April 20, 2000 - Chamrong (return trip)Today was difficult - more avalanche crossings - some paths across the ice had cracks - one could put their foot through and possibly fall through to the creek below. Then lots and lots of steps - 2,075 of them back through Chamrong. I was the slow one - dragging behind, often with Asman or G.S. at my elbow - like an old lady who has to be helped across the street. The lodge we're staying at has hot water - such a treat! We all got a shower. We each get a room to ourselves, and they have big windows with stupendous views of Annapurna and Machupuchare.
April 21 - Tada Pani
The next part of our journey takes us on a different route from our way in. Today was another day that was supposed to be easy, but not for me. We started on an easy downhill, but after lunch, we had a tremendous uphill climb.
Ben and G.S. have been stopping and looking at hydroelectric plants. G.S. is starting to become interested in having his own remote home village, Badel, obtain more electricity - currently it has limited energy from solar power. Last year G.S.'s mother became ill. It was several months before she could come to Kathmandu for treatment because, during monsoon season, travel is nearly impossible. Badel is a two days walk away from the nearest airport. When it rains, mudslides are a serious threat and planes don't always fly. G.S.'s mother was afraid of flying or of even leaving her village. But she finally came, and was successfully treated for cancer. So now G.S. is more interested in modernizing. At one village Ben found a used generator part that G.S. might be able to use in his village. He had G.S. talk to the owner about it - investigative skills were something that G.S. needed to develop. At our lunch stop, Ben and G.S. discovered that the restaurant owner was head of a committee to bring several hydroelectric plants to the area - seven for the village in all. Ben and G.S. questioned the owner and learned more about the hydroelectric plants and also what was the recipe for a successful governing committee. The owner took us up the hill to one of the plants and showed us how it worked. We learn that it took eight porters to carry in the heaviest part of the generator. The plant that we looked at served 40 houses. Fortunately the plant was similar to the type that G.S. can use in his village - his water supply is copious, and high above the village. We have strong hopes that, some day, G.S. will be able to negotiate such a plant and electricity for his village.
Unfortunately, the type of cooperation among villagers in Tada Pani does not always happen. Ben tells us of another village where water storage boxes have been built, in series, several in line down the hill from the water source. When the top box fills, the overflow goes to the next box down the hill, and so on. But if the up-hill families leave the faucet on all the time, the box never fills, and no one else gets any water.
We continue upwards into the mountains. My energy level is low. It has been raining all the way up. As we get higher, the trees and landscape change. There are now more taller trees, more rhodedendron trees, more moss, and more vegetation. It is beautiful, even in the rain. This is more like a jungle, with swales on one side or the other. There is more limestone formations, and caves. Finally, after an exhausting climb, we reach the village of Tada Pani. We are crammed three to a room again, this time in the smallest of rooms. Here there is a high observation tower where we can sit and look at Machupuchare and Annapurna South - really great views. My cough and energy level are bad, and the dining room seems closed in, so an early bed time seems to be the ticket. I take a decongestant at bedtime, which helps me sleep.
April 22 - Durali
Another uphill climb. But the limestone cliffs, the strange fir trees, the horizontal jamal rhodedendrons with thin birch-like bark, the paper trees (with pink flower clusters), and the wonderful waterfalls, all make it seem like a magical place, and very worth being there. This time, everyone stayed closer together, which made the going nicer. I think we were all tired, and not very talkative. We are staying in a small village tonight - only two inns. Here we are at a different kind of lodge. It is a big barn-like structure with about four rooms on one side and four on another, the kitchen on a third side, and the forth side open to a patio. There is a wood stove in the common area, around which we gather. Three German ladies join us. We snack on popcorn.
It is hailing. It started raining when we got here, with hailstones getting bigger and bigger over the last two hours. And noisy! The roof above us is corregated tin, and it leaks in some areas. I wonder what the next wave of hail will bring? The thunder is continuous now - what an amazing storm!
But there is way too much smoke. I am overcome with coughing, and too much noise. I don't feel well and go to bed without any supper. I feel chilled.
April 23 - Ghorapani
I awoke at first light, quietly organized my things, and got dressed. Then I decided to climb up to the viewing tower, which turned out to be quite a way further than I thought, and a real grunt up the hill - more than I really felt up to. But I thought I saw Ben over at the tower, so I went there. He wasn't there, but he and Greg came up as I was going down. The view at the top was really nice. After breakfast, we started out again - first uphill, but eventually we were travelling on a long ridgetop with stupendous views on both sides. The rhodedendrons were the best ones on the trip, but we still wished we had come several weeks early for prime blooming season. Then we came upon some fir trees - possible silvertips. The group stayed together again, until the last hour. Then, downhill to Ghorepani, with arrival at 11 am. The three of us were able to take hot showers here - what a treat. The lodge is very rustic, but at least the windows open to the fresh outside air.
After lunch we go to the main thoroughfare to shop for souvenirs. How nice it is not to dodge traffic. We all find a trinket or two. I bought a lapis lazuli necklace - very beautiful. But later it turns my neck blue. Now the rain, thunder, lightening, and hail have started, but it looks like a much shorter storm than yesterday.
Oops - spoke too soon. The rain came again in the evening. G.S. took Ben and me to an evening cultural dance performance by the village matrons. Our hotel owner is performing, G.S. tells us. He seems to be friends with many of the women who run the hotels we stay in. The dance was to earn money for village improvements - such as paving, electrification, sewers, etc. The next morning Greg (and a bunch of other tourists) got up at 4:30 to walk 45 minutes to Poon Hill - where the sunrise views of the mountains are unrivaled - if it isn't cloudy. But it was cloudy, which is why the rest of us slept in. We learn that more people visit Poon Hill than ABC, but, for us, on this trip, it was not to be. I can see the Poon Hill pilgrims returning from my bedroom window.
