The Annapurna Trek
Trip Start
Oct 09, 2007
1
10
Trip End
Nov 30, 2007
Pokhara, Nepal
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
entry you might not hear from me for a few weeks but it's been three
months - whoops!
So, the Annapurna Trek. This was
something I had wanted to do since, well since I flicked through my
Nepal Lonely Planet while in Goa looking at what to do next. I'd never
heard of it but once the word Annapurna was in my vocabulary I heard it
again and again from other travellers who had done it or were about to
do it. My regret of not writing this up sooner is that this account
will not do the experience I had justice.
At the
slide show in Kathmandu I met an Aussie guy Glenn who was a bit older
that me but was also going to do the trek. We had a beer after the show
with the presenter and pretty much decided to do the trek together in a
few days time. I spent that time in Thamel (the backpacker district of
Kathmandu) gathering up the bits and pieces I would need for the trek.
That included a sleeping bag, a down jacket (for serious warmth on cold
nights), thermal underwear, gloves, a hat, iodine tablets (to purify
water) and several other items I would have failed to take had I not
done the slide show!
I met up with Glenn at 6am on the
first morning and we got a mini van to Besisahar where the trek began.
It was a tough five hour drive along the Kathmandu-Pokhara road. As the main road in the country you would think it would at least be a dual carriageway
or something! In fact it was a windy road following rivers and had
crazy lorry drivers and crazier minibus drivers. We saw a few wrecks on
the way and quickly realised road safety or the lack of it was a
serious problem here.
The last hour of the journey we
turned off the main road and the new menace was local children who were
stopping each vehicle with ropes straddling the road and demanding
money to pass. It was Diwali, the Hindu/Sikh festival of light, and stopping cars like this
was a festival tradition. Our driver was ready for this and had small
denomination notes to pay off the kids each time.
We arrived in
Besisahar and transferred into a jeep which took us along a mud road to
the start of the hike. We were in the the locals now and one woman
across from me was comforting a chicken who didn't like the bumpy drive
and much preferred having his head buried into the woman's lap. Glenn
and I elected to get out of the jeep about 10 minutes before our
arrival and walk the remainder since the ride was not fun at all!
That
10 minutes was the only walk we did on day one as we arrived at a tea
house around 4pm and dropped our bags and booked in for the night. It
was excellent to get out of the polluted Kathmandu and into the pure
Himalayan air. I enjoyed the last beer I would have for a few weeks here... sob.
The Annapurna trek is a 250km trek through the
Annapurna mountain range. Most people aim to do it 18 days or so and I
had an open mind about how long it would take me! The beauty of the
trek is the mixed landscapes and the local villages dotted along the
trail. There are no cars here. That jeep we just took would be the last
car I saw for weeks and that was a glorious thing. The first landscapes
are the sub-2000 metre altitude green slopes and rice fields. As the
days go on the land changes into rocky slopes and the trees start to
thin out. Then as you go above 3000 metres the snow topped mountains
dominate the sky and let you know you're at the top of the world.
Altitude
sickness is a very real problem on the trek. The high point of the trek
is the Thorung La Pass which at 5,500 metres is seriously high - two
thirds the height of Everest. You can't rush this trek, if you do
you'll get nausea, start very ill and if you don't descend quickly
could die. Plenty of people get sick like this and sadly several die
each year doing this trek. The thing you are told most of all is listen
to your body. If you're getting headaches, slow down. There is much
temptation to plod on regardless especially if you're in a group, but
that seems to be where most people get in to trouble - going on to
please the group. At 3500 metres, in one of the larger villages,
Manang, a charity group give daily lectures on this very subject. There
are doctors stationed here who look after people who fall ill but are
rightly more intent on preventing altitude sickness.
Each day
we would get up early, trek four hours or so before having an early
lunch around 11am then trek for another 2-4 hours before settling down
for the night at a tea house for the night. Many people had guides or
porters or both. Glenn and I just had ourselves and our guide books.
After a few days we would meet the same trekkers time and time again so
after a week or so we were operating as a group of eight. A Dutch
couple, Willem and Ramona, another Aussie Karl, An English guy called
Tariq, An American called August and his Canadian girlfriend Nathalie.
