Pokhara and ABC Trek

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Trekking Day #1

7:30 am – On the Nepali New Years Day we left Pokhara by taxi for Nayapul. The cost was 2000 NR, and if you look at the last half of the drive on the map you will see it is constant switchbacks, and over very rough dirt roads.

9:05 am – The driver dropped us off  at Nayapul and immediately we were confused as to where the route was – we expected some sort of marker or arrow. Not the best start, but we just started walking, asked “Birethanti?” a couple times, people pointed, and we were off!

9:25 am – The ACAP and TIMS checkpoint is in Birethanti, and we were there 20 minutes getting that done.

9:45 am – Left Birethanti and continued toward Tikhedhunga.

11:35 am – Tikhedhunga.

12:10-12:25 pm – Had lunch along the trail, sitting on a small rock bench. This was the final approach to Ulleri, via the well known “3000 steps.” I’ve seen various postings about the actual number of step, 3300, etc., but the point is that they are steep, and continuous! We were glad to get to Ulleri, and we were also glad to test our stamina on the first day and find out that we were up to it.

1:30 pm – We arrived at Ulleri, well sweated up and ready for a rest. We checked into a guesthouse’s upstairs room, which had quite a view. The room was 300 NR (reduced from 400), and we split a 450 NR spaghetti dinner, and had breakfast the next day for 200 NR each for omelettes.

[Yes, we (I) cheaped out on the food expenditures… We had expected things to be cheaper down low and more expensive as we got higher in the mountains, but this first experience was higher than expected and as we (I) calculated the rest of the trip it appeared it we would run short of money. I hadn’t intended to cut it that tight, but was afraid I might have seriously miscalculated – so I was rationing. After a couple more days I determined that costs would not rise dramatically and we were able to relax about it and spend more for food. Nora had been pretty stressed about it, and thus was very relieved. (We talked about this again recently and she said she still hadn’t forgiven me. Ha! It’s funny now, sorta…) Obviously food is a necessity and it could have caused us to alter our plans. As it turned out my estimations were right on the mark, but lesson learned, also bring a little extra, beyond the extra.]

Monday, April 13, 2015

This was our day to prepare, and also site see. Pokhara is “the” place to be a tourist in Nepal, to the point of embarrassment. We saw so many people there trying to look the part of the world traveler, the spiritual seeker, the enlightened one going to Nepal to write their memoirs. Of course there are also a lot of college age people there just being themselves looking for the party. One of the funny things we saw a lot of was people wearing “authentic” clothing (so they thought) when in fact no Nepalis dressed like that

There is an upside of this for the people of Nepal – it brings in a lot of revenue. Tourism, trekking in particular is a huge industry there. For that I was happy because Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world. In light of that, their happiness and positive attitude are an amazing surprise. I’ve been in other poor cultures and it’s not like that. Yet in all the time I was in Nepal, not one time did they try to cheat me, short change me, or otherwise try to take advantage of the situation. They are an honest people for the most part, and it shows.

One thing I noticed was that in the home front stores that line the streets of the bazaars, if a storekeeper ducks back into his or her house, or is across the street, and a customer comes in to their shop two unexpected things happen. First, stealing seldom happens. Secondly, and more amazing, the neighboring storekeeper will yell for them to come back, rather than steal the customer, which they could easily do given the circumstances and the fact that often both shops have nearly identical merchandise. This was so refreshing to be around. Another thing that was refreshing was seeing how traffic, automobile and pedestrian alike, where courteous of each other.  Traffic there is crazy, but I saw almost no accidents, and no road rage. Like Nora told me: they just make it work.

We went into many shops that line the streets along Lake Fewa in the Lakeside district of Pokhara, and most of them are trekking supply shops. Everything has a name brand label on it, and very low prices. They are, of course, fakes and knock-offs from China, India, etc., and you can tell it very easily by the feel and quality of the items. I needed to buy some base layer pants because I had neglected to bring any for the higher elevations.

In one shop I tried some on and settled for what I thought would work, and they were cheap enough – a few dollars – but they were from China and in addition to being very small (a large barely fit me),  apparently men in China have no butt because the cut of the pants was so odd that they always felt like I had them on backward! Still they were stretchy enough and I was thankful for them. I also bought a “North Face” watch cap, just because… What really cool was that as we talked with the husband and wife who owned the shop they served us tea, then gave us popcorn that looked to be burnt black, but it was very good! As we talked we found out that they had a daughter in the nursing school at Tansen, and asked Nora to deliver a package to her. Again, a very peasant and different shopping experience that we just don’t often see in the west.

