TOTAL ELEVATION GAIN: 1200m
Clouds began to stealthily creep in from the peripheries of the sky.
I struggled to eat breakfast today, but got whatever porridge and omelet I could down my throat. The Chinese lade who gave us the wonderfully nutty and crunchy snacks at dinner yesterday was sitting beside me. She was attempting to tell me which Chinese province she was from. She said "Panda. You know Panda?" I thought she was talking about some Chinese province so I said "No". She seemed shocked! She said "Panda! You don't know Panda? Big, white, cute..." Oh! That's what she meant. She seemed hugely relieved when I understood! The friendly German couple next to us talked about their experience on the trail. They recommended we start really early from MBC and that the route from MBC to ABC is itself really beautiful While you're walking, you get a view of the famous ABC sunrise. Varun promptly told them he's a fan of Mesut Ozil. They took a minute to comprehend what the was saying, and when they did, they said "Oh! Özil!" Apparently the pronunciation is different, which they taught us. The 'O' in Özil in pronounced as ' Oo' or something.
We started out at 7:30am as usual. We trekked through great mossy trees with the moss hanging in ropes from them. We crossed numerous streams and one stunningly pretty river; the rocks in the river had smooth contour shaped lines caused by the constant beating of the water against rock. We took a family photo over the rickety bridge over the river. On the way to Himalaya we saw a simple, stone built structure - a place of worship. Within the mini slated stone house was a thin bark of a tree with red tika and haldi and a few brass bowls and flowers. The beauty in simplicity. Two hours after beginning for the day we reached Himalaya as anticipated. We met our three Nepali friends there, just setting our. [Edit: We'd met three Nepalis on Day 2 of the trek after beginning our descent from Pothana. One of them told me she was a great fam of Mahesh Babu aand watched all his movies dubbed in Hindi. She was so excited to know we were from Hyderabad! The three of them were travelling without a porter or guide. How commendable! It needed real confidence to do that. We kept bumping into them all the way up to ABC.]
Between Himalaya and Deurali we cam to Hinku Cave, a large rock protruding from the mountain side. Very beautiful (and shady). We were now trekking along the Modi Khola, the river we would follow all the way to ABC. The gushing and gurgling water provided a constant soothing sound. From Hinku Cave it took us half an hour to get to Deurali even though it seemed to be right there. We saw a mesmerizing, majestic, incredibly high waterfall falling down the mountain. The natural world at the rawest, most fierce elegance.
To get to Deurali we had to descend and ascend, which gave my poor left knee enough to wail about. As we entered Deurali, Alexi was right on our tail. He does seem to appear out of thin air. He lifted both his arms in greeted when he saw us above. Man he was fast. He'd started from Bamboo, an hour below Dobhan and still was with us! We stopped at 12:30pm for lunch, a simple Dal Bhat again. The vegetable - Potato, Batata and Soy Nuggets - was yummy. I took a long time to finish my Dal, struggling. Eventually after I though I'd stuffed as much of food into myself as I could, we hit the trail again.
On the way from Deurali to MBC the trail got incredibly beautiful. It reminded me of Glencoe and Skye in Scotland, only more remote and untouched. The vegetation rapidly thinned out until there were only bushes and moss and a lone tree here and there. Soon after we left, clouds began to stealthily creep in from the peripheries of the sky. It began to rain, which caused all of us to get our ponchos out and trudge along. The clouds and mist descended upon us as we walked along the river at the bottom of the valley, bare mountains towering over us.
Mama was getting really slow. Dada said altitude sickness had probably hit her as we were now above 3000m. 3000m. Wow. Varun and Tirtha pushed off so as to hold us a room at MBC, especially if Mama's speed was drastically going to slow down. I watched them ahead of me until they became a hazy blur through the mist. Dada and Mama soon fell behind (he was accompanying her slowly as the terrain was becoming increasingly challenging to overcome) and for the next hour or so I was on my own.
