Kathmandu!

Well there are two options for going from Pokhara to kathmandu.  The first is to fly. A bit more expensive but about a 20 minute flight.  The second is a bus in varying states of mechanical distress.  I chose option 2 as a way to see the "sights"!  

This was my chariot for 8 hours...

The distance by road is approximately 100 miles and it took all of 8 hours...check that off of the bucket list of things I never have to do again. 

Always interesting people though.  I sat next to a really nice guy from Belgium who quit his job and hitchhiked from Belgium to Nepal over the course of 6 months and was trekking in Nepal.  Nice guys with lots of good stories.  His best quote "bad ideas usually result in great stories."  So true.

This bus was palatial compared to many others

So back in Kathmandu the chaos never rests and you are immediately thrown right back into a dizzying amount of pollution, animals, vehicles etc.  There are no stop lights, no traffic circles etc.  at main intersections, cars just sort of go in a well choreographed zipper like dance.  As a non local you swear your going to hit something or someone but rarely have I seen it happen.  Although it is interesting to note that 40% of all traffic fatalities in Nepal are accidents involving pedestrians.  Look both ways and remember they drive on the opposite side as we do in the US.

The festival of Dasain had just finished a week prior and the day I flew out was the first of the 5 day Tihar festival which is a celebration of animals and family.  The whole city lights up with what we would call Christmas lights which is really cool.

I spent my last day and half visiting some temples, and doing some last minute shopping and just taking it all in.

An awesome guy in the Thamel touristy area that actually remembered me from last year and asked where the travel monkey was!

Durbar square.

Powder colors for celebrating the festival.

An alter space built into a very old tree.

The monkey temple with a great, albeit smoggy, view over the city.

Antique bikes turned mobile fresh produce store.  They are all over and some even make smoothies.

Next: the journey home.

Homeward bound

So the trip back retraces the same steps as the way to Nepal.  I headed the airport at 8:00pm for my 11:30 flight.  Last time it took over 2 hours to clear Nepal immigration and exit stuff.  This time it took all of about 10 minutes.  Go figure.

Just cleared security.  

Kathmandu airport has all the charm of a World War II pow camp.

Shared part of my sandwich with this hungry feline at the gate prior to boarding.  Never a dull moment in Nepal

 So after a 6 hour flight to Doha from Kathmandu, a six hour layover in Doha, a 15 hour flight from Doha to Chicago, a 2 hour layover, and a 90 minute flight to Minneapolis I was home at 6:30pm on Saturday night!  

777 from Doha to Chicago. 

Can't even explain how good it felt to be back and hug Cathy and the girls.  It's amazing to go to far away places but even better to come back to the cherished ones.

Thank you for reading the blog.  I had fun writing it.  

Pokhara for a few

To Pokhara and a relative sense of civilization that has alluded me over the last couple of weeks.

Pokhara is a decent size town on the Fewa lake about 7 hours west of Kathmandu.

It seems to be either a jumping off point or finishing point for most treks and rafting expeditions in this part of the country.

Lots of shops, restaurants, and bars.  Not to mention warm water and a long awaited shower that felt soooo good.

A typical meal of dal baht I has for lunch 

First cofee in most 3 weeks

A well deserved frosty cold one or five post trek.

So over the course of the next two days I had the good fortune to hook up with a group of Belgium peeps to do a day of white water rafting on the upper Seti river (hopefully some good pictures to follow upon my return home) and then am amazing 45 minutes of paragliding off of one of the nearby peaks and going up over Pokhara and then over the lake. 

Towards the end my pilot  asked if I was interested in doing some tricks.  What the heck.  We proceeded to do some crazy crock screw turns and barrel rolls.  Amazing and stomach turning.  

More pics to follow upon my return home.

View from hotel room

Next:  I'm going to Kathmandu...

Ghoropani ~ Poon Hill at sunrise ~ New Bryss

A 4:15 wake up to get geared up for the hour trek to the top of Poon Hill.  The weather was a bit clouded in last night when we arrived,  but the weather gods were kind this AM.

It was cold but certainly manageable from a point of reference. Probably around 25 or 30 degrees. 

This particular area gets a lot of travel as it's possible to wrap it into a quick 3 or 4 day trek from Kathmandu.  So it made for a crowded hike up.  

We started up around 5 o'clock so we could make sure that we were at the top for sunrise.

It typically takes roughly an hour to climb the 500 meters but as we're were pretty well acclimatized, we were up in about 35 minutes and passed a slew of people in the dark.  

At the top there ws an very enterprising local selling hot tea which we took full advantage of.

To say the sunrise and views were unbelievable  would be a massive understatement.

The suns rays just starting to crack the horizon.

Over the course of the next 45 minutes the skies lit up in all shades of blues, oranges, yellows, and red.  Amazing.

Over looking parts of the Annupurna circuit valley at sunrise.  

Annapurna in the background - 10th tallest peak in the world.  

Poon is the name of a caste of people in Nepal.  

Dhulageri; the worlds 7th tallest peak

Got a slew of photos with my guide Kewal and my porter Sujan.  Lots of laughs were had then it was down back tea house for breakfast,  porridge and toast which apparently pegged me as American to a Spanish girl who thought all Americans eat porridge?!?

After breakfast we hit the trail which with few exceptions was downhill and a major quad killer.  Imagine going down stairs for 4 hours straight but then replace nice evenly spaced stairs with boulders/rocks/pebbles/loose scree that is slippery and throw in a little mule poop and you've got an exciting and exhuasting couple of hours. 

