24th – 25th – Monkeying around and going home

A couple would be staying a few days so they changed to a different hotel (which turned out to be the neighbor of our current). Most of the rest of us met up at 0730 to go for breakfast followed by having a walk in a nearby garden and we returned to the hotel at around 1100 as latest checkout was at 1200. One would stay another night so we used his room for storage if we would be leaving later during the day. We bumped into two who were leaving for a different hotel the next few days so goodbyes were also said then.

One in the group received a message form our assistant guide, once again thanking for a good trip and for the birthday celebration/cake which he had never had before.

In the afternoon we (we were down to 5 from 14 after numerous goodbyes) walked to the monkey temple. The temple was nice enough – with damages from the earthquake – but the real attraction was the many, nay monkeys roaming around. A girl in the group got so baffled/surprised by one getting close and hissing at her that she threw was she could to distract it. In one hand she had a water bottle, in the other her wallet. She did not throw the bottle. It got grabbed and taken behind a tall fence, and after several monkeys had chewed on it for a couple of minutes they left it alone. Another member of the group crawled over the (very) pointy fence to retrieve it. Our hero! We quickly found out that if you weren’t carrying a bag or smelled of food, the monkeys couldn’t care less about you. Chaos might have occurred, vicious fights might have broken out but never did they touch humans though they did get very close at times.

Coming back to the hotel at 1740 I grabbed the taxi that was to pick me up to the airport at 1800, final goodbyes were had and that was it.

The flight home via Doha was on time so I was looking forward to some more time in a hotel room as when going out. Unfortunately there was no room in the airport hotel so I was put into one of the city’s instead. Unfortunately all queues to get out of the airport (accommodation service, passport control, security…) were long and slow. Employees had no rush. Wait for the bus to the hotel also took a bit too long. All this meant that the stay in the hotel was less than 4 hours in total, 3 hours sleep. It felt fancy getting a key for the 7^th floor, but I was put down a couple of notches when entering the elevator and seeing there were close to 30 floors. 3 hours was not satisfactory but 3 hours in an amazingly comfortable bed is still better than only getting sleep on a flight. Also disappointing is it that the airline doesn’t have some system to get their overnighters out in an effective way from the airport to optimize the hotel stay. On the other had in this case it likely wouldn’t have helped considering it seemed as if half the airport was walking around with hotel vouchers.

After Doha though the rest of the flight was smooth and on time.

Big thanks to Bob, Alison, Frances, Daniel, Gerrard, Katie, Nick, Kylie, Sylvia, Tanja, Tina, Connie and Silvan for being such great people. Thanks to Puspa and Maski for being great guides. Thanks to all for making this trip memorable. Hope we all get to meet each other again!

The wallet being tested for edibility.

"There aren't many monkeys at the temple". 

Cue a herd come running down the stairs up to the temple.

Kathmandu seen from the monkey temple.

The stupa at the temple.

The view when walking through Kathmandu back to the hotel.

23rd – Return to Kathmandu (Pokhara (820m) – Kathmandu (1400m))

We left Pokhara at 0830-ish with a short comment from our guide informing us that he got word from the assistant guide and porters thanking us once again for our company.

The drive was quite long – 7-7½ hours – but there was plenty of room in the bus this time se we could relax. We ended up having lunch at the place where we had breakfast on the way out. We received the food within 10-15 minutes and they even apologized for the wait – this was by far the shortest we ever had to wait for the our food on the trip!

Arriving at our hotel in Kathmandu we had a couple of hours before meeting for dinner. This was spent on showering (Woo! Hot water!), repacking everything, wifi and nothing.

The restaurant was minutes’ walk away and upon entering I immediately got the feeling that we were underdressed. The place was fancy – Kilroy’s in Kathmandu – the chef had cooked for several equally fancy people and the food was lived up to the expectations set when entering.

Having had an amazing dinner we returned to the hotel, said our goodbyes to our guide and my roommate as he will be leaving before 0600 tomorrow morning. Some of us went to find a place to have a quick drink but at around 2200 everything seems to close so we ended up with just a short walk before returning to the hotel instead.

22nd – The beginning of the end (Birethanti (1025m) – Pokhara (820m))

Morning routine was as usual except for the fact that breakfast wasn’t until 0830. Departing we started the day with a short half an hour walk which brought us through the village we were staying in and getting us to the bus stop where our private bus was already waiting for us. At 1130 we arrived at our hotel in Pokhara after a mostly paved drive.

Despite it being Sunday most children seemed to be on their way to school while we were passing through; wearing school uniforms and all walking in the same direction gave it away.

