmandu. It is the main tourist area. It was nice to not be the only white people around anymore. Being stared at all the time is uncomfortable. The tourists in Nepal were largely European. We did meet several other Americans. Nepal is similar to Bangladesh in that it also somewhat chaotic and the traffic is also best described at controlled chaos, but it also seemed to be more developed. I don't know if this is because we were only in the tourist areas or if the whole country is that way.

Thamel

The rest of our day was spent on the Internet, eating supper, and walking around Thamel. There are a lot of shops in Thamel, but they are basically only about eight different shops. There are Internet shops, little grocery stores, bookstores, tea shops, trekking shops, t-shirt shops, silk/pashmina shops, and shops selling things like Buddhist and Hindu figurines. Almost none of the shops were original at all. The other thing that was common in Thamel were street vendors. People would come up to you all the time trying to sell you things. One of the more frequent occurrences was someone walking up to you and saying quietly "smoke, smoke." After a couple of times we realized that they were trying to sell us marijuana. It is illegal in Nepal, but it is still very easy to buy if you want. By the end of our time in Nepal, I was ready to go just to get away from all of the pushy people trying to selling you something.