It is Christmas Eve! Merry Christmas, readers! :-) I love Christmas because I love the songs. I love the movies. I love the cartoons. Just recently, I drew a Snowman and a Christmas Tree. And looking at them makes me so happy. :-)
So, back to my Tibet and Nepal post!
On 10 Sept, I woke up in anticipation for today! I am going to start my trek! Well, I didn't exactly trained much for this trip. I just did an hour hiking every weekend, and jog around my neighbourhood 3 times a week. And not enough, I tell you. I think I built my stamina during this trek instead! So, we have packed our necessities in this duffel bag, and it's up to a maximum of 15kg per bag. So, two persons shared a bag. Our other stuff is kept in our luggage and transferred to Hotel Shanker, the hotel we were going to stay when we come back. Me no like Hotel Shanker. Me prefer Hotel Marshyangdi because it is located in Thamel!! While Hotel Shanker is located a 5 minutes' drive away from Thamel. How are we going to shop? Have no fear, we changed our accommodation! Haha!
Before breakfast, I went to the rooftop of the Hotel and took a photo of the city of Kathmandu. It's pretty.
Gotta weigh the bag to make sure it's 15kg! The scale is provided by the hotel. Well, I guess lots of hotel have accommodation packages with the trekking companies.
And off we fly to Pokhara where we will begin our trek. The plane was scheduled to leave at 9.30am, and the plane didn't arrive until 9.30am. So we departed at about 9.45am. It is said to sit on the left side of the plane to see the Himalayan range but it was so cloudy we could not see anything!! Argh!
We are in Pokhara! Pokhara is the nearest airport to the start of our trek. The assistant guide and 4 porters were waiting for us. They took the 8-hour bus ride from Kathmandu to Pokhara while the guide followed us in the plane. For every 4 trekkers, there is 1 assistant guide. For every 2 trekkers, there is 1 porter to carry the luggage.
It was a one hour drive to the start of our trek - Naya Pul.
And a group photo before we started our trek!
The checkpost to check our trekking permits. Our first rest stop for the day is Birethanti where we were going to have our lunch. And by lunch, we were so hungry because we have not gotten used to the time difference yet!
The menu is the same in every guesthouse along the trek. And the food portion, if we did not trek, is enough for 2 people! It is a large portion, and thank goodness, we use up a lot of energy.
After lunch, we continued our trek, and the guide was worried we might not reach our first camp in time. But no worries, we told him, we have headlamps! Haha! It was going to rain too!! And rain it did, and it rained everyday during our trek. *sigh* So, we were always with our raincoats. Good raincoats too!
The trek continued with stoned steps. The stoned steps were the most tiring. It drained up a lot of my energy. And not to mention, ache my legs a lot. I was not prepared for these steps. The website described the views, the villages but not the stoned steps. However, I should be grateful too, because despite sapping the energy, it was easier to walk. The stoned steps were built by the villagers, and much preferred by them too. Of course, we shared the steps with the donkeys and horses and buffaloes. The local transport for the villagers.
The entrance to Ghandruk! I thought this was the end. And yay, we managed to reach before dark. It was 6pm. Took about 4 hours to reach here since lunch at 1.45pm.
Then, we had to climb more steps to go to the guesthouse. *Agony* *Agony*. My legs were close to giving up.
20 minutes later, I saw the guesthouse - Annapurna Guest House. All my friends have reached and were resting their feet. It was 6.20pm. Let me explain now that in all treks that I go, I am always the slowest. Hee!! But I am always determined to finish my trek!
Our room! Ghandruk is at 1,940m above sea level. Not too cold. We had an attached bathroom too. But it was cold water. Luckily, my friend's bathroom had warm water. Better than cold. And it was so refreshing to have a shower. That night, we didn't have to use the sleeping bag yet. We just use the comforter provided.
Before we call it a night, we placed our order for the next day's breakfast as breakfast needs an hour for preparation. The guide briefed us on our wake-up time and when to start trek. Then, it was time for bed.
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