Bahundanda to Dharapani

Next morning we eventually left Bahundanda (have I mentioned group inertia....). We were hardly out the town and met two guys, who were doing the circuit on their Mountain Bikes, apparently this was their second time & I takes about 10 days (half our time). After about 45minutes or so of walking, there was a huge explosion. At first I thought.. landslide, it was not till the second & third explosion that I realised all this noise was being generated by blasting on the other side of the river.

Presently there is great upset amongst the tea house owners, as the present government has decided that it requires roads to the capital of each province (the needs to be proper tarred roads). In this case, the road needs to run up the valley all the way to Manang, this however in turn cuts out about 6 days of the trek, which translates to less trekkers walking to Manang. Why walk when you can drive & shorten your trek by 6 days? What is good for some, is not good for others, hence the road will obviously not not benefit the tea house's, but is of great benefit to farmers who can now send produce to the cities. The road also has a negative impact on the porters & donkey trains, which constantly traverse route carrying goods up and down between cities (after all, that beer you drink 6 days into the trek needed to get there somehow).


Just a quick note on the porters... my bag (with 3 liters of water) weighed about 17 - 18 kg. Also I have very conformable hiking boots, which support my ankles. The porters, who carry trade goods are paid per KG (and it's not a lot) and due to the length of the trip. We chatted (as best we could), to a group of 4 porters with and average weight of about 78 KG between them. The biggest load was 84KG... and these guys walk with sandals. Tough as nails. As super-human as it sounds, they get paid peanuts and life is very tough. Concerning donkey trains ... a donkey carries less, up to between 30 - 40KG, gets the same per KG rate as a porter, but obviously does the trip A LOT faster and you can have a very donkeys. The average donkey train seems to be between 8 - 10 donkeys. Oh, you hear them a mile off, as they all wear big bells around their necks.

I digress... back to explosions. So, explosions finished we walked on a bit & stopped to wait for the others. Looking across to the other side of the river, I saw a big cloud of dust and stones flying. A bit odd (completely forgetting that light travels a lot fast than sound), but about mid thought, the shock wave hit ... whoa, it's a feeling I can't really describe, except by saying "I was blown away" (no injuries though), just a wave of sound, quite unbelievable!

So on we plodded, shaken and a bit deafer. Till we eventually arrived at a town called Jagat (1300m), where we staying in the "Tibetan Pemba Lodge", run by a lady (wait for it...) called Pemba. Very nice place, very friendly, excellent food & very very small rooms & even small beds (got to be the smallest room / beds of the whole trek). The place was so great, we stayed two days. Though this was more because one of our party got a bit of flu and was really in a bad way the next day, so we though it best (and we had time) to stay on the next day (much to the delight of Pemba, who probably thought she had just scored the jackpot).

After a full days rest, things got a bit better and it was decided to press on, with and extra party member. Decided to hire a porter just for the day, to carry a backpack. Our destination for the day was Dharapani (1900m), which we finally reached (in the rain), but before we got there we had to pass though a place called Tal (1700m), where we stopped for lunch, after a small monster of a climb, next to an amazing water flow.

Tal is said to be reminiscent of the American Wild West and it definitely lives up to that claim, though if you've ever been up the west coast, I'd say it looks more like one of those sleepy west coast towns, where the sand comes right up to the edge of the town and start the moment you exit. Between Tal & Dharapani, lies Karte (1850m) and the only reason I mention this town, is because we lost our porter in Karte, due to a "mis-communication" of the the final destination. Otherwise, on a much more "adventurous" note, leaving Tal, we did experience a "rock-slide", just a few meters ahead (I'd say under 10). What basically happened was that this huge boulder, which formed part of an overhang, had decided that enough was enough and "broke" (I lack a better word for it) off. Exciting stuff.