Travels

I am now back in Thaiba after a brilliant 3 weeks of travelling, the highlights of which were reaching Annapurna Base Camp (4130m) as part of a 10-day trek, and bathing with elephants in Chitwan National Park.

The trek is a very well established tourist circuit, which depending on the route you choose, takes between 6 and 12 days. For those of you who know the area, we started in Nya pul, went to Poon Hill, through Chomrong up to Base Camp, and then on the way back walked through Landruk, finishing at Kande. This was meant to take us 10 days but for reasons explained below we surprisingly finished it in 9 …

For me, the best thing about the route was its variety. We trekked through terraced hillsides scattered with farms, the inhabitants of which seemed to take little notice of the constant stream of weary walkers. At other points we were enclosed in what is apparently the world’s largest rhoededendrum forest with amazingly massive trees. I’d never seen a rhodedendrum tree (rather than a bush) but Sarah assures me that they exist in Scotland as there is one in her garden! The bamboo forests were also brilliant, giving a sense of being in the wet, damp tropics whilst at over 2500m – bizarre! And of course, the amazing alpine dessert surroundings as we were nearing base camp were phenomenal. The sense of being so close to these brilliantly beautiful mountains, and yet in reality being so far away as they towered another 4000m above us.

We encountered many large organised trekking groups on our way, some with at least 15 people in them – all total strangers before embarking on their journey to ABC (Annapurna Base Camp). We also met a few hardy souls who were completing the challenge entirely alone, with no companions and neither porter nor guide. We were in the middle of the bunch, having decided to hire a guide and a porter but otherwise do it independently, allowing us the freedom to adapt our own itinerary and stop for extra long tea breaks if we so wished. I was pretty pleased with our choice generally although I didn’t get all the local and cultural information I’d hoped for from our guide …

In general our days consisted of between 4 and 7 hours of walking and a massive variety of seemingly never-ending ascents and descents. We stayed in tea houses which on the ABC trek are guesthouses providing varying degrees of comfort. The higher you got, the more basic they became, but nonetheless, we always had a room to ourselves, even if it was shielded from the room next door only with a very thin piece of badly fitted ply-wood! The food on the other hand was amazingly tasty. The menus were pretty standardised – apparently because the park authorities set them and then teach the owners how to cook the items! Pancakes with either apple or bananna, accompanied by milk tea proved to be our morning favourite. This was followed by veg noodle soup with chapatti at lunch and then some form of pasta, rice or even pizza for dinner!

The final ascent to ABC was absolutely fantastic. Having left our big bag at Machhapuchhre (Fishtail Mountain) Base Camp (3700m), allowing us to climb freely to Annapurna without necessitating an unnecessarily cold night at such altitude. Unfortunately, the cloud was already surrounding Annapurna long before we reached the base camp but the views backwards to Fish Tail were astounding. My only other real experience of mountains at such close distance has been in the Alps, but I’ve never seen glaciers hanging off cliffs in such dramatic fashions before. Astounding is the word. Also totally inspirational – I definitely want to return to Nepal to at least do some trekking peaks in the future. If my climbing becomes more serious you never know …

On reaching ABC, we had lunch and wandered along the boulders above the camp where there are rather eery prayer-flags (a Buddhist tradition) flapping in the wind. They are interspersed with plaques commemorating climbers who have tragically lost their lives on the surrounding peaks. A definite reminder of the dangers of nature.

Because I hadn’t seen Base Camp in its full glory (and because I’m me …) I resolved to walk the 1 ½ hours from MBC back to ABC in the morning. Thus at 5am, I was ready with headtorch and wrapped in all the clothes I possessed. Dawa, our guide kindly accompanied me, as did Sarah in the end, although originally she had thought the idea to be madness! The views as the rising sun tinted the mountains to a reddish colour was reward enough.

Our descent back down the trail took only 3 days. One of the highlights was definitely the hotsprings at Jhinudanda, where two pools of different temperatures were filled with naturally heated water. Ideally placed beside the rushing Himalayan river, we discovered the amazingly refreshing experience of plunging into the freezing cold water and quickly retreating back into the hot-springs. You couldn’t ask for better after 8 days of walking!

The end to our trek was rather unexpectedly cut short on our penultimate day. Lazing about our final teahouse at 4pm, having napped and showered, Dawa (our guide) discovered that there were to be Maoist strikes in Pokhra for the next two days, meaning no public transport at all. Not only did this mean that our guide and porter wouldn’t be able to travel back to Kathmandu but also that there would be no taxis to meet us at the trail head, meaning a 5 hour walk back to Pokhra. We thus quickly re-packed our bags and hit the trail again, taking a shorter route to the road, from where we reached Pokhra by taxi by 7pm. Shattered.

We then spent a few days relaxing in Pokhra, where in true Blackshaw style, hired a bike and had a good explore of Pokhra. (This involved me finding myself in the middle of a Maoist march – they all had their hammer & sickle flags!) Leaving Sarah in Pokhra to do some uni work, I then went for 2 days rafting on the Trisuli river which was great fun! I managed to stay in the raft for most of the time (excluding multiple voluntary swims), although I got chucked out in some rather large rapids but, adopting the ‘white water’ position I found myself in the calm water at the bottom of the rapids without too much bother.

I then met Sarah in Chitwan National Park in the south of Nepal where it is BOILING! Literally sweating lying in bed with as few clothes as possible, trying not to move. Eugh! Anyway, we still had a great time with activities including canoeing in a crocodile infested river (I was assured it was safe!), walking through the jungle, meeting a sleeping rhino, and being told in an urgent whisper to run away as quietly as possible so as not to wake him … Apparently if you are being chased by a rhino, you need to run in zig-zags so as to confuse him and to climb a high tree … Great advice!

On the first afternoon we went of a jeep safari during which the monsoon made its first appearance and we got absolutely drenched! Went from uncontrollable sweating to shivering and rubbing my sore arms (from the hard rain and strong wind) within a few hours. Not been so wet unintentionally for a LONG time.

I then took part in the elephant bath time in the river – AMAZING! The elephant kneeled done for me to get onto its bare back and it then starting spraying itself (and me from its trunk. Its hair was so funny – almost like wire! Trully beautiful animals :)

Our journey back to Kathmandu yesterday was the only really stressful part of our whole 3 weeks. With Sarah flying back to the UK on Monday, we went to check our bus tickets for Saturday on Friday night, only to be told that there were no buses because of Maoist demonstrations in Kathmandu (3 million people to mark International Labour Day). The likelihood of ‘indefinite strikes’ if the Prime Minister didn’t stand down (look at www.myrepublica.com for details of situation) meant that we wouldn’t get a bus on Sunday either. Panic ensued, especially on Sarah’s part, but fortunately we managed to organise a flight back to Kathmandu. Taxis were fine once we got to the airport so all is well.

I am now in Thaiba (ie a small village) with no possibility of going anywhere because a Maoist strikes mean absolutely no transport – no taxis, no buses! Sarah has apparently been told that she might have to be taken to the airport in an ambulance tomorrow! Madness. I’m going to write more about the strike and the whole political situation sometime soon. I will also upload photos once I can get to Kathmandu.

Enjoy free access to transport!

XXxx