Summary
- I learnt that the direction I took is not good as it was filled with up and down hills and from my direction most went up like steps and then descended gently.
- Each day I went 1Km, then 600m, then 900m... I am talking vertically of course as going horizontal was nothing compared to walking to another up 1Km in altitude only to descend another.
- I decided to change route, but the one I ended up on was not like I expected as there are few villages on it.
The MacDonaldisation of trekking - I was expecting to experience hilltop village culture : but apart from the first day I found few real villages instead you'd get to the next hilltop or junction to find 3 money-hungry lodge owners desperate to sell you beer and pizza at inflated prices. I was expecting local food and in case I didn't like it I carried my own cereals etc. Even when you do find a real village one can't interact much as one is dependent on people who speak English and almost nobody does. At a real village it's good value cos the lodges are cheap or free, and they make money selling you food, but in the other parts the lodges are the same price as Kathmandu and have super expensive food as well.
- Millionaire Houses - one wouldn't say the villages are rich, the village
and houses are usually a bit run down, but under the grime they are pretty good : usually 2 storeys of stone, intricate wooden carving, an upstairs balcony and of course a million dollar view of the snow capped Himalayan Mountains ... I have seen similar houses in Switzerland or abandoned Spanish villages.
| Tuesday - setoff
- I left my bloody TIMS card in the hotel luggage room the night before so I had to wait for it to open
...got to Sundarijal at 9am in a rush cos late
... found my way past heaps on school children going up to a temple .. then paid a NP fee and into hill farm country .. up 1000m in total ... down 200m to the first town to find it full of commercial trek cafes .. tried a local stall, but she charged me 5 times normal rate for tea"14 ?", no meant 40 !
.. down down .. a real village but I rushed up the hill as I was late. ..path not signposted maybe to help guides .. a Saddhu who I thought was money hungry led me back, but actually he was OK. ... up up another 1000m up 200m ..down 300m
...eventually to Golpu ...which according to Lonely Planet is 2 days walk. So I was walking 2 times faster than the book said.
- friendly farmers house ..richer than I expected.. but slept at 8pm cos solar lights.
| Wednesday - Change of Plan
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- Down 200m, up 100m, up 800m Another NP office... actually this was the last real village, up 800m tourist lodge , down 100m 3 tourist lodges, up 300m : 3 tourist more lodges.
- Like Siberia - Around each village there w re Buddist stupas and prayer flags, surprisingly similar to the Buryat Republic 5000Km away in Siberia. The farmer told me all the villagers were all Sherpas who in the last century had come over from Tibet, but 100s of years before that they had clome over with Genghis Khan from Mongolia.
- The bloody path was always up down - Got to Tharepati 3600m - At this rate I was going to be finished in 3 days so I decided to change plan and hike over to the Langtang Valley.
- down 300m to 3300m 2 tourist lodges.
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Thursday - up from 3300m to 4600m in one day
- Dam I didn't want to do this... had to rush cos I had to get over a high pass
- First a rough 3 hour up at down trail ending at Pedi 3600m higher. A hard trek... Then steadyish ..above 4300m I was stuffed I had to rest every 30m..
... highup and cold and windy at the top .. I mean I felt hyperthermic.
so rushed 300m lower to to Gosainkund the frozen holy lakes ...but it was cold and commercial and I still felt the height so I decided to press on to Laurebina
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Thursday - Laurebina
.. stayed at the Hotel Mount Rest and bakery terrace which has a fabulous view which would put it in the top 100 hotels in the world although it's so basic and they say it sits out on a super windy point (it wasn't windy when I was there).
The top picture shows the view from . Here's a video of the view ..Himalayan mountain tops from left to right.
(It's a bit strange that the mountain in Chile has the same name Lauribina although it's name comes from Amyra South American language)
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Friday -
- Started at 7am.. I had descended 330m I realised I had forgotten my shorts ..so had to walk back up to the hotel.
- I was expecting Sin Gompa to be a real village, but it is dominated by the 3 lodges so I bought some yak cheese from the factory and decided to cut down to another path - lost the path but ended up at Brabal. It was a real village and maybe I should have stayed there, but no one spoke English.
... I walked out of the valley past 2 more lodges, but they were both closed. I reached the road at Thulo Bharku... even there no one spoke English, except a park ranger.
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Trekking disappointment
- Well the trekking turned out to be a bit of a disappointment; I was kind of expecting interesting walking through quaint villages with friendly Tea shops, but many sections had no real village people at all every 2 hours there were just collections of "give me your money" tourist huts with all the same treats, beer, pizza, bottled water, apple pie.
At it's worst part it's a lot of big unfriendly German groups, making porters carry 3 backpacks each, boring up and down trails with no real villages.
Sat- Walked 90 min along the rough road to Dunche - no good atmosphere .. Tamang Museum was closed with no opening hours posted, so when a bus out passed I jumped on it. .. Deciding that the 9 hour trip to Katmandu was too much I aimed for halfway . I wouldn't do that journey again : really bumpy road next to a cliff edge... taking 4.5 hours to drop 2000m to Trisuli Bazaar.
- So I made up a plan for Sunday to walk for 6 hours across the hills to knock 75% off the time and bends of the second part of the journey..
- Trisuli was nothing special, but much hotter cos of the low altitude. The first 6 restaurants I checked only sold dahl baht. I walked cross the river through an old historic street which seemed it should end in a big temple, but didn't. Then walked 4Km upto a village ... nothing special really.
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Sunday
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- Left at 6 - walked 1 hour along the road reaching a path through the fields to Malakot , then through a flood plain of harvested paddy fields for an hour to a river with no bridge, apparently it had been swept away in the rains. The water was waist high so I paid a villager to carry my backpack across whilst I carried my other bag .... I took tea at Malacot at 8am. - A student guided me along the river halfway to Dhanabani. I got there at 9.45 and took tea again. I met a local teacher and ended up wasting 2 hours trying to fix a virus on their computer.
- My map was a bit crap so went up the wrong side of the valley, a shepherd pointed me in the right direction. By going around I had escaped having to go to the very top of the hill and down, and got straight to a dust road, so I hoped the path would soon come out, but it went on and on. I got to a village called Chataralle at 2pm. - The track zig zagged up the ridge, but a schoolboy showed me how to take the steep shortcuts. Then more shortcuts for another hour through the forest to the top .. No! another bloody false top .. the real top seemed be getting further away.. I gave up thinking and just plodded up from false top to false top. Surely I have reached Ranipaur which my map said was 3Km before the main road, but no my map was wrong again. Suddenly there were concrete buildings and a hill road and only 250m further the main road. It was 4pm. I managed to get the day's last bus down to the Kathmandu valley. Surprisingly even though 4-5 storey buildings are crammed in the valley it still has farmland. - Only 1 hour down to the suburb of Balaju, but I had to transfer to another minibus which took 2 hours to get through the traffic jams to the downtown.
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