We had an interesting talk with the man who works for the U.S. State Department in Taiwan, and is here in Nepal with his son. He talked about Taiwan development projects - a huge mudslide was brought on by an earthquake, backing up the river. His trekking style is different from ours - they have a cook and have brought all their own food. Yet they stay in the lodge.
April 24 - Uralle
We left after breakfast on a mostly downward trail. The weather cleared up. The rocks are different here - and fasinating to look at. There is a pretty green marble, for example. The trail goes down, down. We come across some gorgeous creeks, waterfalls, and big rocks. Sometimes the creek travels in a deep gorge. Pasang, our porter, who usually travels ahead of us, disappears. He is supposed to wait at various stops. We have lunch then travel on to Uralle, where we find Pasang. What a relief!
On the way we see several donkey trains (about 10-15 donkeys in each). All wear a bell. Most carry small packs. The donkeys were absent in the Annapurna Conservation area, but not here. In fact the trails have an excess amount of donkey poop on them - sometimes making them slippery!
Our new digs are gloomy in the hallway and inner rooms. At least the rooms have a great view, as does the long porch on the upper story. Trains of donkeys are frequent throughout the town. Goats and water buffalo are seen from the window.
Monsoon season is here. Lots of rain - hard rain in the afternoon. But it stops at night. Ben tells Greg and me about how discouraged he is about the development of Nepal and how hard it is to get Nepalis to help themselves. He has adopted the motto "Don't change Nepal; let Nepal change you", but none of us, including Ben, believe that he will live up to his motto. The dining area of the lodge is dark, so we beg candles, which brighten up our conversation considerably. It is the first time that all five of us - me, Greg, Ben, G.S., and Asman, have a balanced conversation. Asman becomes most talkative and tonight his English is especially good.
April 25 - last day - destination: Pokhara Another five to six hours of hiking, but it is pleasant. We are all cheerful, knowing we are going to nice accomodations in Pokhara. The way is almost all downhill - through many small villages, restaurants, and lodges with bright flowers, particularly geraniums and nasturtiums decorating the tables of teahouses. The rocks change again. Many of the rocks are covered by a gold- or silver-looking glaze. The quartz is interesting - some of it rose quartz. We find a lot of green and orange marble, even whole cliffs of it. The river is either picturesque waterfalls or clean-flowing along a rocky bed, with people fishing or swimming in it.
When we left Uralle, we learned that yesterday a local man was killed in a fall from a steep hill. G.S. said he thinks the man had been drinking. That is why G.S. never drinks. We pass the funeral-goers at the river, where they are cremating the body. Before reaching this spot, we have seen grains of rice left along the trail - part of the custom for the dead.
At lunch we see, across the paved path, a house, and in the front courtward grain is spread. A woman and a boy are beating the grain with poles, threshing it. Several girls who appear to be from Hong Kong come along and decide to join in for a photo op. They take turns beating the grain with a stick while the villagers get a good laugh.
At the Nayapul we catch a bus and take a two hour bus ride to Pokhara. The views from the windows of the hills and terraces are still as beautiful and interesting as when we started the trek.
During the trek I had regretted not having a book to read. So I check out the bookstore in Pokhara and find an amazing book that would have been very appropriate to read on the trek: The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen. It is about a small expedition travelling on foot in the mountains of Nepal to search for the rare blue sheep and the rarer snow leopard. From the book, written in 1979, I read the following passages:
"Until quite recently these Nepal lowlands were broadleaf evergreen sal forest (Shorea robusta), the haunt of the elephant and tiger and great Indian rhinoceros. Forest-cutting and poaching cleared them out; except in the last retreats such as the Rapti Valley, to the south-east, the saintly tread of elephants is gone. The last wild Indian cheetah was sighted in central India in 1952, the Asian lion is reduced to a single small population in the Gir forest, north-west of Bombay, and the tiger becomes legendary almost everywhere. Especially in India and Pakistan, the hoofed animals are rapidly disappearing, due to the destruction of habitat by subsistence agriculture, overcutting of the forests, over-grazing of the scraggy hoards of domestic animals, erosion, flood - the whole dismal cycle of events that accompanies over-crowding by human beings."
and ...
"The path tends west around small mountains, then climbs toward a village in the pass. Where a white vulture sails in the sunny mist, a high forest comes in view, threaded by waterfalls. We are escorted through the village by a boy playing a tom-tom; he wears a saucy hat, short shirt, and vest, and nothing more. One day this boy and others will destroy that forest, and their sheep fields will erode in the rain, and the thin soil will wash away into the torrents, clogging the river channels farther down so that monsoon floods will spread across the land. With its rapidly increasing population, primative agriculture, and steep terrain, Nepal has the most serious erosion problem of any country in the world, and the problem worsens as more forests disappear in the scouring of the land for food and fuel; in eastern Nepal, and especially the Kathmandu Valley, firewood for cooking (not to speak of heat) is already precious, brought in by peasants who have walked for many miles to sell the meager faggots on their backs. The country folk cook their own food by burning cakes of livestock dung, depriving the soil of the precious manure that would nourish it and permit it to hold water. Without wood humus or manure, the soil deteriorates, compacts, and turns to dust, to be washed away in the rush of the monsoon."