Then there was a nice older Scottish couple, the guy did the whole trek
in a kilt! The Aussie Karl was the tightest arse I have ever met. He ate once a day to save money and only drank stream water. When eating at the tea houses you are given extra portions until you refuse. Karl took the piss a bit here and what started as looking like a healthy appetite turned into eating with gusto, then the obscene. It was embarrassing watching these poor local people feeding this guy bucket fulls of rice. I clashed with Karl a few times and since I tend not to clash with people I can only say it was his fault. Other than that our group was an excellent one and it was a privilege to trek with them all.
Food was usually Dhal Bat. This is a simple national
dish of rice, lentils, chutney and the odd extra thrown in. It wasn't
particularly inspiring but nutritionally excellent for trekking. Prices
rose each day as all the ingredients had to be walked the increasing distances by porters.
Trekking gives employment all throughout the region but is not the only
activity here. It was amazing watching the local Nepalese getting on
with their lives. You would often walk past great trains of donkeys
doing the trail packed with supplies for the villages. Kids would be
selling mandarin oranges - they tasted great. There was a real feel
good factor along the trail. All the trekkers were friendly and the
locals very tolerant and welcoming to us. The tea houses usually had no
hot water (or pretty bad solar water set-ups) and huts or very simple wooden rooms to sleep in. There was
no heating and your water bottle would often start to ice up by morning
time. In the evenings the people staying in the tea house gathered
around the fire in the dining area and talked until 7.30pm. If you
weren't in bed by 8pm you were some sort of party animal!
The local people along the trail are a delight. This children have
nothing but are as smiling and friendly as you could imagine. I've had
some amazing insights into their lives on this trek. I've seen porters
carrying loads of 80-100 kgs, too much for me to even lift off the
ground. I saw one porter carrying a sackful of fresh meat that was
dripping blood all over the place. They walk bear foot, in all weathers
and from age 15-70. There are Buddhist features everywhere. There are
the monasteries, Mani walls, prayer wheels, prayer flags and white
stone monuments things called Chortons. You have to keep these on
your right as you go by in order to show respect. The villages go from
wooden shacks in the lower regions to medieval looking stone buildings
built to last in the desperately cold winters. They burn wood, or yak
dung or anything to keep warm but since there are no trees higher up
wood has to be lugged up by porters too.
I
got Giardia. This is a nasty little bug that gives you the runs and
more alarmingly really stinky eggy belches. This bug seems immune to
our water purification tablets and I wasn't the only person to get it.
Fortunately someone's guide had the one-dose treatment for it and I was
good to go after a day or two.
The Maoists hit us at around
2500 metres on about day four. They are a political group who are
trying to get legitimate involvement in the Nepalese parliament. I
think they are no better than terrorists. They come to the treks to
extort money out of tourists. The cash they take goes not into pushing
forward their political goals but on gambling and alcohol. Admittedly I
would spend it on those things too but hey I'm the one who earned it!
We argued with them for a while but knew there was no point risking
things getting ugly. Eventually we handed over about 10 pounds each and
went on our way.
The Annapurna circuit is a loop. At halfway
comes the Thorung La pass which is also the highest point on the trek
and the thing everyone is talking about in the days preceding it. A few
days before I was due to attempt it I started getting knee problems.
This was really common and I was able to get enough ibuprofen to stop
the pain if not the inflammation. We were at a place called Manang -
where they do the altitude lectures and I decided it would be better if
I spent an extra day there before continuing. This would also help me
acclimatise to the thinner air. Glenn was happy to do the same as it
meant he could go explore some local Buddhist points of interest while
I sat in the tea house all day reading.
That delay meant that
Tariq was a full day ahead of us and by the time we got to Thorung
Phedi (a tiny outpost you stay at before doing the pass) he was going
over the pass himself. That afternoon we saw him return and looking
completely broken. He was being helped down the path by some other
trekkers and literally fell into a room where he slept for hours. He
had been just 200 metres from the pass when he starting being violently
sick and did the right thing in coming straight down. During that
evening I took him tea and soup and kept an eye on him. There was no
way he was going to be able to go over the following day with our
little group so his only option was to go back the way he came. I
decided I would accompany him as it seemed he needed help especially if
he was recovering from altitude sickness.