 

We walked along the waterfront for quite a distance, searched out different shops, and appreciated the names of many, such as: Safeways, The Irish Pub, Holy Book Shop, Help Mate Trekking Shop, Social Meat Shop, German Bakery. On our return to Pokhara after trekking, we also found the local “WalMart.”

For dinner we returned to a Tibetan restaurant that we had marked out earlier in the day. Sacred Valley doesn’t serve dinner or I doubt we’d ever have gone any place else. So this was a good chance for us to get out and try other things. The meal was huge, and well cooked (hot food is safer by far).

As we ate we started hearing a commotion out in the street. Everyone in the second floor eatery was jumping up and going to the balcony that overlooked the street, so we joined them. Bands of people were marching up and down the streets… celebrating… New Years Eve!

Yep, April 13, 2072 was New Years Eve in Nepal that year, so all of Pokhara was celebrating. Even so, I think it all calmed down by 10 pm. Nepalis sleep early and get up early. It was fun though, and cool to think that our trek would begin the next day, on New Years.

And with that, we went back to the guesthouse and went to sleep; our taxi to Nayapul where we would begin our trek to Annapurna Base Camp was arriving at 7:30 the next morning.

Sunday, April 12, 2015

I woke up around 4 am and noticed a light on. Nora was in the living room with a nauseating migraine, trying to sleep on the couch.  I prayed for her and she went back to bed. I was thinking this is not the best start to a trip, but when we got later that morning and she felt ok. After breakfast we went down to meet the taxi to Pokhara, that we had budgeted up $100 for. If memory serves me correctly we were only charged $60 for an eight hour round-trip run! (Yes, we tipped him.) When we loaded up, we tried to tell the driver that we weren’t in a hurry, but he somehow misunderstood …because he drove like a bat out of the hot place! Ironically, along the way he randomly pulled off the road, apparently to visit a family member or friend for about 10 minutes.

We realized our mistake later when I told him to slow down because Nora got very sick and we had to pull over for her to …you know. It was then that the driver made a comment that let us know he had been lead-footing it! This was at about the middle of the 80 mile, 4 hour trip. The trip is only 36 miles as the crow flies, and as you can see from the map above, the route is fairly direct, but the road itself winds in and out of mountain ridges the entire way, enough to more than double the distance! This is typical in Nepal, as are the potholes and bumps. I nearly donated a kidney a few times! Nora was sick nearly the rest of the trip, as she wedged herself in a corner of the tiny bouncing taxi and tried to sheep. Thankfully right before we got to Pokhara she started feeling much better.

By a about 1:20 pm we were checked into Sacred Valley guesthouse and were able to relax. Sacred Valley is a great guesthouse! They are very organized, clean, accommodating and helpful. They also have really good food service there, both the restaurant and the room service. One key thing is that they know how NOT to make their foreign guests sick! The water in Nepal is always a risk if you drink it unfiltered or untreated – this includes salads that are washed in it, etc. If it’s not well cooked, it’s suspect. But here we could have a salad, and live to tell about it! (In Tansen we treated our own water and washed our produce properly as well. It’s just part of the way of life for foreigners there.) All the food was great, and we felt spoiled because it was inexpensive and safe to eat raw things as well.

The first thing we did after getting settled in was head back out to get our ACAP and TIMS. The former is an Annapurna Conservation Area Project entry permit (about $20 in 2015, 2000 NR) and the later is a Trekkers Information Management System card ($20) which you must get if you don’t use an agency. They actually do keep track of people entering and exiting, which a good thing, should someone not come back on schedule they would be missed (eventually).

After a late lunch (Did I mention the food was wonderful?!) we walked about and explored Pokhara some more, but mainly took it easy. The next day we would have more time for that and shopping last minute supplies for the trek. (Note to self, remember your base layer pants next time…)

In the evening we had dinner at little “Italian” restaurant (they do their best, but I had to put that in quotes) that catered to tourists – still very inexpensive though. Finally it was time for a good night’s sleep.