I was surprised at the amount of energy I had. Yesterday had me exhausted to the bone but today had a splendid sort of inspiration seize me as I walked up the mountains, softly singing a song to myself. At one point, I paused for five minutes to see a baby rabbit, golden brown, maple leaf in colour going about it's business. It had the sweetest little home - a hole under a flattish, rather mossy rock. It was so well concealed. The rabbit moved in a twitchy way, up and down, into its home and out, and paused to look at me. I moved my walking stick gently sideways to see if it would respond - it promptly dived into it's hope beneath the rock.
As I went higher and higher overcoming rock after rock, step after step I suddenly heard a sheep bleating. Oh oh... What now? Then I heard hooves. Whoops. Ten sheep came trotting down the path. I stood precariously to the side to let them pass and for the next ten minutes carefully had to maneuvre the generous amount of droppings they'd left behind.
By 3:00pm I began getting impatient. I was alone in my Hobbit style poncho and no sign of MBC. The mist was thickening. Just when I was beginning to get irritable, what with two more set of sheep trotting by, and the rain not being able to make up its mind, I saw a long hut at the top of the opposite hill. Yes! Destination in sight.
By 3:30pm I'd crossed the river and climbed the steps up to MBC. Well the first lodge of MBC. Tirtha loved to take us to the farthest lodge in each village. Varun and Tirtha weren't there at the first lodge so I had to continue my way forward to the other lodges which were invisible through the dense fog. As I went forward Varun and Tirtha appeared on the trail ahead of me, walking in my direction. They directed me to the Fisk Tail lodge and continued on to fetch Dada and Mama. After huffing and puffing my way to Fish Tail, it was a relief to keep my bag down. I headed to the warm dining room and asked for a cup of 'kadak chai' which turned out to be milky anyways.
I met a wonderfully sweet Russian gentleman in the dining room. I asked him something in English (maybe rapidly) to which he said "Slow! Slow!" and smiled. He told me that it was no use going to ABC late tomorrow; the sunrise was to be caught in the early hours of the morning. A start at 5:00am from ABC was Russiam recommended. He also told me in his slow, broken English that once at ABC, we must climb a further 200m-300m to get a truly splendid view. ABC was too lot and far from the mountains, he said. From up there you'd be above the clouds and alone wit the mountains. He then made these wavy gestures with his hand that I of course couldn't understand after which he paused for almost a minute to decide how to communicate his thoughts. He then started looking into his phone and typing, so I thought he'd forgotten about me but after about two minutes, he showed me the screen of his phone and repeated those wavy gestures; his phone screen read 'crest of the wave' in huge font. What the hell was that supposed to mean? He repeatedly made those gestures with his hands. Ah! From up there, 200m above ABC, it seems like you are on the crest of a wave. Wow! So using your phone to translate from Russian to English is handy! Point noted. He gave me a half wink as he got up. What a lovely man! (He just winked again as he came into the dining room a minute ago!)
A Korean in the dining room said he'd done an eighteen day trek of Ghandruk, Poon Hill, Ghorepani and some other places before finally arriving at ABC. You really do meet hardly people on these treks.
We've ordered a pizza and fried rice for dinner. I wonder how it'll be at 3700m. We're paying a fortune for it - it better be good.
We'll probably spend a night at ABC tomorrow. It depends on Mama's altitude sickness. She seems better now. She looked totally dead after the trek.
The Russian is saying it's his second time in Nepal, a twenty day vacation. Sixteen days at ABC. How lovely. You need so much patience to spend that much time alone. An hour ago, he was sitting outside in the cold and watching the descending fog. Just staring into the mist. It's admirable, that quality of quietly observing and being at peace with yourself.
He wished us "Bon Apatite" as out dinners were served. The Pizza was awesome! Varun and I had our most enjoyable dinner. The crust was crisp and firm, and the toppings were as good as it can get at 3700m in Nepal. We ended our meal with a piping hot Snickers Roll. Man we deserved it at the end of today.