On arrival in Pokhara we were given an hour to get our rooms and to a nearby ATM if necessary before saying goodbye to the assistant guide and porters and handing over their tips. We also had complete group photos taken; while going through the cameras an elderly local man came by and wanted to join in the photo and it was very difficult to make him understand we weren’t interested in having him there – even when our guide took hold of him and led him to the other side of the street. At one point he claimed “I like all foreign countries! Except India!” but it would end up being nearly impossible convincing him we were Indians in an attempt to leave us alone.

During the one hour our guide had fed the porters and assistant guide and after the photo session we said our final goodbyes.

Until meeting for dinner at the hotel at 1830 we had a free schedule and most of us went out for lunch nearby followed by spending an hour on rental boats on Pokhara lake. Having a short walk around in the neighborhood we ended up in a bar with drinks and card games.

Dinner was nice (when our guide talked about the restaurant for dinner we all heard the name “Rambo”. We found out when arriving that that was heard wrong; the name was “Rainbow”) and we ended the night at a bar/nightclub. It was weird being the tall one; standing next to the dance floor I could only see a layer of heads jumping up and down. Much fun and drunkenness was had.

Being watched when going through the village.

A quick look of the mountains just after leaving Birethanti.

View from the boats.

The group before saying goodbye to the porters and assistant guide.

You can just see the shadow from the old local guy to the right.

21st – Monkey business (Ghorepani (2870m) – Poon Hill (3200m) – Birethanti (1025m))

We woke up at 0500 for a quick getting dressed and a cup of tea before leaving half an hour later to get to the top of Poon Hill to see the sunrise and surrounding mountains. The 400m climb was done in 35(!) minutes. While still arriving 20-25 minutes before the actual sunrise (around 0630) the view was still worthwhile. As it got brighter a window of app. 5-10 minutes came and went where the mountains got a nice red glow. It was quite beautiful and worth the walk. The top, while large and open, ended up being crowded from the masses that had arrived for the sunrise. Walked back down to pack and have breakfast at the teahouse and we left the place at around 0900 to get to Birethanti, a 7-ish hour walk down.

Almost from the beginning we were walking through forest. I was walking behind the front of the group (4 + assistant guide) and we suddenly saw a group of monkeys playing around on the path. Before I had time to react and getting hold of my camera the rest rushed ahead shouting “Monkey! Monkey!”, effectively scaring them away- Loving wildlife photography this bothered me – probably more than it should have. Also blaring music from their phones I got the impression that people cared more about getting down than actually enjoying the environment. In an attempt to cold down from this disappointment I held back and continued walking by myself enjoying the silence of the forest. Coming out into the open after two hours of walking we had a short tea break and feeling I had cooled down enough I joined the front group again. We continued steeply down steps almost all the way and around 1300 we had lunch. The break was longer than usual, mainly due to the kitchen’s speed (or rather lack of it), and afterwards we kept going and arrived in Birenthanti at around 1615.

As usual we got our rooms and this time all rooms had own toilet and shower. And the showers had hot water. VERY hot water. Score!

Tomorrow we will have a short ½ hour walk and an app. 2 hours’ drive before arriving in Pokhara before lunch where we will say goodbye to our porters and assistant guide. The day will otherwise be a rest day before driving for 7 hours back to Kathmandu the day after. It’s probably a good thing there is no more “real” walking left as we in the group have a few worn knees and ankles. People being worried and surprised by the 7 hour walk today surprises me; it seems people are surprised that walking in the Himalayas doesn’t require the occasional long day.

Sunrise from Poon Hill.

The mountain range seen from Poon hill during sunrise.

Walking through the nice and quiet forest.

Tea break.

20th – Being on point (Sikha (1935m) – Ghorepani (2870m))

Morning as usual; breakfast at 0730 and departure within an hour later. Today’s plan was to ascend app 900m to Ghorepani and a lot of the time was spent walking through forest so the sun wasn’t as bad as the previous days. But as the day had been estimated to 4 hours there was a certain steepness involved. My surprise was therefore big when realizing that the walk had only taken us 3 hours when arriving.

Lunch was had and room keys were handed out and with nothing else really planned our guide grabbed a couple of bows and arrows and took us to a shooting range minutes away. Having done archery quite a few years in the past it would be fun returning for a short moment to the discipline. The material was of quite a different level than the stuff I once used so getting used to it was half the trouble. The second half was not remembering the techniques. People did seem to appreciate the tips I had to handle the equipment so some good did seem to come from it.

Coming back to the teahouse we were given lessons in how to make mo-mos. While they did end up tasting as they should it was a perfect example of a situation to apply the saying “Don’t judge on the looks”.

Our assistant guide had his birthday today so we (the group) got together to get him a cake. He (all locals, really) don’t really celebrate birthday so when he saw the cake with the candle he was visibly very happy and touched. He said he had never been given such attention on his birthday so overall it was a great success.

The views from today were often spiced with the presence of Dhaulagiri.

