Trekking around the Annapurnas - some notes, a kind of diary (part1)

As requested by a certain – I quote „biker bitch“ - I took some notes during my trek around the Annapurnas, to write a day to day report, something resembling a diary. So, here it is, an 100% objective, neutral report on my 12 days of trekking.

17-02: Pokhara to Nayapol to Sudame

Start into the adventure. Amelia, my faithful, trusted and longtime travel companion and I finally arrive in the Annapurna Conservation Area. A little bit late. Just a little bit – around the time you usually start looking for accommodation for the night. But this happens if someone from your team still has to get some gear the day of departure ans there´s real coffee available. And if this travel companion is by now several 100 km away, you also get to read this. Anyhow, by afternoon we started or ride in an aged local bus from Pokhara to Nayapul, on a narrow, bumpy street, winding up the mountain. Well, hill. In Nepal, Poon Hill at 3200m of altitude is still considered a hill. Mountains are something else here. The ride was curvaceous. Crazy. Fun.

Finally, after more than two hours in the bus – not exactly the very definition of fast – we arrived

in Nayapol, to start the trekking. Not that we did get very far – in Sudame we found a nice guest house, covered with flowers, where we spent the night.

My stomach is still upset from the food poisoning, but at least I don´t tremble anymore. And it is my body, so I set the rules. Not that it gets strange ideas, like having a say. So, light food and bathroom visits. And going trekking.

18-02: Sudame to Nangethanti

First real, full trekking day. We still have to get into the rhythm, we start rather later, enjoying breakfast. Well, we, but my stomach not so much. He strongly disagrees with some of the foods and drinks, sending them back just a little bit later. Not that this would stop me.

The first part of the trek, until crossing the bridge at Tikhedhunga is nice and gentle, walking into the Valley, past traditional farms surrounded by terraces and through villages catering for tourists´ needs. Then, the trails becomes unforgiving. Thousands of steep, irregular, merciless stone steps uphill. No shadow but by a very few, lonely trees. We´re talking noon. Hell noon. The steps seem endless. And the son quite comfortable at shining with all its power. Survival of the fittest. So we walked. Climbed. Just continued. Looking at one of pictures I took – but are not allowed to publish – my sympathy ratings were at a historical low and my life expectation rapidly shrinking.

Finally, we reached Ulleri, the end of the steep steps. Relief – the worst is over. Everything that would follow for today would be comparatively gentle.

Amelia´s body is aching, legs and butt are hurting. But no real complains, and she moves on. First real trekking ever for her - and we´re on one of the most strenuous parts of the Annapurna trail. Pushes further.

The landscape changes, we´re now entering a lush, magic forest. It makes one think of Dwarfs and Elves, fairytale, Lord of the Ring. Thick underwood. Mighty trees covered with moose and lichen reaching into the sky. When the night falls in, a few hundred meters before Nangethanti, the place we planned to spend the night – well, we didn´t know we were that close – she reaches her physical limits. The body is mutinying. A little meltdown. But then, just a few minutes later, she moves on. Willpower and stubborness take over. That´s what I call a brave mountain girl and real achievement.

Myself, I still haven´t come to terms with my stomach and my digestive system, so it´s time for antibiotics. I don´t like to take them, but after almost 4 days, there´s no real choice.

Amelia´s point of view

When you´re travelling, besides exploring far away, new, strange countries, you meet people. Locals, fellow travellers. Sometimes, you´re like ships passing at night, sometimes you spend little time together and then, sometimes, rarely, you end up spending far more time together than you ever would have imagined. That´s what happened when I met Amelia outside the City Palace in Udaipur. It started with a simple “You want me to take a picture of you” and a invitation to dinner and then we travelled for more than two months  together. A longlasting travellcompanionship and to quote Casablanca “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” 

Beeeing famously lazy in writing travel reports, I asked her a favour - here it is. A travelreport, published as I got it, uncensored. My notes are marked in darkgreen.Thank you for this, Maharani.

It began in Udaipur

The sign read ‘’gateway to paradise'’, but as with everything in India, one must exercise a healthy dose of caution and be prepared to surrender expectation and too much excitement. By now I question whether this museum of white clad devout spiritual questers that call themselves the Brama Kumari’s, could really yeild the answers to universal peace and heaven on Earth. But I am quietly excited, and once again forget the golden rule- don’t expect anything and you will always be surprised in India.