Clouds began to stealthily creep in from the peripheries of the sky.
I struggled to eat breakfast today, but got whatever porridge and omelet I could down my throat. The Chinese lade who gave us the wonderfully nutty and crunchy snacks at dinner yesterday was sitting beside me. She was attempting to tell me which Chinese province she was from. She said "Panda. You know Panda?" I thought she was talking about some Chinese province so I said "No". She seemed shocked! She said "Panda! You don't know Panda? Big, white, cute..." Oh! That's what she meant. She seemed hugely relieved when I understood! The friendly German couple next to us talked about their experience on the trail. They recommended we start really early from MBC and that the route from MBC to ABC is itself really beautiful While you're walking, you get a view of the famous ABC sunrise. Varun promptly told them he's a fan of Mesut Ozil. They took a minute to comprehend what the was saying, and when they did, they said "Oh! Özil!" Apparently the pronunciation is different, which they taught us. The 'O' in Özil in pronounced as ' Oo' or something.
We started out at 7:30am as usual. We trekked through great mossy trees with the moss hanging in ropes from them. We crossed numerous streams and one stunningly pretty river; the rocks in the river had smooth contour shaped lines caused by the constant beating of the water against rock. We took a family photo over the rickety bridge over the river. On the way to Himalaya we saw a simple, stone built structure - a place of worship. Within the mini slated stone house was a thin bark of a tree with red tika and haldi and a few brass bowls and flowers. The beauty in simplicity. Two hours after beginning for the day we reached Himalaya as anticipated. We met our three Nepali friends there, just setting our. [Edit: We'd met three Nepalis on Day 2 of the trek after beginning our descent from Pothana. One of them told me she was a great fam of Mahesh Babu aand watched all his movies dubbed in Hindi. She was so excited to know we were from Hyderabad! The three of them were travelling without a porter or guide. How commendable! It needed real confidence to do that. We kept bumping into them all the way up to ABC.]
Between Himalaya and Deurali we cam to Hinku Cave, a large rock protruding from the mountain side. Very beautiful (and shady). We were now trekking along the Modi Khola, the river we would follow all the way to ABC. The gushing and gurgling water provided a constant soothing sound. From Hinku Cave it took us half an hour to get to Deurali even though it seemed to be right there. We saw a mesmerizing, majestic, incredibly high waterfall falling down the mountain. The natural world at the rawest, most fierce elegance.
To get to Deurali we had to descend and ascend, which gave my poor left knee enough to wail about. As we entered Deurali, Alexi was right on our tail. He does seem to appear out of thin air. He lifted both his arms in greeted when he saw us above. Man he was fast. He'd started from Bamboo, an hour below Dobhan and still was with us! We stopped at 12:30pm for lunch, a simple Dal Bhat again. The vegetable - Potato, Batata and Soy Nuggets - was yummy. I took a long time to finish my Dal, struggling. Eventually after I though I'd stuffed as much of food into myself as I could, we hit the trail again.
On the way from Deurali to MBC the trail got incredibly beautiful. It reminded me of Glencoe and Skye in Scotland, only more remote and untouched. The vegetation rapidly thinned out until there were only bushes and moss and a lone tree here and there. Soon after we left, clouds began to stealthily creep in from the peripheries of the sky. It began to rain, which caused all of us to get our ponchos out and trudge along. The clouds and mist descended upon us as we walked along the river at the bottom of the valley, bare mountains towering over us.
Mama was getting really slow. Dada said altitude sickness had probably hit her as we were now above 3000m. 3000m. Wow. Varun and Tirtha pushed off so as to hold us a room at MBC, especially if Mama's speed was drastically going to slow down. I watched them ahead of me until they became a hazy blur through the mist. Dada and Mama soon fell behind (he was accompanying her slowly as the terrain was becoming increasingly challenging to overcome) and for the next hour or so I was on my own.