I didn't want to miss
out on the pass though, so the following morning I got up at 5am with
Glenn, Willem, Ramona, August and Nathalie and we set off over the
pass. It was first light and the path was visible. Hours earlier other
trekkers had gone up in darkness with only torch light. This was
because today is easily the most demanding of the trek and people worry
that they won't get over the pass and down the other side by night
fall. Unlucky for them I think since they missed some of the best
sights of the trek. About half an hour after we started Nathalie and
August were already far behind and had stopped and we got concerned
about them. August shouted up to us that they were turning back so we
were down to four! We were walking through snow at this point and it
feeling like proper mountaineers. In all fairness that's what we were
for a few hours at least - only mountaineers would ever be this high
up. The reasonable pace we had set in the days leading up to this paid
dividends as I was feeling good. We were taking it slow and enjoying
the majesty of it all. At around 10am we reached the summit and it was
a glorious thing to be up there having talked about this point for two
weeks solid! There was a total sense of achievement and I loved it. I
had trekked without my main pack for the last few hours so probably
enjoyed it a bit more than the others. I had left my main pack down at
Thorung Phedi with Tariq so it was time for me to say goodbye to Glenn,
Willem and Ramona and head back the way I had come.
It was a
shame I didn't do the whole loop but I didn't regret anything. As I
descended I passed people who were on their final ascent and it was
great to tell them how close they were to the top. I passed
the kilted Scotsman and to my delight August and Nathalie had rest ed briefly at Thorung Phedi and decided to give it another go. They were in
much better shape now and completed the pass no problem. Back at the
tea house I went and discussed the next few days plan with Tariq. We
would spend four days trekking back the way we came to an air-strip at
Homde. There we would hustle our way on to a plane and fly into Pokhara
and get there in time to meet the others. Tariq got his strength back
after a couple of days and became certain that it was probably a
stomach infection and not altitude sickness that had caused his
trouble. Still, he did the right thing by coming down and not ascending
higher because we were told to always assume it is altitude sickness
and err on the side of caution.
Walking back the way we came was just as awesome as one the way up. The
views are mind-blowing and I feel lucky to have seen them twice now! We
got to Homde after some serious trekking - 30 kilometers on one day. We
were gutted to find out there were no seats to Pokhara. There are only
three flights a week and they were all booked taking locals down
to spend winter in the larger towns. That meant Tariq and I had to trek another
four or five days back to the complete start of our trek! Oh man that
idea took some getting used to. Still, stiff upper lip as we continued on
down. This fast descending was having two effects on me. Firstly the
extra oxygen in the air is like a having a high energy caffeine drink
every half an hour! Secondly, my knees were having a torrid time.
We eventually got to a road and got a rocky four-hour jeep ride back to
Besisahar. Besisahar is a crappy little town but to us it was like a
return to civilization! We got a hot shower and even had a TV in our
hotel room! We spent the night recovering and caught a five hour local
bus back to Pokhara the following morning.
Pokhara was a new town for me - very pleasant place with plenty of good
restaurants to while away the days. I caught up with Glenn, Willem,
Ramona, August and Nathalie and we spent time together going over the
previous three weeks over beers.
It's been a truly amazing experience. I'm sorry my blog entry has been
a bit long and windy and not entirely in correct chronological order.
Now have a look at my photos and see I wasn't lying about the views!
One last thing, Glenn, Willem, Ramona and I all took a bus back to Kathmandu from Pokhara. That journey was supposed to be five hours but ended up being thirteen. Somewhere along the line a child had been killed by a truck and the locals were arguing with the driver about compensation. They set up a road block and did not let anyone pass until the situation was resolved. We didn't know whether we would get back that night and heard further along the queuing traffic some people had already spent a night waiting in their cars. We were relieved when the traffic finally started to move - I had a flight back to India the next morning and then a following flight back to London - which is where this blog finishes.