It was the weirdest freak show on earth, that was for sure, with an impressive number of maroarding crazed puppets in various positions trying to describe the sins of us mere mortals, with bold damning signs above that read something to the effect of- ‘’you are all going to hell unless you don a white sari and prepare to repent for the rest of your life'’. If this was paradise, we couldn’t wait to be back to our debaucharous sinful life outside. Spooked out, we cross the Brama Kumari University off our to do list.

Mt Abu villiage is something like a dilapidated third rate theme park precariously planted on top of a beautiful mountain range. The atmospehere is a mix of natural woodland serenity and decaying plastic pedalo boats marooned on rocks around Nakki lake. But we manage to find an excellent vantage point on our first day from Toad rock, and admiring the view, we are unsurprisingly interrupted by an astute budding business boy, who wants to know how Clemens manages to be a traveller without a job. [ My answer to the ubiquitous question: “What´s your job?” was very different over the times. From food industry to stay-at-home dad to whatever job just came to my mind. at this time, I was just travelling and exploring the world all the time.] In moments, our new friend has come up with a brilliant plan for Clemens to support his travel habbit- buy a bus of course, and offer fellow travellers a ride. This idea has legs and we laugh and consider the possibilities well into the sunset. Our brilliant little Brahman friendwho calls this rock his hime for most of the day, wants to be a soldier, and we ask him why? He wants to kill those Pakistani’s who are trying to steal India’s borders. We ask him how he could take a life if he believes in karma, and Clemens tells him of his time in Pakistan, where he met children just like him with the same story, the same dreams. He listens intently and there is a moment where l imagine taking this boy on my shoulders and marching across the earth to show him and to finally learn myself why we humans set up so many borders.

The next morning we meet our smart little man on the rock again, and we watch the sunrise, me meditating, Clemens climbing, and the universe seems to be in order, as the town below peeks its sleeply head though the fog and the sun bursts over the peaks beyond.

Mt Abu is a welcomed respite from the sensory overload of Udaipur, a magical romantic rickshaw choked city where I met the Austrian, with a camera in his hand and an Afgani hat on his head that came from Pakistan. After a near death experience on the wild Marwari warrior horse, and little sleep due to yet another bout of gastro, my battered body is easily convinced of the benefits of a quiet woodland hillstation with reportedly the most exquisite Jain temples in world.

It is the first time I have accepted a travel partner invitation and I am quietly cautious about defending my liberties, but this boy, whilst bound by a good dose of European chivalery, undoubtedly has a heart of gold. Thus begins the adventures of a soul seeking, way too romantic, veermently independent Australian girl and the news paper reading, GPS weilding, mountain climbing, seriously serious, Austrian boy, who has made a career out of travelling for his own sake.

 When it is cold, the best thing to do is buy a hat, and the best type of hat is made from ‘’one hundred per cent pure Indian wool'’. As the 99% plastic hat falls out of the bag, we can’t contain ourselves, and neither can the salesman as he emphasises through bursts of laughter, that this really is the genuine article- real Indian wool. I can’t help but wonder if there is anything true and authentic in this land of slippery salesmen, as I almost walk out convinced of the benefits of purchasing a ridiculous pair of toy rabbit earmuffs.

But then there are the intensly delicious sugar soaked balls of goodness or badness, you never really know until later, that we find on a random Indian sweets stall that restore our love and subservience to this crazy, sometimes overwhelming but always incredible India.

Arriving at the Jain temples, we are met with the sign ‘’Ladies warning- entry of ladies in monthly course strictly prohibited otherwise may suffer'’. I felt the prickle of feminist anger under my skin and thought about enquiring as to what the consequences might be for such a grave offense. Do they still burn women at the stake these days or is that only on the funeral phyre when their huspands die and they have no reason to live anymore? The cynic has her back up and is wondering how it must feel to be a second class citizen in a male dominated culture. Since I have been in this country, I have learned that they only celebrate the birth of a son, a man must always marry below him to keep the balance of power, men lazily squat for most of the day, chewing and spitting beetlenut and playing a lethargic game of cards, whilst women non stop cook, clean, shop, bring up the children, diligently heed to every request for chai, balance precariously large bundles of wood on thier heads, carry pilled up water pots also on their heads for miles, without spilling a drop, always managing to look perfectly beautiful, and still they are always considered less powerful, less intellegent and downright second class. Now with a furious rant tumbling through my mind I neglected to see the official looking man signalling to all females to go to the front of the line and before long we were inside the most exquisitly carved stone temples the eye can fathom.

