A Whole New World

Annapurna i, Nepal

Twas the morning of the 20th of October. I awoke in my Kathmandu hotel room at around 5.30am. I panicked to get the last of my things that I could squeeze into our trekking bag and then ran downstairs for some last minute breakfast. Could this be the last decent meal for 18days??!

Chandra was waiting in the reception area and helped us with the bag and into a cab. We bounced down the Nepali roads to the main Kathmandu bus depot. Here, you could see 'buses' taking out the bus shelters - and coming away unscathed. They are made of pure wrought Iron I'm sure. Pusba was introduced to us as our lucky porter who gets the un-enviable job of carrying our main gear up and down the hills of the Himalayas. Then we saw our bus. It was better than all the others - it had the words "Speed Control" emblazened across the front bumper - it meant business. We think it had brakes. As Chandra and Pusba forced our big round peg bag into the square peg hole in the back of the bus we wondered what this trip would be like.

We boarded the bus and as luck would have it - my seat dropped back as soon as I sat in it - like a recliner that doesn't work. So I jumped to another seat as I still had the whole bus to choose from - all the same. Squeak - squeak. The bus soon moved on and entered in the same fracus as the cars - honking and forcing it's way through traffic. We got a good feel of outta-Kathmandu as we passed the busy markets, schools and general chaos. Eventually we got away from the built up areas and got into the rice growing areas with rolling hills as far as you could see - any further was just grey-cloud.

Tea-stop after 2hours, a road side shack was serving up some curry (slop) that I wasn't brave enough to try. Fly's and questionable cleaning put me right off so I figured I'd wait till the next stop. 3 hours later still, we had been going up and down the hill side, cornering mountainous u-bends and watching some recent WWF wrestling on the buses in-built TV screen. The rain was now pouring as we stopped for lunch. A 9yr old with manky ripped clothes was serving up Dhal Bat (Rice, a bowl of lentil soup, veg or chicken curry and pickles) - the Nepali traditional dish. Hungry, I watched as Nick bit into what looked like a generously sized lump of chicken - generous till he bit into solid curry covered bone! From this moment onward - I was vegetarian. I ate the rice and veggie curry which was actually quite tasty despite the dodgy surroundings - and it was pretty cool knowing this rice had been grown less than 60 seconds walk from where we were eating it.

Back on the road the rain was creeping in through the windows of the bus - some people were getting wet and the atmosphere was a bit too humid for comfort - thank goodness for the wonder of Apple iPods. We arrived in Besisahar at about 5pm which would be our first place of rest for the trek, our original lodge was for some reason closed - and so we made ourselves comfortable with the unheated painted room, with several hundred ants running riot over the wall next to where I would sleep the night. Feeling a little homesick I trotted down to the dining room to get some culinary comfort. My cheese pizza could've been less soggy, but 2 large Everest ( 5.7%) beers let me forget about the days truthes...

***

I awoke the next morning and took my first proper look at Besisahar. I saw a train of donkeys being herded down the street and in the opposite direction, a man with a dozen live chickens on his back. I was ready to trek.

We set off early and soon reached the end of the road for vehicles (or so we thought). We then descended around 150metres verticle via man made stone staircase. I have to admit my knees were wobbling by the time I reached the bottom - I feared I may have jumped in a little too deep. However, we carried on the walk up some pretty reasonable landscape. I hopped across my first shallow river and had a spring in my step as we headed toward the bigger hills.






Pretty soon, we were in amongst other trekkers, more working donkeys and many porters - all carrying supplies for towns much further up the path. We reached another river, but this time had to shed shoes and socks to paddle through the 1 foot deep water. Amazingly, a bus similar to that that had recently transported us also passed through the same river - apparantly they force them through 1metre deep water too.





After our feet had dried, we soon got to what I'd been looking forward to - the Indiana Jones (Temple of Doom) bridge - wooden slats that were either creaky or broken - and the whole thing swaying in the wind. They really are as dangerous as they look - especially for us lanky westerners that could easily topple the 2ft high hand rails!





The scenery after lunch, started to look as lush and green as in Jurassic Park - and I half expected a Brontasaurus to come wandering around a corner (it didn't). Although as we passed waterfalls (and more donkeys) the rain clouds had covered and were now wetting the path in front of us. As a result, we had to turn in early and take refuge before the the steep ascent ahead of us. We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out reading, playing chess and eating a reasonable dinner. This pretty much set the standard for afternoons on the trek. We stayed up drinking way later than anyone else on the trek - someone reported us as being heard at 8pm!!! Though we soon discovered that you really need the extra sleep after a days hard trekking...