I was surprised at the amount of energy I had. Yesterday had me exhausted to the bone but today had a splendid sort of inspiration seize me as I walked up the mountains, softly singing a song to myself. At one point, I paused for five minutes to see a baby rabbit, golden brown, maple leaf in colour going about it's business. It had the sweetest little home - a hole under a flattish, rather mossy rock. It was so well concealed. The rabbit moved in a twitchy way, up and down, into its home and out, and paused to look at me. I moved my walking stick gently sideways to see if it would respond - it promptly dived into it's hope beneath the rock.
As I went higher and higher overcoming rock after rock, step after step I suddenly heard a sheep bleating. Oh oh... What now? Then I heard hooves. Whoops. Ten sheep came trotting down the path. I stood precariously to the side to let them pass and for the next ten minutes carefully had to maneuvre the generous amount of droppings they'd left behind.
By 3:00pm I began getting impatient. I was alone in my Hobbit style poncho and no sign of MBC. The mist was thickening. Just when I was beginning to get irritable, what with two more set of sheep trotting by, and the rain not being able to make up its mind, I saw a long hut at the top of the opposite hill. Yes! Destination in sight.
By 3:30pm I'd crossed the river and climbed the steps up to MBC. Well the first lodge of MBC. Tirtha loved to take us to the farthest lodge in each village. Varun and Tirtha weren't there at the first lodge so I had to continue my way forward to the other lodges which were invisible through the dense fog. As I went forward Varun and Tirtha appeared on the trail ahead of me, walking in my direction. They directed me to the Fisk Tail lodge and continued on to fetch Dada and Mama. After huffing and puffing my way to Fish Tail, it was a relief to keep my bag down. I headed to the warm dining room and asked for a cup of 'kadak chai' which turned out to be milky anyways.
I met a wonderfully sweet Russian gentleman in the dining room. I asked him something in English (maybe rapidly) to which he said "Slow! Slow!" and smiled. He told me that it was no use going to ABC late tomorrow; the sunrise was to be caught in the early hours of the morning. A start at 5:00am from ABC was Russiam recommended. He also told me in his slow, broken English that once at ABC, we must climb a further 200m-300m to get a truly splendid view. ABC was too lot and far from the mountains, he said. From up there you'd be above the clouds and alone wit the mountains. He then made these wavy gestures with his hand that I of course couldn't understand after which he paused for almost a minute to decide how to communicate his thoughts. He then started looking into his phone and typing, so I thought he'd forgotten about me but after about two minutes, he showed me the screen of his phone and repeated those wavy gestures; his phone screen read 'crest of the wave' in huge font. What the hell was that supposed to mean? He repeatedly made those gestures with his hands. Ah! From up there, 200m above ABC, it seems like you are on the crest of a wave. Wow! So using your phone to translate from Russian to English is handy! Point noted. He gave me a half wink as he got up. What a lovely man! (He just winked again as he came into the dining room a minute ago!)
A Korean in the dining room said he'd done an eighteen day trek of Ghandruk, Poon Hill, Ghorepani and some other places before finally arriving at ABC. You really do meet hardly people on these treks.
We've ordered a pizza and fried rice for dinner. I wonder how it'll be at 3700m. We're paying a fortune for it - it better be good.
We'll probably spend a night at ABC tomorrow. It depends on Mama's altitude sickness. She seems better now. She looked totally dead after the trek.
The Russian is saying it's his second time in Nepal, a twenty day vacation. Sixteen days at ABC. How lovely. You need so much patience to spend that much time alone. An hour ago, he was sitting outside in the cold and watching the descending fog. Just staring into the mist. It's admirable, that quality of quietly observing and being at peace with yourself.
He wished us "Bon Apatite" as out dinners were served. The Pizza was awesome! Varun and I had our most enjoyable dinner. The crust was crisp and firm, and the toppings were as good as it can get at 3700m in Nepal. We ended our meal with a piping hot Snickers Roll. Man we deserved it at the end of today.
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