Our necks gave in before our eyes did, as we walked around like stunned mullets, falling down the rabbit hole of gods and godesses, past elephant gods and sexy curvaceous scantily clad warrior women, past preying monkeys, gate keeper dragons and mesmerising mandalas, down into a stone dripping heaven of ecstacy. Like standing on the edge of the world and looking over, this place caused a certain internal vertigo. There was something here, a certain energy that had both overwhelmed like striking a chord of the soul. I couldn’t stop singing and Clemens was all quiet and contemplative. Maybe Mt Abu really did hold the secret gateway to paradise.

The woodland mountains were stunning in the morning light, so too was the bus driver’s ability to cause nausea as he manouvered our bus around hair pin corners, narrowly missing generations of monkeys and Indians on their way to holiday bliss. Ode to the joy of Indian busses, ladies and gentlemen, first tie a bandana around your nose and mouth, or prepare to pass out from a gutt wrenching concoction of deisel fumes, urine, dust, spicy sweat and fart gas. Next secure your earplugs, or prepare for partial deffness from the non stop symphony of snorting, spitting and sensationally silly bus horns. Boys, make a special note not to forget your empty bottles because there is barely a toilet stop and girls, if you can hold on, remember to wear a skirt, because there is absolutely no way you can use the toilet if the bus does stop. It’s a case of squat or suffer. Unfortunately I forgot to wear a skirt so it was definatey a case of squat and suffer.

The surprising thing about India is, eventually, once you surrender, either through choice or sheer exhaustion, to her intense inquiry, you might find it surprisingly comfortable to pee in public. The walls start to come down, the boundaries between what is acceptable and what is not begin to blurr and after some time, it’s ok if you have to step through a minefield of shit to get somewhere or slowly choking on deisel fumes in a traffic jamb, your mortality comes a knocking when, just when you think you can’t take it anymore, your eyes meet the sight of a dead body lying in the middle of the road.

They, the gurus say, if you really want to grow, India is your best teacher. On every corner is a new lesson, a new test, another ‘’hello, hello, hello, madame, what country, your good name…'’, every moment an intensely compressed reality check, that pulls you from awe to aweful in a second and its spice will have your nose running and your mouth watering for more.

You can’t come here and not be changed. But it’s not for the faint hearted or the weak stomached. Though after a few months you may find your stomach is remarkably stronger!

Finally delivered to the edges of the blue city, Clemens is peaking, surrounded by a swarm of touts spruking rickshaws, hotels and once again it’s sensory overload. Eventually we arrive at the gates of heaven, our 500 year old haveli, perched close to the edge of Meherangarh fort walls, and with an elevated view of the entire blue city in evening light, we are coaxed out into the unknown to discover a fantastical world of crumbling fort walls, endless winding ramparts with windows that frame cubist paintings in my mind. Inspiration is stirring deep ripples of childlike dreams in us as we run awe struck and elated up and down the ramparts, imagining wars and warriors, and all the kings horsemen valliently defending the right to such beauty, such magic, mystery and magnificience. The palace looks down on us, with the presence of a masked Queen, holding secrets we want to know.

As the sun casts the last long streams of gold light on these ancient walls, we vow to come tomorrow to devour her many treasures, then we slip down into the endless labrinth of every shade of blue, and are seduced by this alchemical concoction of views through pointed openings and decorated screens into the life of Jodhpur.

It was well worth us getting totally lost just to let go and roam free, partaking decadently in all sorts of sensory delights of the bazarr, including brandishing ancient swords of the Maharaja, chomping through way too much sugar at an overpriced sweets shop, dousing mýself in at least one hundred different fragrances whilst Clemens gets the star treatment with a well needed shave and exfoliation and god knows what else, then we are swept into the audience of a glittering Indian engagement party, and down into dark corners, and like Hansel and Grettle trying to find our breadcrumb path back home, we meet the unsavoury threat of a wild beast hungry for human flesh. Clemens saves the day with the scariest, voice he can muster and we escape unharmed. Now a boy will never admit to being lost but after passing the same place several times, it is clear that it is time to admit defeat and get a rickshaw back to safety. The night wouldn’t be complete without someone trying to rip us off, so almost on command, our driver gives it a good go to finish the night in true Indian style. Once inside the walls of our haveli, we dine with the moon, the fort and some seriously good stuffed tomatoes.

New pictures from Pushkar and people in India online

Slowly, slowly, but not steadily I´m getting new pictures online. The old story - so much to visit, to see, to experience, so less time to publish. Anyway, her´re the links:

Pushkar

People in India

Birds of India

Enjoy!

Back from the wilderness

I just came back from succesfully finishing the Annapurna Circuit, crossing Thorong La with mild AMS, had the first hot shower in many, many days and are getting myself now the biggest steak I can find in Pokhara. And beers.