Frist 2 days of Trekking

So, as already mentioned in my previous post, we organised a "private bus", or at this point I should rather say "tourist bus" (or something similar... basically no a local bus) to take us to the start of the trek. Faithfully the bus arrives at our hotel promptly at the arranged time and it quickly becomes apparent that even though it does fulfill the requirements of what was promised, it was "not quiet what we expected". Turns out, that the bus is simply just a mini bus (like the ones we pack 30 locals into back home), packed with a few tourists and many locals (considering what we paid, we reckoned, we each sponsored am additional). Either way, the journey was very pleasant, through the winding roads and after a couple of hours we finally arrived at the "end of the road", Besisahar.

Traditionally the Annapurna trek started at Dumre, but the walk been Dumre and Besisahar (820m) is essentially now tarred, so honestly, what is the point. There are local busses, which run to Bhulebhule (two downs down the road), but the road is not tarred (yet) and the walk is friendly enough. So all eager and wide eyed, waiting for out first glimpse of yonder snowy mountains, we check in at the police check post, eagerly waving around our trekking permits and all gearing to "hit the trail" ... after a good lunch of course, where are treated to watching a small Maoist march (this was to be about the only "Maoist" contact we had through out the entire trek).

14H00 and we finally start walking, reaching Khudi (790m ... hey, ain't we suppose to be going up) about 2 1/2 - 3 hours later where we shack up for the night in a very quaint tea house called "River View Lodge", idically situated on the banks of the river running though the town.

In fact, what makes this place interesting, is that the owners build a third suspension bridge, just to attract trekkers to their establishment. The rooms of the place were pretty basic (as most tea house rooms are) and are very cheap. We paid an average of Rs20 - Rs50 (R2 - R5) a night per person. You can practically almost stay for free at a tea house, but then the general "unspoken" rule is that you have supper and breakfast there. Also having 7 people, does provide a lot of bargaining power and so does not having a guide or porter. Apparently most guides insist that the tea house provide them with free food and lodging (even though you've paid enough to cover that), with the threat of not bringing any trekkers in the future to the establishment (and hence pocket the money, which was meant to cover this).

After a refreshing swim in the river, we had an excellent supper (I think all the food, save a few places, was excellent) and retired early to bed. Oh, just one more note on the rooms ... a thin board of plywood constitutes a wall.

Problem with going to bed early, is that you get up early, and the next day we were up and about around 06:30am, breakfast at 07:00am and walking around 09:00am (group inertia). The first town we passed was Bhulebhule (840m), where a lot of people start trekking from and where you are suppose to be able to see Himalchuli (7893m)... that is if there is no cloud cover and you can actually see a blue sky. Generally speaking however, blue skies only occur after Monsoon, when the rain gets ride of all the dirt and dust in the sky. So on we walked past Ngadi (930m), where we had lunch an admired a close by waterfall.

With lunch firmly settled in our stomachs, we tackled the first "climb" (sweaty slog) of the trek, up to a town called Bahundanda (1130m), which is a little ridge-top village. We bunked down in a cosy dormitory in a place called the "Hotel Mountain View". What this sleepy little ridge-top down did not realise when we entered, was that is was going to be the historical site of the first international cricket game between South Africa and Nepal, and I'm sad to say, we lost hopelessly. The Nepali team was proudly (and very enthusiastically) captained by the tea house owners son, who within a matter of a few minutes managed to round up a small team to fact us.

It was good fun.