Nepal - Oct 2005

Keith was switching jobs at Aimco and asked if he could take a few extra weeks for a trip of a lifetime - and to our incredibly happy surprise, the answer was yes!  So, with some hurried last-minute planning and some just-in-time immunizations, we headed off to Nepal for a month to hike the 200 mile Annapurna circuit. 

Accommodations:

Yak and Yeti (Kathmandu) - Very nice hotel with older architecture.

Tea House on Trek

Tea Houses (Annapurna Circuit) - We have to say that the lodging was way better than expected.  We got our own room each night and a few nights we even got our own bathroom.  The rooms were pretty sparse (two single beds with a table between) but mostly very clean.  We quickly got used to aiming in the squat toilets and we got hot showers most of the time!  Surprisingly, we slept rather well (probably b/c we were so beat from the walking) except for the few nights we spent at high altitude!

Activities:


Kathmandu

Our flight took us through Bangkok, though we had no time for anything but a quick overnight to catch our connecting flight to Kathmandu.  The time change from Bangkok to Kathmandu was 1:45 - the first time in our life we had not seen fully rounded hours.  When we arrive in Kathmandu, we checked into our hotel in the late afternoon and then took a walk around the old town.  Aside from trying not to get run over by the myriad of bicycles, motorcycles and cars, we enjoyed the sights (and smells) of the area.  There is no shortage of trekking companies and pashmina clothing stores.  And to top it all, we found a Barnes & Noble (not really, the name is Barnes and Noble Book Store - quite clever we thought). After a nice dinner, we headed back to the hotel to pass out. 

Temple in Kathmandu

The next day was spent sorting out our plans for the next month.  With over 450 trekking companies to choose from, we picked a company that was recommended by our hotel.  The odd thing is that it turned out to be the same company that some other friends of ours (Mia and Byron whose wedding we attended in Sweden only a few weeks earlier) were using while they were there on their honeymoon.  We had a yummy Thai dinner that night with Mia and Byron -- nothing like having other people crash your honeymoon!

The next day we toured around Kathmandu.  We saw a few Buddhist and Hindu temples and also got to watch a cremation ceremony.  After the bodies are cremated, the ashes and remains are thrown into the river -- I guess this is one reason why we only drink water out of a bottle!  We spun many prayer wheels that day so hopefully some good blessings came everyone's way! 

Prior to leaving for the trek, we did a one hour flight around Everest and the surrounding mountains -- quite stunning!

Annapurna Circuit
The trek details: 19 days, 200 miles, approx. 27,000 feet total ascent and 28,000 feet total descent, reached highest elevation of 18,000 feet, 40 meals that included rice, no meat, no Diet Coke, 2 Maoist shakedowns, about 1000 goats and 2000 donkeys, 74 uses of a squat toilet, one bus ride with chickens and sheep, one day of rain, and saw approx. 10 mountains over 23,000 feet -- all without ever getting sick or injured, not even a blister!  We had an amazing time; one of the coolest things we've ever done.  We had a guide and a porter (who carried both of our backpacks -- made us feel like total wimps) -- they were both extremely nice and were a big help!  Some highlights:

Trails and Scenery 

Scenery on Trek

We hiked through quite a bit of varied terrain, starting with mossy green trees with rolling rice paddy fields, to rocky terrain similar to the Colorado Rockies, to desert-like valleys.  We passed many marijuana fields -- apparently it is not illegal there!  As we got higher, we saw the snow-capped peaks of the Annapurna mountains -- Keith kept asking if Shawna wanted to climb one -- of course, she was not interested in any climbing that involved freezing weather and ice axes!  The trail was remarkably well kept -- often quite wide -- there were only a few places where we had to cross a landslide with the trail being a bit washed out.  I wouldn't say the route was always the most obvious so was glad to have a guide to show us the way.  Aside from trekkers, we often had to share the trail with donkeys transporting goods and sheep being led to the local festivals (for either sacrificing or food) -- of course, this meant you had to look down more than up to avoid the animal poop along the way.

More Scenery on Trek

Villages and Local People 

Village on Trek

Throughout the trek, we passed through many villages -- the housing varied from thatched roofs, timber, mud and stone.  In some of the villages, we visited the local temples and monasteries which were quite amazing given how remote some of these places are.  A few days before the Pass, we visited a monk who "blessed" us for the Pass -- of course, we got these blessings along with a string necklace for a "small" donation to the monastery.  It was quite interesting to see how different the people looked in each village -- showing influences from Tibet, India, and the Far East.  In one of the villages, there was a "projector hall" where we treated ourselves to a movie (Seven Years in Tibet -- Keith thought he had not seen it but then remembered the movie towards the end) -- the hall was a mud house with yak fur covered bench seats and black curtains to block the light.  We were the only two there so we had to pay the "3-person minimum" which equaled about $4.50 total!  The movie projector stopped about 5 times (I guess we were taking all of the town's power) and they had to fast forward to the spot where we left off each time -- making a 1.5 hour movie about 2.5 hours long.  In another village, there were hot springs -- Keith went in but I chose to only dip my feet since there were many sweaty hikers (mostly European men in banana hammocks) sitting in the pools.


