First of all for those of you who have a hang up with spelling and grammer mistakes, you are going to have to forgive me up front. This is unspell/grammer checked and uneditied. You get what you get.
Danny, Wally, Gary, Shane and I woke up early Monday morning to catch our 6am minibus that would take up to the beginning of our second trek. We rode for an hour through the mountains west of Pokhara where the bus dropped Shane, Gary, Onmol (our interpretor) and Bim (our guide) off at Bire thanti.
We put on our gear and walked through town and over a swing bridge and down to the river bed we would follow for a ways. We stopped for lunch. I ate noodles and our guides ate … what else ? Daalbhat.
The Nepales eat Daalbhat twice a day. At 10 or 11 am and in the evening. Not much variety in their diet. Andrea likes to ask me what I want for dinner. If we were from Nepal she could ask but the answer would always be the same – Daalbatt
After lunch we started to climb. Steps – millons of steps made from stone and placed in the side of the mountain. I should have added the stairstepper to my workout before I came over here.
This trail is part of the Annapurna Circuit so it is more widely traveled by those from the west and there are much more places that cater to our tastes. That was not the case on our first trek. Signs everywhere read ‘hot shower’ and the sold mineral water everywhere. The higher we climbed the more expensive the water got.
We walked up until we got to Uleri. At Uleri there is a church and we met the pastor’s wife. They run a ‘hotel’. We gave her some bibles and had some encouraging conversation. She encouraged us as much as we encouraged her.
It is funny to see how the people half way up the mountain try to discourage you as to how far you have left to climb. That way you will say ‘forget this, I’m stopping here.’
Uleri is about the half way point. Our climb began in Bire thanti at about 1500 meters elevation. Uleri is at 2073 meters and our destination in Ghore pani is at 2855 meters. At Uleri they made sure that we knew we had only climbed 500 meters and had 800 more to go before we would be able to rest.
The steps become more of a mental battle than a physical battle. It really help to make my mind go other places. Andrea made a CD for me of songs of encouragement and it helped me to sing them in my head so I wouldn't think of the pain in my legs. It was also helpful to pray. Which is why we are here. Nepal gives a whole new meaning to prayer walking.
Along the way wherever we could we passed out flyers telling people of a Christian radio show on Pokhara FM. And a tract of the four spiritual laws translated into Nepalie.
After Uleri the scenery was incredible. We started to climb through the trees. The steps were mixed with switchbacks which made the climbing bearable.
Our group arrived at Ghore pani after about 9 hours of hiking with an hour lunch break and thirty minute stop in Uleri. We were at 2855 meters and I had a hard time catching my breath. My legs were sore but okay. Nothing a good night’s sleep wouldn’t remedy.
The next morning we woke up and ate noodles and ‘pancakes’ and started hiking at 8am. We climbed another 150 meters to the top of the mountain at 3000 meters. We took a picture at the top with the buddist prayer flags and picked the leeches off of our shoes.
We headed down and at 2600 meters we talked to a lady about our faith and found her to be very supersticious. We left there and hiked down hill some more and followed a stream for about half an hour. The streams and rivers here flow down the mountain and have some beautiful waterfalls. I hope my pictures turn out. The whole morning we were hiking in the clouds and everything was foggy.
After a half and hour we started back up again. There is something psycological that happens to you when you think it is all down hill from here and then have to start climbing up again.
We climbed back up to 2600 meters to a little villiage house and a man and his little boy were in front of their house staring at something. It was monkeys. There were gray monkeys with a black face between two to three feet tall in the trees. I counted 5 but there were probably more. We snapped some pictures but I don’t think they will turn out because the monkeys were too far away.
We gave the man a flyer and tract and headed down again. Leeches were everywhere and we had to pick them from our shoes so they wouldn’t attach themselves to our feet every 15 minutes or so.
We stopped for lunch Tadapani for about an hour and a half. After being soaked in sweat from hiking when we stopped it was very cold. We sat by the fire they used to cook with to warm up. It was funny to see Gary trying to dry out his shirt and watching steam float from it.
We reached our destination of Gandrung at about 3pm. The hike back to Bire thanti was either three or four hours. That’s another thing about being here. The locals have a very loose concept of time. You ask a person how far it is to the next town and they tell you 3 hours. You ask another person and they say 2 hours. You ask the next person and they say 4. You just never know.
Knowing that it was only four hours at the most back to Bire thanti we decided to make a full day of it and hike back and get a taxi back to Pokhara. As we walked we gave people tracts and flyers until we ran out.
Right before we got into Bire thanti Shane, Onmol and I were a little ahead of the group and a leopard ran across the trail. Monkeys and leeches and leopards oh my …
We got to the bride that crosses the river and a young guy approached us. ‘Excuse me sirs but you must pay the tax.’
He was a maoist. He and his maoist buddies we hanging out at the bridge making ‘tourist ‘ pay a 1000 rupee tax each for being in their territory. Basically we were funding their activities in Nepal. We complained and negotiated until they let Gary, Shane and I pay 2000 rupees together instead of 1000 each. Shane was not a happy camper. If we wouldn’t have been so tired I think he would have pulled out his sleeping bag and stayed there until they let him go.
We made it to Bire thanti in 11 hours of hiking and then had an hour taxi ride with five people and backpacks cramed into a small taxi back to Pokhara. My feet were tired but it was worth it. We saw some beautiful scenery. We accomplished and saw things very few people do. We shared our faith. This has been a great trip.
Tommy
