Our Nepali Trek by Lucas

We arrived in Kathmandu by plane to the biggest and only international airport in Nepal. It was about double the size of Williams Lake airport. We then went to our hotel and made a plan with the trekking company there. We met our guide for our ten day trek in the Annapurna Base Camp area. His name was Bibek.

Average street in the capitol of Nepal. Ricksaw drivin by man power

He seemed very nice and seemed to speak very good English. He would take the bus to Pokhara that night so that he would be there when we arrived by plane the next day.

We made plenty of purchases of outdoor clothes, etc. that we needed for our trek. 

Things there were pretty cheap and we were very happy with our purchases. We got lots of chocolate bars because we heard they were expensive in the mountains, and a power bank because it is hard to charge devices up there. We packed up all our stuff, dividing it into stuff we needed for the trek and stuff we didn't. All the stuff we didn't need went into a huge duffel bag that Grandma had brought. We left it at the hotel in Kathmandu because we would spend another night there on our way back. We then went to the airport to take our plane to Pokhara. The plane was a little bigger than the ones that fly from Williams lake to Vancouver I was told. Two seats on one side and one on the other. 

You can see me sticking my head out in the back!

On this flight we got a very good view of the Himalayan mountain range and we think we saw Annapurna I and a lady behind pointed out Mount Everest be we aren't sure that was it.  

Our first snow capped himilayas

On this 45 minute flight we got mints and coke even though it was such a short flight. Thank you Yeti Airlines!

Thank you Yeti Airlines!

On our arrival in Pokhara we grabbed our luggage from the "belt". The "belt" was a cement barrier shaped like a small luggage belt that the employees pile the luggage on😂. We met our guide and porters there. At the most, porters are supposed to carry about 20 kilos each. We managed to fit all of our gear and clothes (for 5 of us) into three bags. They took us to our hotel where we would stay after our hike for two nights, and left an extra bag full of nice clean clothes there for when we got back.

Next, we got in the van and took a long drive up to a small town called Nayapul (meaning new bridge), elevation 1,070 meters, where we ate a quick lunch before starting our 10 day trek. Our guide and porters ate Dal Baht which is the national Nepalese dish that they eat for lunch and dinner almost every day. It's made with rice, lentil soup, vegetable curry, a small pickled dish, cabbage, and a piece of bread.  The Dal Baht is slightly different at each place so they don't get bored of it. What's unique about this dish is that once you order it, you can ask for more and more without extra charge so it's great when you're really hungry. Nepalese eat with their hands (right hand only) for almost everything. Bibek told us about the common saying, "Dal baht power, 24 hour!" because it gives you energy for the whole trek. They even make tee-shirts which have that saying.

Us crossing the "New Bridge" with our porters

Anyways, from Nayapul we hiked up to a village called Tikkhedhunga (Tikki-Dunga). This was only a half day of trekking (about 3 hours) on a dirt road where a few jeeps flew past us. We were amazed at how steep it was and how a jeep could get up it! Our guide called it Nepali flat - " if a jeep can get up it, it's flat". That had some of us a little concerned because it felt quite steep to us!  There were lots of houses all around us and rice paddies were everywhere. We saw all kinds of people -kids, old women, working adults, babies, everybody seemed very happy in the mountains. We were pretty tired by the time we got to the end of the road but that didn't stop me from running up our first set of stairs. We saw our first teahouses there. There were no more dirt roads, just a walkway paved with stones. It felt so much more comfortable and relaxing because we were in nature and there was no more traffic.  Our guide said we had an hour of walking left, but tricked us and it turned out it was only fifteen minutes. We were all happily surprised. When we got to the teahouse we got settled in our room which had no attached bathroom. At this elevation (1,500 meters), it was still warm so we ate a good meal and slept well (not cold). We were not at all looking forward to what Bibek said was supposedly the hardest day of the trek the next day.

We woke up and had a breakfast of pancakes, muesli, and porridge. It was surprisingly good. We started by going down so I was quite confused. Later on I learned that this was what trekking was all about in the Himalayas. Up and down, up and down. Unfortunately the down was very short lived and we went across the first of many suspension bridges. After the bridge, the uphill haul began. 8 HOURS OF STONE STEPS AND STEEP DIRT TRAIL, UP THE WHOLE WAY

Good example of the whole day

. After about 4 hours we stopped for lunch. Dad had dal baht and the rest of us stuck close to home with things like, macaroni and cheese, soup, and french fries. It was quite cold once we stopped walking so we put our jackets on. After another three hours of stairs we came to a village called Ghorepani (2,860 meters).

