Annapurna and stuck in Kathmandu

Hi all,

So we took a plane to Pokhara, where we stayed a night at the Hotel Tulsi and met our guide, Chakra. Pokhara is still a little bit of a tourist haven, but at least its less polluted and quieter than Kathmandu, and it overlooks a nice lake.

Pokhara by the lake


With our one night there we wandered around the streets and walked into a bar where a band were rehearsing. Recognising guys cut from the same musical stylistic cloth, I ended up jamming with them at their sound check, and they invited me back to sit in with them that evening for a monster jazz funk, Ronny Jordan style guitar dialogue with their guitarist. Hanging out with them afterwards a little, it turns out that they own the bar as well and play only the music they like, when they like, with people they like. Its a good life. I would have photos but Emmie couldn't take hanging out with music geeks for that long and left to phone her parents.

We packed our big bags into a single 20kg monster... and let Chakra carry it, which he did with surprising ease given his size (he weighs himself not much more than Emmie). We took the bus to Phedi and started our way towards Annapurna Base Camp.

Nice and easy first day. Quite easy walk actually having recently spent a couple of weeks between 3500 and 5250 meters. Its a well established trekking route, with guest houses and restaurants more or less every 20 minutes. Still, it was great to be out of the city and see some of the smaller villages (including Chakra's home village). Dal Bhat became the staple diet now as you can't really trust much else except at the larger restaurants, but it was otherwise pretty comfortable - a few squat toilets (not the super clean Japanese style but the hole in the ground with urine and flies type) and the odd cold shower, but nothing we hadn't done before really.

Cup of tea. First principles.


The dog that followed us around for the whole first day.


They have interesting ideas of 'free range' farming here. Basically, all there animals run around their houses and shops freely. There are no pens or cages, basically nothing to stop them escaping. They just can't be bothered to leave. I guess they don't have much choice of where to escape to... its either up the path or down the path. Either that, or jump off the cliff.

Some scenery.


Free range farming.


At the first place we stopped, we realised that the seemingly quiet and humble Chakra has a secret double identity as a party animal. We realised this after we noticed his fondness of the local firewater, called 'Raksi'. He convinced me that the purest and best Raksi is to be found in the countryside where its undiluted with other pollutants, so I tried a glass. I realised that by 'other pollutants' he means anything other than ethanol. Like water, for example.

The locals like to use herbal remedies for common ailments. Like boredom.


It sure is purty round 'ere


Anyway, we woke up the next day and I didn't go blind so it was all good so far. Unfortunately, it was soon afterwards that it started going downhill for Emmie. Starting to get nauseous from what we suspected might have been a bad pancake breakfast, the walking became harder and harder for her. We decided that after releasing it all the 'hard way' she would likely recover that evening so we pressed on slowly, which was tough going for her.

Sometimes the foetal position is the only way.


Actually, it took a few days for her to get over it. During that time, when she was busy sleeping in the afternoons, I had a lot of chances to meet some of the various people going up and down the mountains (though this wasn't much consolation to my wife of course). A lot of Koreans actually (who were very friendly) and a few Frenchies (who were not as friendly, apologies to the bilingual readers...)

We realised that we had slowed down so much that we wouldn't get to base camp and back in time for our flights out of Kathmandu so we decided to turn around at Chomrong, where could do a loop so we didn't have to go back the way we came up, and it would still be a decent trek. Fortunately she started to feel better on the way down and started to enjoy herself again. She particularly enjoyed playing with baby chickens and the Nepali village children. I think she is getting a little broody these days...

Morning light at Chomrong. One on the right is 'fishtail', supposedly the home of Shiva. Too sacred to climb.


Emmie considers stealing some children.



We met a couple from Manchester one evening on the way down with whom we got on with so well that I ended up having two glasses of Raksi. Word of caution here - if you ever have a chance to drink Raksi, one glass is enough.

However, given that I was then sick for 3 or 4 days, I have a feeling that it was more than just the alcohol content that posed the problem. I guess you always take the risk if you drink the local brew without having the local stomach, just as you would if you drank the local water. My reasoning was that, unlike the local water, any bad things would be killed by that much alcohol, so it should be pretty sterile. I can say with authority now that this is not the case.

Anyway, it was a little easier for me to be sick than Emmie as we were already on our way downhill. Since we got back to Pokhara early we had a lot of time to relax and chill out. Chakra took us to meet his wife, and the next day went with Emmie to help her buy a salwar kameez (traditional dress). We stayed at the Butterfly Lodge. Then we went back to Kathmandu and tried to take our flight to Vietnam.

It turns out we didn't have a ticket, according to Dragon Air. I called British Airways and they said I did. Apparently the Dragon Air staff at Kathmandu are not able to speak to the British Airways staff to solve this, despite them both being One World alliance and BA being able to sell Dragon Air flight tickets on their behalf. Words were said. They didn't really help. No flying for us.

Eventually British Airways sorted it out and agreed to pay our hotel for two days. And now they are flying us business class to Vietnam, so its all okay. At least I hope so, we'll see when we get to Kathmandu airport again for round two tonight. Anyway, if we get stuck here we can always go to Chitwan, or do some meditation, or go to Everest, or hang out in bars playing guitar... To be honest, being stuck in Nepal for a year or two wouldn't be the end of the world.

Sri

Planning his escape.