The Trek

Trek 021
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Well, I came back to Kathmandu this morning and have managed to upload photos and get all caught up. So let me tell you about the "trek".

Sarita (the owner of Happy Home Guest House) set me up with a local trekking guide who costs $5/day. On Monday morning, he picked me up at the guest house and we walked over to the bus park to catch our bus out of town. It was way too easy.

You see, the bus park is loaded with buses pointed every which direction. There is no rhyme or reason to where they are going and where they are parked. There is no information desk and no place to buy tickets. Instead, you pay a guy cash on the bus. You only know where a bus is going because of the guy standing in the doorway, hanging out yelling all of the stops in auctioneer style. These guys really know how to talk fast and they don't really speak English. Hence my previous problems with getting the right bus.

So we set off on a very crowded city bus (and the correct bus!). After about 2 hours, we arrived in some town where we had to change buses. We found the right bus and sat and waited until they deemed it full enough to get started (about an hour). Once we left, we headed up into the foothills on some very narrow, dicey roads. The scenery was incredible even if there were times it seemed like we were going off a cliff. About 2 hours later, we arrived at Nagarkot. This is a very sleepy town on a ridge with views of both the eastern and central Himalayas, depending upon which side of the ridge you are on. The town itself has a few homes, a few small cafes and restaurants, a school and, of course, lots of hotels. The hotels on the Everest side are pricey (and some cater to very wealthy tourists) and the hotels on the other side are pretty reasonable. We stayed at Hotel Himalaya Heart which was on the reasonable side.

After checking in, we walked around the town a bit and over to a viewpoint just over the ridge. This is where we were going to see Everest at sunrise. You see, it's still pretty cloudy even though the monsoon season is about over. I have yet to see the mountains except for my day 1 flight. This area gets fogged in at night, but in the morning, it clears around sunrise and the mountains can be seen for about an hour or so before the clouds roll back in. This was a promise that I heard from everyone, including the people at Nagarkot.

So at dinner, I was given some "local wine" to try. It was very clear and didn't smell like much. I got brave and took a sip. Funny, it tasted like room temperature sake. So I asked if it was made of rice and sure enough, it was. I was drinking sake moonshine in Nepal!

The next morning I awoke to fog, but this was expected. We set off to the viewpoint and waited. Every time it started to clear, it clouded or fogged right up again. We stood there for nearly an hour at which time we decided to check out, get our bags, and come back on our way down the trail. So we did. And we waited. And finally a local came by and said that it wasn't going to clear today. First time in 3 weeks. No view of the mountains and no Everest. Damn.

So we set off on our downward trek. We mostly followed what was a road before the monsoon season. It now needs to be rebuilt (something that happens annually) before it can be used again. We trekked alongside streams, past small waterfalls, by farm land, and through tiny villages. Whenever we walked through a village, the children would come out to wave. We stopped at one for some tea and watched the children play jump rope. One was wearing a Harry Potter t-shirt and this is when I heard at length how popular Harry is, even in Nepal. This was the first place where we saw marijuana growing next to the road. But not the last.

Eventually, we ended up at our destination -- Shankarapur. This is a small town near the bottom of the foothills. I had mentioned that I'd love to see some local life, so Sarita made sure that we stayed in a town that sees next to no tourists. It's a very poor town, but very classic Nepali. There are lots of temples, buildings that need help, a lot of farming and livestock raising, and a very colorful group of people. There are no hotels here, so we had to stay in a "guest house". Basically, we were in a building with 3 generations of a family. They have a small store and restaurant on the ground floor along with the kitchen and a common bathroom (squat toilet -- no shower or tub) and bedrooms going up about 4 stories. The accommodations were rustic at best. After seeing the place, I reminded myself that I've been out backpacking in Yosemite for much longer than this and didn't have a cot, roof, or squat toilet. This really wasn't that bad. It's all part of the adventure. Sadly, I saw two western tourists (I think they were German) get dropped off by a car a few hours later. They walked all over town trying to find a place to stay -- my place wasn't good enough. I actually saw the woman sitting on the side of the road crying. I just wanted to go out there, shake her and tell her to suck it up. It's only for a night and I think it's a good thing for us privileged folks to find out first hand how others live. But I didn't. Lately, I've been learning how to keep my big mouth shut.

Anyway, we had some lunch and set out to explore the town. This was done in less than 10 minutes. So we got ambitious and headed up the hillside past some monastaries to a temple. That was a bitch of a hike. We were both hating life and had to take some breaks. Some local children joined us and at the top we bought some apples and shared with them. There was a religious festival that day, so I wasn't allowed to take pictures of the temple up close. But the views from there were amazing. It was hard to believe that we went up that high in so short a time.

Then we went back to town and walked some more. By then most of the children had heard I was there and came to talk and get their picture taken. And there was the town drunk. He came right up to me and rambled on for about 5 minutes in Nepali. The guide told him that I didn't speak Nepali, but that didn't deter him. He kept slurring his words going on about something. Later, I was told that he was saying that his 3 sons won't look at him and his wife has locked him out of the house. I guess the man has issues. But listening to him was quite fun. I'm not sure why, but it was. We spent about an hour with the kids, watched as the festival approached town, but left when nothing much was really happening.

Then I was taken to a tea place where I was asked to sample the local beer. Beer! How nice! Not really. It was room temperature, home made, rice beer. Incredibly nasty. THE WORST THING EVER!!! There were laughs all around when I nearly choked and was trying so hard to be gracious and say that it was delicious.

We ate dinner with the family and then headed to bed as quick as we could. The sun goes down around 5:30 and the power goes out at 7:00. You would think that it would get nice and peaceful after that, but no. That's when the male dogs start chasing the female dogs trying to get some action. The female dogs want no part of it and there's massive dog fights ALL NIGHT LONG. So much for peaceful village life. I did manage to see two cats fighting. They were both gray tabbies. These are the first cats I've seen since Thailand unless you count the part of a cat head I think I may have seen in Jaisalmer, India.

We caught another bus back to Kathmandu very early this morning and I'm getting all my ducks in a row today (and sleeping). Tonight I go to the guide's house for dinner to meet his wife and 6 kids. That should be fun. Tomorrow morning, I'm off to Chitwan National Park for 2 nights followed by 3 nights at Pokara. The park is a package deal that Sangrita set me up with. It's $35/night and includes all transportation, all meals, room at a nice lodge and all of the park excursions that I care to fit in (elephant riding, rhino safari, white water rafting, etc.) Pokara is a town with several lakes and a Tibetan refugee camp at the start of the Annapurna Trek. I should have amazing views of the Himalayas from there, but not of Everest -- wrong part of the country. I'll have 4 more nights after that.

It's been suggested that I take an overnight flight to Lukla before I go. That's the town at the border of Everest National Park and is where the treks to base camp start. There's plenty of places to see the mountains there. Is it worth a $160 round trip flight? Remember, I have no job. Opinions?