19th – There is no slaughter without laughter (Tatopani (1200m) – Sikha (1935m))

Breakfast was at 0730 and an hour later we were on our way to our next stop; Sikha, 700m higher. Like yesterday the trek was hard due to the heat and sun out in the open, the difference was that it didn’t take longer than 10-20 minutes before we were cooking.

At some point we had a break at a pace where they were serving slices of a huge cucumber. I have never seen one this big; the radius of it was close to that of a watermelon at home.

Around half an hour later at 1230 we arrived at our new teahouse. One from the group left/forgot his camera behind at the cucumber place which our guide picked up. As he (the forgetful one) was one of the first to depart the place we were several who saw what happened. Despite the multiple comments from us along the way containing multiple instances of “photo” and “camera” he never took the bait, and it wasn’t until we had been sitting for 10-15 minutes at the new place he noticed something was missing. Our guide started backtracking today’s walk with him until a few steps down the path where he wanted to show one of the others’ new camera….

In the afternoon two chickens were bought for the porters as a treat and we could watch them kill them, clean them, taking them apart and preparing the more unusual parts and eating them before they took the “real” meat with them into the kitchen for cooking. It was fun to watch. The unusual parts were basically put directly onto a small fire and were then charred before eating. I got to taste a small piece of charred head with salt; you couldn’t see it was the head due to the charring and it just tasted like salty charred fatty chicken.

Tomorrow we will ascend 900-ish meters, estimated same time as today.

A slice from the largest cucumber I have ever seen.

Hmmm... Let's take different route.

Charred salted piece of chicken head.

It didn't take long for two fully grown chickens to end up looking like this.

A small moth hanging out outside the dining room after dinner.

Dhaulagiri (8167m) seen from the teahouse during sunset.

18th – The hot tub (Ghasa (2010m) – Tatopani (1200m))

We had a late start with breakfast at 0730. This meant more than 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep which was very welcome. We departed an hour later and walked around 5 hours to get to Tatopani. The start was effortless and nice, but when the sun came out from behind the surrounding mountains it got very hot. The last part was though because of the heat, the walk itself wasn’t too bad.

Close to the end we bumped into what were probably the two most confused goats I have ever seen. They were walking around bleating at everything and nothing, seeming to be looking for something. They ended up following us until reaching Tatopani, stopping when we were stopping and standing close bleating, continuing when we were continuing, all while looking very confused. One of the weirder things I have seen.

At around 1330 we arrived at the hotel and had our lunch.

In the afternoon we went to the nearby hot spring. There were two pools; a warm/hot one and a hot/”oh shit it’s lava” one. We ended up staying a couple of hours in the less warm pool before returning for dinner. The altitude combined with the heat and not drinking enough during the surprisingly hot day made several of us quite lightheaded sitting submerged in the water. The very hot water was hard to get into; the body reacted the same way as if it was similarly cold. Strange experience.

That's spiderwebs in the bush.

Another lizard.

Soaking in the cold (less crazy hot) tub.

17th – The massage drive (Muktinath (3800m) – Ghasa (2010m))

Breakfast was at 0730 but some of us opted to meet at 0630 to go and see the town’s monastery. It’s a compound including both Hindu and Buddhist buildings and shrines. We started with the Hindu with tabs with holy water – 108 of them – which you’d use to either splash on your head for a blessing or fill a bottle with it. The Buddhist had two eternal flames going fueled by natural sulfur (which could be easily smelled in several places in and around the compound). We ended up waking up a small kid to come and unlock the door so we could get in and see them. To be honest the flames were less impressive than I had expected. Hadn’t it been as dark as it was inside the flames would hardly have been visible.

Two people in the group had had some bad chicken yesterday so they had been sick all night and struggled today. One of them was my roommate; waking up during the night I saw him perform probably the fastest exit from a sleeping bag I have ever seen. It was pretty impressing, despite the circumstances. We were supposed to leave by vehicle but when being time for leaving we were missing a jeep or finding a bus instead. After an hour or so we were informed that a bus had been located at the bus station so after a short walk we entered a very rundown bus with barely enough room for all of us. I managed to find a seat in the back with very little leg room which wasn’t improved by the seat not stuck to the frame which meant it tended to slide forward. The roads’ conditions were… hell. Or rather; roads didn’t really seem to exist, instead it seemed the driver just drove where other had driven before. After a very bumpy 1-1½ hour drive leaving my left knee ruined we reached Jomsom where we had lunch. After this we boarded another bus – in a much better state – where I managed to get two seats so I could survive without having any limbs worn down.

After a just a bumpy – but more comfortable – 2 hour drive we arrived in Ghasa and today’s teahouse.

The holy water.

Mountain range outside Muktinath. Dhaulagiri (8167m) can be seen to the left.

Would you feel comfortable stepping into this bus?