Getting close to the end of the day and still smiling for dad  (the camera man)

This was where we stayed for the night. In the mountain you have to pay extra for a hot shower, bad wifi, charging outlets, and food. This is because they rely on the mountain taxis (donkeys) to carry everything up to the teahouses, which isn't an easy way to get supplies.  Interestingly, a group of people called the Annapurna Committee make the food menus for every tea house so every menu is the same, but the prices go up a bit as you go higher.  Rice pudding is a big thing in Nepal that usually only babies eat, but I had it for almost every breakfast and some desserts. This was the only tea house in the entire trek that had a game - it was a Nepali game that was called caramboard. You have to flick a circular piece (like a checker) on a board and try to get other pieces into the holes in the corners. I played with Bibek, one of our porters named Suman, and my dad. I lost miserably. I got no pieces in and everybody else got at least 5. Oh well, it was fun. My mom had a hot shower and we had attached bathrooms. This was the nicest place we stayed in in the mountains by far.

The next morning we woke at 4:30 AM to go up to the famous Poon Hill. We could see the stars so that meant that it was clear so when we got to the top of Poon Hill we would see the sunrise over the mountains. About a 1/3 of the way up our guide told us that the clouds had come in again and there was no chance of us seeing the mountains. He said we would climb to the same height as Poon hill  on that day's hike and we might see the mountains from there. We decided to go back down and have breakfast. Another thing about the mountain food is that it takes a very long time to make. For this reason, we ordered our breakfast before we went to bed every night so that when the cook woke up in the morning, our order would be in. We ate another pancake, muesli, and porridge breakfast. The pancakes were delicious once again. We started our hike by going up. We were appalled when Bibek said that our end point for that day was about the same elevation as Ghorapani. We started by climbing the hill that was the viewpoint as high as Poon Hill.  The porter that was ahead told me that we might see some ice soon! It was a very misty morning and the path ahead looked mysterious and majestic. As we came to a resting place, all the mist cleared for us and we got our first good view of the mountains. This was the only time we saw Dhaulagiri ( dow-lig-eery ) and Annapurna I. Dhaulagiri is the seventh highest mountain in the world at 8,167 meters. Annapurna I is the 10th highest at 8,091 meters. These are the two tallest mountains that we saw the entire trip. Unfortunately it was hard to tell that they were so tall because Annapurna south (23,684 feet), a closer mountain, dominated our view. We were in awe of our first look at the mountains.

.....

We watched as the fog blew in and completely concealed the mountains. Remember, we still hadn't reached the summit of our little hill (3,210 meters), and when we did reach the summit there were quite a few people there. There was also a man selling bracelets.

The rest stop

My dad, grandma, and I all got bracelets, and my Mom got a medallion to put on her necklace. After this we descended all the way down to the river, slightly up to eat lunch, all the way back down to the river, and up a steep slope of stairs to our destination - a town called Tadapani.

The walk after the mist blocked our view of the mountains

It was supposed to be about the same height as Ghorepani, but it was actually quite a bit lower (2,630). This was about a 6 hour day. That evening I learned that Nepalese like to name their villages exactly what they were. As I told you before, our starting village (Nayapul) is called new bridge. It's called this because the town was built at the same time as a bridge across the river. The next town (Tikkidhunga) was called sharp stone because there used to be lots of sharp stones that people built houses with there. The next town (Ghorapani ) is called horse water because the horses went there to drink. And now the village we were in (Tadapani) was called far water because the buffalo that lived up there would have to go a far way to get water. Anyways, here we had two rooms, one for my Mom, my dad, and me, and one for my sister and my grandma. There was supposed to be a nice view of the mountains, but it was foggy just like every other evening on the trip so far. We had a good dal baht dinner, and talked to another Canadian who had heard about a different hike on a ridge. This hike was to a place called Mardi Himal base camp and is a little higher than Annapurna base camp . We asked our guide about this and he said that he loved that route. We decided to go to this base camp instead because we had a better chance of getting views of the mountains. The hike was along a ridge instead of through the forest in the valley bottom. It would still be the same amount of days. After dinner we were all tired and content to go straight to bed.

The next morning my mom got up bright and early and saw the mountains. She woke us up and we were once again wowed by them. We had a good pancake and rice pudding breakfast, and headed out. 

This new route we had chosen would be about as hard if not a little tougher than the ABC route, a little bit higher, and hopefully much more beautiful. Anyways, we headed out to a big village called Chomrong (2,170 meters). This day was waaaaaay down to a different river that was about double as far down as the last one. About halfway down we came to an old woman claiming that she was taking care of twin babies whose Mother died after they were born. There are a lot of scams in Asia so we asked our

The old sweet women whom we donated money

guide if it was legit. He thought it was so we gave her a little bit of money and headed on our way. We felt very good about doing this. Next we came to a nice grassy area for resting. From here we could see Sooooo far down the river and tiny thread of a bridge. From here we could also follow the trail with our eyes all the way to where Bibek said we were having lunch. It looked a long ways away, but the distance is usually much less than it looks.

Us crossing the river on one of many suspension bridges

It took about 2 hours to get to lunch were we met with the Canadian guy once again. After lunch, we set out for another 2 hours to Chomrong. Once at Chomrong, we settled in at what must have been the best hotel in the whole village! Although foggy when we got there we knew we must get a great view of the mountains from pictures we had seen and the name of the hotel, Panorama View Lodge! We had a great dinner and learned the national Nepali card game. Bibek taught it to us and we played it for hours. I won every time that night. We keep forgetting the name to this game so we just call it 'dal baht'.
The next morning we woke up and saw that there were no more foothills between us and the mountains. We could see Annapurna South, Himchuli, Gangapurna, and Fishtail (Machapuchre).

All five of us with Annapurna south in the background.

This was the first time that we got a good view of the forbidden mountain of Fishtail. On top it looks like a fishtail so that why it's called Fishtail. It's considered a sacred mountain by Nepalese because so many people have died on it and the government has now 'forbidden' climbing it.  It was really quite beautiful and the rooftop deck was a real treat for viewing the mountains in the morning. Our guide brought us our breakfast and hot drinks up there. We were definently ready to go down to the river where some natural hot springs were. The hot springs were about a 30 minute walk from a village called Jhindu (1,780 meters). It took about an hour to get there from Chomrong. We went to the hot springs for a couple hours and then ate lunch back at Jhindu.

The for of us with Bibek in the hot spring

  I had a burrito which was the only burrito I saw on any menu the whole trek. It was sooo good. After lunch we took a trail back down to the river,

Your everday suspension bridge

up the valley, down to the river, and up to a village called Landruk (1,640 meters). This was the last place in the Annapurna Base Camp trek, so from here on out there would be no wifi, and much more simple accommodation but also better views. We stayed at a pretty dumpy place, which was unfortunate because from here on out it was cold, wet and uncomfortable. We bought a few candies in case there was none on the Mardi Himal route! We played dal baht again that night. Surprisingly I won again.
The next morning we got up and saw that there was a jeep road up to this town. It was crazy because we had seen no vehicles for 5 days, but there is a back way for them to get to Landruk.  After a rice pudding breakfast,

Me and one of our porters, suman at the top of a long stretch of stairs

we headed up for another day of straight up. We climbed halfway up a huge ridge, and had lunch, the greatest dal baht yet. We climbed another 2 hours to Low Camp (2,990 meters). Now we were in the camps made for climbing Mardi Himal. Just before we arrived at Low Camp, it poured and poured rain on us. We stayed there and dried off a bit, then headed up to a place called cloudy hill. They are trying to re-name themselves middle camp because it's not a super appealing name. Anyways, at cloudy hill the food was very good and the people were very nice, but the fire to keep the place warm was not working well so we were somewhat cold for a while. We slept OK. The next morning we woke up very early to climb a small hill to see the mountains. They were now so close it felt like we could just jump across the valley to the top of the mountains.  From here we saw Annapurna south, Himchuli, what I'm calling "The Great Barrier", and Fishtail. 

Mind. Blown.

The great barrier in the background

The Great Barrier is a massive wall of snow and ice covered in little peaks. It was really quite impressive. We saw all of them in more detail than we had seen them before. When we looked directly across the valley it looked like we were above the alpine zone. Alpine in Nepal is anything above 4,000 meters, but we were not yet above 4,000 meters, only about 3,100 meters. As we were about to head down for breakfast, we heard a plane, at least we thought it was a plane. Our guide told us it was an avalanche on the other side of the mountain! Once down, we had a rice pudding and pancake breakfast and headed up again. Grandma was feeling really yucky that day so we thought we would just go on a nice easy 2 hour hike to high camp (3,580 meter) up here there was snow almost wherever you looked. Luckily the wood stove worked OK so we stayed warm. I ordered a pizza as soon as we got there because I knew that they take a long time. We got into our room and chilled-out in the dining area for a bit, ate dinner and got ready for a very early morning the next day, for we would attempt to go to the base camp. We also ordered a breakfast to go for the next morning. Tibetan bread (sort of like bannock) and a boiled egg each.
When we woke up at 5:00 the next morning we suited up to be cold, the previous night it had hailed so hard that we had to yell at the top of lungs or get within a few centimetres of each other to talk. There was a solid 2 centimetre layer of hail over the whole ground.

