I am the type of person whose soul needs to travel the world, and when I do not heed the calling to venture out, my soul starts to die. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but I do feel like I begin to lose my light. I had been planning my next big trip for several months, and in November I took off and went to Nepal.
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| A photo of mine from Pokhara, Nepal |
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I met up with 7 others (some friends and friends of friends from other parts of the world) between Istanbul and Kathmandu and we traveled Nepal together. The plan was to get a little taste of different regions.
We spent time in the Kathmandu Valley for 5 days total (upon arrival and departure). The photos below are of one of the famous temples, Swayambhunath, also called the Monkey Temple because monkeys are everywhere.
We spent about 2 1/2 days in Pokhara (before and after the trekking), and 4 days on a trek.
And we spent about 3 1/2 days in the jungle, Chitwan National Park, where we went on a walking safari, a canoe ride, and I bathed with and rode elephants! One of the highlights was seeing a baby rhino sleeping soundly while we approached it and its mommy via elephants. They don't care if we are there when atop an elephant, but if we would have walked up on them we could have been in SERIOUS danger.
Every area we visited had its own list of amazing qualities, and I am so glad we got to experience different regions. However, I am already making a plan to return to do more trekking at some point in the future. I fell in love with Nepal, especially the mountains, and we were only in what they call "the Himalayan foothills". So now I'll try to give some details of the trek we did, to the best of my recollection. :)
Poon Hill Trek:
We went through a tour agency and hired a guide. He was wonderful, and it was nice to not have to stress about getting lost or finding lodging, as all was already planned. We did not hire porters (sherpas) and opted to each carry our own backpack.
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| That's me in the middle |
According to the guidebook, the trek is considered "moderate" and can be done in 4-6 days. We chose to do it in 4, which meant some of the days included several hours of walking.
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| Don't mind me, just taking a quick power nap! |
What is nice about this route, is that it goes through tons of little villages along the way and there are plenty of places to grab snacks, take a rest break, and use the bathroom if you don't want to use mother natures toilet.
What was not so nice about this route is that it includes THOUSANDS of steps and at least one full day of going up those steps. Of course what goes up must come down, and going down the steps on the route back may actually have been more painful. I heard someone throw out the number 5,000 when talking about how many steps there were...I really am curious about the exact number and my google searches haven't turned up the answer for me yet :P
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| Going up and up and up... |
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| ...and still going up, up, up... |
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| Going down, down, down... |
It is an absolutely beautiful route and very doable, and we saw people of all ages who were doing this trek. Even though I trained for a 50K trail run and considered myself in excellent shape, I still found it challenging at times. Part of that is because myself and another friend were both recovering from injuries which made going down steps especially painful. However, the scenery and other wonderful experiences helped me ignore the pain for the most part. :)
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| View from Poon Hill |
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| Poon Hill View |
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Village children would come out to greet us
and ask for "sweets" and chocolate |
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Me on the left with the beautiful
farm terraces in the back |
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We encountered a lot of pack mules
and gave them the right of way |
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The all too familiar sound of a mule train telling us to move out of the way. I actually was almost knocked off the edge of a drop-off when a mule stumbled towards me and hit my pack!
Lodging:
We stayed in what they call "tea-houses". Basically they are family-operated room and board in villages along the way. Most of them are basic thin-walled private bedrooms with 2 twin beds. You sleep in your sleeping bag and they provide a thick blanket or two to put on top since it gets really cold at night and there is no heat in the rooms. There is a shared toilet, sink, and shower which may or may not have hot water.
They also have a little restaurant which provides meals from the menu. The menus in the mountains are pretty much all the same, offering a variety of Nepali food and western foods. I usually stuck with eggs and potatoes for breakfast and Dal Bhat (Lentils and Rice) for the other meals. For dinner I would have the local alcohol, Raksi (kind of like Saki).
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| So good! Although, some made it spicier than others :P |
Route Details:
Day 1
From Pokhara to Nayapul = 1 hr car/bus ride
Nayapul to Tikhedhunga = about a 4 hr hike (beginning elevation 1000 meters, end elevation 1500 meters)
Day 2
Tikhedhunga to Ghorepani = 7-8 hrs of hiking all uphill (beginning elev. 1500m, end elev. 2800m)
Day 3
Ghorepani to Poon Hill = 40 min climb from 2800m to 3210m elevation. Woke up at 4:30 for sunrise.
Poon Hill to Ghorepani = 20 min descent, ate breakfast and packed
Ghorepani to Ghandruk (?)= 7-8 hrs, mix of ups and downs
Day 4
Ghandruk to Nayapul = 6 hrs? mostly downhill/steps
Nayapul to Pokhara = 1 hr private bus
I've been trying to find out exactly how far the loop is that we trekked and have come across varying answers online. When I asked our guide he said 80k, but that seemed like too much. As much as I would like to believe we hiked 80k, I think it may have been closer to 50k total.
So there you have it... I have provided a very condensed version of my Nepal trip and shared only a small fraction of photos taken. Mostly, I wanted to write this up so I can remember the basics of what we did, kind of similar to a race report :) If you find yourself reading this and having questions, feel free to leave me a comment below, and I'd be happy to respond!
