Unsorted travel tips #1 - India

When using an urinal in India, have a close look at it first - otherwise it might just be a complicated way to piss on your feet.

Picture: Bally Total Witness

Annapurna Circuit part3

20.02.: Chitre to Tatopani (1190m)

The last day travelling and trekking with Amelia starts with perfect views of Dhaulagiri and Annapurna South in the light of the rising sun (you tend to have early nights and mornings while trekking, especially if there´s no electricity). The views are so beautiful, I´m even forgiven depriving Maharani of some of her beauty sleep by waking her up. You just wish you could have such views on every single morning of your life. We´re indulging in the views, soaking in the views and impressions – so, once again, not the early start we had planed. So, as little “sins” are punished on the spot, we have to rush down (to the great joy of our knees and legs) more than 1000m from Chitre to Tatopani. Through magical, lush landscape, amazing terraces covering the steep hills and mountains – and of course over the ubiquitous, irregularly shaped and sized stone steps. Nepalis really seem to love them, they build so many of them. As beautiful this landscape is and as much I enjoy trekking through it – no way I want to actually live here, let alone from subsistence agriculture as most of the people here, beside from the lucky ones who earn a lot of money for nepali standards working in tourism.

A road is being built up to Ghara so far. It looks like a big wound, a scar in the landscape. But it´s perfectly understandable that the people living in the area do want to have a road. Trekkers tend to complain about it and all the side effects it brings along – but they don´t have to life here. I guess it´ll be like most things – the secret is to find a balance.

Finally arrived in Tatopani, we have to rush our good-byes, so Amelia can catch the Jeep to Beni to catch the last bus to Pokhara to reach Kathmandu in time so she can reach her flight to Delhi – all this in a country with notorious difficulties travelling on public transports (everything went smooth – well, she made it to Delhi).

One thing you realise pretty soon, doing a popular trek, is that there´re two kind of people doing it for pleasure – trekkers and tourists. The difference? Trekkers do it on their own, carrying their luggage, taking care of accommodation and food themselves, basically they´re independent, exploring, not giving up responsibilities to a guide and/or porter, who somehow has to act more like a nanny than anything else.

Myself, well I´m on my own again, the stomach is fully restored, although the pizza ( I had one of these cravings) swimming in fat was pretty hard on it. I had to use 20 paper napkins to soak up most of it before my stomach would actually accept it. Plan for tomorrow is to reach Kelopani. Ambitious, but doable.

Just remembered, I actually do track my trek with my gps, here´s the data so far: We walked 51,65 km, reached an altitude of 3206m, ascended 4773m and descended 4630m in total. Not bad for just 3 trekking days.

21.02.: Tatopani to Ghasa (2010m)
Sore legs – that´s the rushed descent with heavy luggage yesterday. When I start walking, I first walk like an old man, slowly, with obvious effort until the muscles agree to work as I want. Exactly the feeling you want to have in the morning. Or after every break. This very promising start in the day.

As there´s now a street up to Muktinath, the first part of the trek until Titar is on the newly build, unpaved road. And lucky me, I´m allowed to do most of this part trice, as I forgot the charger for my camera in the lodge in Tatopani. I blame the sore legs for that. Not exactly the way I had imagined this trek. The fact that I have to walk on the road. That I´ll forget or loose something sooner or later was, had to be expected.

What is truly astonishing is the weight and the size of the loads the porters (especially those not working for lazy tourists) carry an their back or via a strap on their heads. If you want a definition of hard work – here it is.

Then, crossing over Kali Gandaki river on a brand new suspension bridge ( I love walking on them ) I leave the dusty road on I´m on a trail again. A stone paved trail. With the obligatory, inevitable, steep stone steps. Strenuous, but way nicer than walking on the road. Even with the relative little traffic there is. And, even when the trek gets strenuous, the views make up for all the hardship. Way more than just making up for it.

I´ll have to reduce some of the weight I carry if I want to make it over Thorong La. I start by using my stove and finally eating some of the food I carry. It´s disgusting. Perfect if you wanted to loose weight. You look at the packaging and you instantly, instinctively decide that you´re not that hungry after all. Even while trekking. Sounds perfect, doesn´t it?

Later, in the lodge at Ghasa, to make up for the bad joke I had to call lunch I had my first Chhang, home-made nepali rice beer – which tastes like cheap white wine. Really home-made, with rice floating in it. I always go for local treats, especially if you can´t get them anywhere else. In Europe, or the West in general, they would impose heavy fines on any establishment serving it, for violating thousands of food regulations…

I realise it´s the first day in almost ages I travel solitary. It´s amazing how long Amelia and I managed to travel together. Wonder if she actually made it to Pokhara. Guess I´ll get to know it sooner or rather later, here, in the relative wilderness.

And, to conclude this day, the gps data: Total km 69,44, total ascent 6092m.

Back in Civilisation

After three weeks of trekking in the - relative - wilderness of Sagarmatha National Park and beyond as well as a bumpy 15 hours ride in an old, rolling, fishtailing bus that started to fall apart, I´m back in Kathmandu where I´ll enjoy some creature comfort as well as plan my trip to China. I´ll leave for Beijing the 4th of april at night and plan to stay there for a good month before returning to Europe via Russia. The details and exact dates I´ll figure out over the next days. During the next days I´ll also write some travel reports (I actually took notes every day, I´m pretty proud of that), upload some pictures (I´m so behind doing that, I know) and  answer to a good 100 e-mails, messages, comments and the like.