Food  

Prayer Wheel

The food was quite tasty but grew tired of the options towards the end.  Every menu was mostly the same, offering various choices of soup, fried rice, potato dishes (including Rosti), fried noodles, spaghetti and the local favorite of dhal bhat (lentils with rice).  Some places got a bit creative by offering pizza, lasagna or burritos -- none of which even closely resembled what these taste like in the US.  Dessert was rather limited but usually included apple pie or pudding -- our favorite was the "Mars Roll" which was a Mars bar deep fried like a Spring Roll -- nothing like taking something fattening and adding more fat to it.  It's a good thing we discovered it towards the end of the trip, otherwise we may not have lost some of the weight that we did.  We stayed away from meat the entire time to improve our odds of not getting sick -- a gamble well worth taking.  Surprisingly, we didn't really miss it!  The best part about the food was the menus themselves -- they were all printed with the words "Approved by the Menu Subcommittee" (whoever that is) and often had many funny misspellings (like Franch Fryes).  Some of the items within a category on the menu were also odd, like listing fried potatoes under the room charges and including vegetable moussaka under Mexican dishes. 


Meeting the Maoists
The Maoists conveniently called a cease fire during the peak tourist season so to stay busy, they stopped the trekkers along the trail to ask for a "donation" -- of course, there was no choice in the matter nor was there room for bargaining!  So we paid our dues but luckily, they gave us a receipt so that the next time that we ran into them, we could show our receipt so that we did not have to pay twice.  The funny thing is that all the local people and even the trekkers knew exactly when and where they would run into the Maoists but the police did not seem to know about this.  I would have to say our encounters were rather friendly but I guess to be expected when you are about to dish out money. 


The Pass 
The highest altitude we hiked was to Thorung La Pass which is over 18K feet.  They do a really good job of acclimatizing you by the way they split up the days leading up to the Pass.  We had to hike very slow the day of the Pass and felt quite dizzy -- but once we got up there, we felt fine.  The views were amazing!  We heard afterwards of a few people getting pretty sick with one person being helicoptered out with severe altitude sickness.

Thorung La Pass

Pokhara
The trek ended in Pokhara where we spent two nights -- mostly relaxing but we also did some sight seeing.  Pokhara is a very cute town with a large lake surrounded by the Annapurna mountains.  After doing laundry and catching up on what happened in the world while we were trekking, we explored the town and spent some time rowing on the lake.  We also got our first dose of meat again -- fortunately our bodies did not reject it!  All in all, it was an amazing trek and we are so happy we did it! 

Chitwan National Park

Chitwan National
Park

After the trek, we had one more week in Nepal which was fairly tame and relaxing compared to the prior few weeks.  We spent a couple of days in Chitwan National Park where everyone goes to see wildlife.  After doing a safari in Africa, the wildlife in no way compares; however, we did get to do/see some interesting things.  We took an ox cart to a local village to see how they harvest rice -- we think we could have walked faster as the ox went about 1 mile per hour.  We also took a canoe ride in the park -- mainly saw many birds (including a kingfisher) and several crocodile.  We visited the elephant breeding center and pet some of the baby elephants -- they are quite hairy and wrinkly little buggers but cute nonetheless!  The highlight was an elephant safari where we rode elephants (4 people on top) through the park.  We got the biggest elephant which weighed about 5 tons so was happy that he did not decide to sit on us.  While on this safari, we saw a few types of deer and a rhino -- the rhino was not too happy when 8 elephants surrounded him!

Kathmandu

Durbar Square

We spent our final two days back in Kathmandu where we caught up on some souvenir shopping, visited Durbar Square (where many of the old temples are).  We ran into several people that we met along the trek and also had dinner again with Mia and Byron who had completed their Everest Base Camp trek. Their trek was a couple of days longer than ours but far fewer showers! Despite that, we are committed to return to Nepal and do the Everest hike some day.

After 5 flights and about 25 hours of actual flying, we made it home safely.  Because of the time zone difference, we didn't sleep well and were wrecked all weekend long.  Of course, our first purchase when we arrived on US soil in Los Angeles was a Starbucks!

Restaurants: 

• Third Eye - Our first meal in Kathmandu was supposed to be one of the more expensive restaurants in town -- the entrees priced at around $4 so I don't think we broke the bank account here.  The meal was fantastic -- north Indian food.
• Yin Yang - Thai restaurant in Kathmandu where we went to with Mia and Byron.
• Roadhouse Cafe - Great pizza joint in Kathmandu.

For more photos of this trip: