Trek Nepal 2000
This was a private tour organised by an acquaintance of my sister (Jenny), involving eight people from Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. The trek actually started with a road trip from Kathmandu to Pokara – all of 200 km but taking seven hours which gives some idea of the rather hair-raising terrain. Road rules, which we know nothing of, were the order of the day. We reached our destination around mid-afternoon somewhat relieved to be more or less back on terra firma. As our mini-bus driver observed on arrival “Are we in Pokara (yes), are there any scratches on the bus (no), then it must be an alright day”.
The Hungry Eye, in the middle of town, was our home for the night. Bill and I shared a room of quite spacious dimensions, with a view to … buffalos, haystacks, women carting dung, drying grain and two animals dragging a biblical plough around a paddock – not what we would expect the see in such a location back home. Of the high mountains there was no sign, the daily smog preventing any chance of sighting anything beyond a few hundred metres.
Part 1: Up North
The first five days of the trek were up to the foot of Thorong La, a location that was the highest we reached on the whole trek, then back down to a bit below where we started from. A splendid introduction to Nepal trekking.
Part 2: Down South
The trek down the Kali Gandaki through the 6000 metre deep gorge to Tatopani then cross country over high elevation ridges provided a quite different experience, not the least because of the snow storm we met en route.