The views were also spectacular on the way down as we followed a strong flowing river most of the way.

Net fishing for salmon in the river.

We reached the trailhead in New Bryss at around 4:00pm and grabbed a jeep to Pokhara, a great lakeside town about two hours away.

A common site: the jeep 4x4 to get around some really rough terrain.

Next: Fun in Pokhara

Tattopani to Ghoropani

A beautiful morning opened up before us and after a bowl of porridge we were on the trail.  This was to be an uphill day as we took back a lot of the down we gave up yesterday.  A total of almost 2,000 meters of climbing by days end with still sore legs from the relentless down from the pass.

The last view of the Kali river that morning 

This day was all up but the views were unforgettable and the the tiny villages we traversed were incredible.

Cute kids at the top of one of the steep sections selling apples for 2 cents

Great views from the ridges above the deep valleys

This is the time if year a lot of crops are being harvested so there was a lot of work going on

More fields

Drying out herbs and onions at our lunch stop 

At various points around the Annapurna circuit there are checkpoints to keep track of where Trekkers are at and to insure fees have been paid.

So we rolled into Ghorapani around 8 hours after our departure to pretty cloudy skies.  This was a bad sign, as the main reason for coming to Ghoropani is to make a predawn hour long, 500 meter hike up to the Poon Hill look out.  Also, my guide Kewal made a 100% guarantee that it would be clear or I could "ice hammer" his quads as were both still walking a bit gingerly from the previous days endeavors. 

A quick run to a bakery for some wifi to update and it was to bed for a 4:30 am wake up.

Home sweet home in Ghoropani.

Next:  Ghoropani to New Brys/Pokhara (the trailhead)

Jomsom to Tattopani

Jomsom is a dusty and windy mountain outpost that has a smallish landing strip that has flights to Pokhara (a lakeside city 7 hours west of Kathmandu) but they only fly until about 10 in the morning due to the extreme winds after that.

A flight to Pokhara takes about 25 minutes.  To 'drive' it means a combination of 4x4, sketchy buses and police checkpoints that can easily take up to 2 days. Our plan was to take a local (read insane) bus ride from Jomsom to Ghasa to skip a really bad trail section and then foot it the rest of the way to Tattopani.  The bus had seats for 32 and we had 46 including 4 on the roof.  

Me controlling the anxiety of a packed bus with zero ability to move much less exit 

Local bus travel

We had a 30 minute stop for a hand pump refuel of diesel from a 25 gallon can

Anyway,  we got to Ghasa in one piece in about 4 hours (32 miles) and had an awesome lunch and hit the trail.

Guesthouse in Ghasa stop for lunch.

The next 6 houra were a nice hike to Tattopani.  Almost the entire route was directly next to the Kali Ghadeki river which is as beautiful as it is loud due to its rapids.  It goes through some of the deepest gorges in the world.  In mind i hiked that part with Callie, as the river's name was Kali.

A couple if great Kali river pictures 

Quite possibly the best sign ever.

We arrived in Tattopani around 4 and at 5 we hiked the extra 10 minutes and hit the natural hot springs that are there.  Mother natures hot tub.  They were over 100 degrees and felt amazing asy quads were still sore from the prior days huge descent.

Sleep came easy this night.

Next:  Tattopani to Ghorapani

Over the pass!

Sleeping at 15k feet is not the easiest to say the least.  You are cocooned in your sleeping bag, full clothes sans boots and ready to go for the early morning wake up and it's hovering around zero.  

I called it a night at around 7.  I fell asleep watching a Breaking Bad episode and woke up to what I thought would be something close to the 4:30am alarm,  only to look at my watch and find out it was 10:15pm...a long night just got longer.

So a 4:30 wake up followed by a 4:45 breakfast of porridge and bread with a side of cliff bar (chocolate chip for those keeping score) and we were on the trail by 5:00.  

The moon was just past full so the amount of ambient light was nice but headlamps and full out down gear to stay warm was needed.  About an hour in there is a little hut that we stopped at for tea just as the sun was starting to rise behind the mountains.

View of sunrise from the tea hut.

The trail was straight forward but also straight up.  Once the sun finally cast it's warm rays around 7:30 and we reached the top of the pass at around 9:15.  

My guide and friend Kewal

Flat Mr Roberts and travel monkey make it to the top of the pass at 17,800 feet.

Much fanfare, high fives and struggles for a deep breath and photos and after about 25 minutes at 25 degrees we were ready to hit the trail down.  

One typically forgets about the trip down when being focused on staying healthy and getting to the top.  This was a big mistake as the distance on the down was pretty big.  

Going up the pass was a gain of about 900 meters and 3.5 hours.  Going down was 5 hours and a drop of almost 1,700 meters and it hurt.  A massive quad killer.  Still walking a little gingerly from it.

A shot from my boots perspective and I was totally gassed.

A view of the other side of the pass down in to the Mustang valley

We finally arrived in the village Muktinath at roughly 3:30 for a late lunch and a quick jeep ride not for the feint of heart to  the town of Jomsom.

This jeep carries 12 passengers and the driver with gear on top.  My head still hurts from being slammed repeatedly on the roof.  

Not happy face.  Can't feel my quads and my feet were screaming after being on them for pretty much 12 hours.

Jomsom to Tattopani next