Larjung to Ghorepani

Moving on from Larjung, we wanted to get as far as possible, as there general feeling of "OK, we getting a bit gatvol of this". A feeling most likely being symptoms of sharing a road with some motorbikes and the occasional tractor as well as having to deal with really terrible afternoon winds. Thankfully, the path we were following diverted off, over a suspension bridge at a turn in the valley and rejoined the old path, which was used long before there was a road. The turn brought also on very welcome changes in the landscape as well.

We stopped for lunch in a small town called Ghasa (2010m) and listened to distance blasting noises. Here the ultra caring tea house owner told us that it was "not safe" to carry on, as the road had been closed for the rest of the day, due to the blasting and construction work. A very likely story ... especially when you have the potential of catching a "big fish" ... 7 trekkers, lunch, supper, breakfast and accommodation... we could see the dollars (or is that Rupees) in his eyes. So we kindly thanked him for his concern and left, ignoring the cries of "you'll be back". Much to our un-surprise, we crossed a suspension bridge to the other side of the river (it's well indicated on all up-to-date trekking maps), to the old path avoiding the road building & "blasting".

From the across the river, we had a very good view of the Nepalese road building process... it's really an interesting spectator sport. Everything is done by hand (except the actual blasting). The holds are hammered into the rock by hand and the blasted rock, which had not already fallen into the river, is also moved by hand. It's really something to see, these young Nepalese scrambing over the steep rock, meters above the river floor, tossing rocks down and hammering new blasting holes (a few weeks with out TV and you find things like this interesting to watch).

After passing what seemed like a sea of pilgrims on there way to Muktinath, we reached Rupse Chhahara (1600m), were we stayed for the night. Next day, we made our way to Tatopani (1190m), hear the path splits and you can either carry on with your descent and head for Beni. Alternatively, you can start heading upwards again to Ghorepani (2750m), were you can sit and watch the sunrise from "Poon Hill". So we sadly said goodbye to two of our party members, as the thought of climbing just over 2km and then coming down again, did not agree with sore knees.

So up we went ... then it started raining, so we stopped in a very dark & small "tea shop" to wait for the rain to pass. At about 15h00 it looked like it was starting to clear, so we decided to get some spring in our step and head up. So we climbed, it rained a bit more and we climbed some more. Most of the way up, was stairs made from slabs of marble and other local stone. Imagine ascending almost 2 km in altitude on your stairs at work. Stair Master 2007! It's also quite a think to image that all these slabes had been cut out by hand and carried on peoples backs to by carefully leading into a staircase, to link towns all the way on the route.

That evening a wet very group of 5 people arrived in Sikha, desperately looking for a hot shower and warm meal, we found it, at the "Dhaulagiri View" tea house, we there ultra friendly staff we very helpful and made us some excellent meals. From Sikha, we had a short day the next day, taking 4 hours to climb up to Ghorepani. Where we made it before the rains, with enough time for lunch.

The next day we would take on the remaining 400m meters, up to the summit of Poon Hill, to see the famed sun-rise views... us and the rest of the Trekkers staying the night in Ghorepani, whom had come for exactly the same reason.