I risked my life to get this hail

Besides that, we couldn't have chosen a better day to summit. It was by far the clearest day of our whole trek, and the sun was shining bright. We started out cold and tired, but as we gained altitude and daylight, it actually got warmer, and I can honestly say that I got less tired as we went on. After about an hour, we came to an amazing viewpoint from which we could see everything. Everything seemed so much closer than ever. The Great Barrier was now closer than we had ever seen it. Annapurna South was incredible, and for the first time we saw Mardi Himal. Before this, it was camoflouged to us by Fishtail because Mardi is right in front of and below it, but now we could see where Mardi started and Fishtail ended. Most people stop here and go back to high camp but we just took a break here and drank some tea from a man selling it up there. Grandma had said she would come up slowly because she was feeling a bit better. From here we saw her starting to climb the hill. We continued on to viewpoint two, and eventually base camp. At viewpoint two we had the most spectacular view of our whole trip (although only a little more spectacular than viewpoint one) we saw all the mountains possible with absolutely no obstructions. We had a quick snack here then continued on to base camp. If you trek to the Everest base camp, you can not see Mount Everest. Here at Mardi Himal base camp (4,500 meters) we could see Mardi Himal and Fishtail although Fishtail was getting covered over by clouds that blew by once in a while.  But it was an experience to see the pile of rocks with prayer flags and Nepali flags. Up here it was snow as far as you could see. I could probably have slid all the way down to the bottom of the valley. At least until the snow turns to mud. We stayed for about 30 minutes up there taking pictures and celebrating, then, just as the clouds started to take the mountains for the day we started our trek down.

Happy at the summit of our journey

We made a plan to meet grandma at Low Camp that day so we were in a bit of a hurry. At viewpoint 1 Bibek and I ran ahead to high camp to order lunch. I ordered rice pudding of course. Just as we got in it started hailing slightly. It got steadily harder until about a half hour later my mom, dad, and sister made it. Then it really got bad. Once again you could not talk to each other or go outside. It was physically impossible to talk because of how loud the hail on the roof was. Going out from under cover was suicide. We hunkered down until the storm calmed down, then we headed out. After about 45 minutes we got to cloudy hill, then another 1.5 hours we were down to Low Camp. We had wanted to keep going to Forest Camp, but grandma didn't feel good and my parents' knees hurt. We stayed at Low Camp with 4 other French Canadians. They taught us a card game and we had dinner then went to bed. Breakfast was not good at Low Camp. Actually none of the food was good at Low Camp, but it filled our stomachs.
The next day we headed down to Forest Camp and then to a town called Kalimati. About 10 minutes away from Kalimati Bibek, Maya and I dicided to run ahead and order lunch for everyone. Of course, running on uneven trail is a bad idea, but I did it anyways. Of course I fell and got a deep cut in my hand and we had to go down to Pokhara in a jeep. But first we spent one last night in the mountains. Here we could see the Mardi Himal ridge and we were amazed by how far we had gone. Of course, all good things come to and end and I had to get stitches

The brutal stiches

and end our trek early (just one day though). After I got my stitches we explored Pokhara for a couple days and did some shopping. After that we took a jeep back to Kathmandu. It was a wild jeep ride with trucks hanging over a cliff, crazy high speed passing around blind corners, huge colour full trucks,(like semis) and a lot of beautiful views. When we finally got to Kathmandu we spent a final night in Nepal. The next day we went to the airport and said goodbye to grandma for she would be going back to Canada while we would continue to Maldives. Poor Grandma had to wait in the airport for about 12 hours, but our flight was practically right away. We flew to Mumbai, India, then to Colombo, Sri Lanka. And finally we ended our journey in Male, Maldives.
Overall, Nepal was an amazing experience, culturally and geographically, and probably the most beautiful scenery on our whole trip so far. The amazingly fresh air was a huge and awesome change from the smog of Beijing and my whole family is excited to try to get back there!