A frost had descended in the night and we lay huddled under our quilts watching the vapour from our breaths. As we waited for our proprietor to get the fire going, we had breakfast, shook hands with our host, and struck off up an ill-defined trail.
We gained altitude quickly and followed a wooded ridge to Deurali. The base camp of Mount Machapuchare is situated at a 6 hours uphill trek from this village. Being the furthest human-settled village en route to the Machapuchare base camp, Deurali falls in an avalanche-prone region with the most recent incident of human casualty reported on January 17, 2020.
The Annapurna’s seemed almost touchable on our left, gleaming whitely in the early morning sun like a washing powder commercial. They were too dazzling to look at for long. Our “companions” on the road were an American who boasted of incredible “24-mile walks through The Rockies”, and his bird, plus the soapy couple who were robbed at Lahore.
We paused for hot lemon drinks at the Deurali Lodge before pursuing these wretches and their porters down the trail. The path followed a deep gorge carved by a rushing mountain stream. At times we negotiated perilous, almost vertical bits where we had to clamber down wet, slippery steps. Sunlight filtered through the trees and the roar and tumult of the river was ever present.
Occasionally the sun shafted directly down between the gorge walls to form a warm, well lit section. The soap that was robbed in Lahore had dropped his favourite hat on the trail and was delighted when I returned it to him.
We emerged from the shadows to a sunlit oasis with four tea huts/lodges. We sipped tea and the old Ghurkha in charge told us that we were only two and a half hours from Ghandruck, our projected nights halt. We tarried beneath a huge cliff in the settlement of Banthati as the lairy boys came in one after another. Banthanti (3180 metres) means jungle resting stop.
They gathered at a table, lost despite all their maps and guidebooks, and we listened to their chatter. “Where have you been”? “Where ya going to”? “How long does it take to get to . . . “? “Is it hard/uphill/easy/downhill”? etc. combined with the usual “I’ve been here, I’ve been there” boasts.
We wasted some time here before setting out on a long downhill haul through clumps of bamboo and thick woods. Along the trail we were both lost in thought. I decided that I might like to learn Chinese, what with this colossal country opening up to the West.
We reached the nadir of this track and found Fatty the Yank, veteran of many a Rocky Mountain expedition sitting dejectedly by a stream. He was worried about the porter who had remained behind at the Banthati Lodges with his mammoth backpack. We left him to fret in our wake and began to saunter upwards along a cool, damp channel through the forest.
The peace and tranquillity was shattered as we broached the top of a hill by a party of gaily coloured Yanks singing “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go”, as they skipped out of Tadipani on the wrong track. Tadapani (2630 metres) is the main stopping point for trekkers between Ghorepani and Chhomrong. The trail opens up here and when the skies are clear the views of Annapurna South and Fish Tail are Fantastic.
We stepped up onto the sunny forecourt of the hotel view top (another ex-Ghurkha job) and had a tea break while clouds drifted across the Fish Tail mountain, the only clouds visible in an intense blue sky. It was now 14:00 hrs., one hour and twenty minutes since we left the last lodge. We followed a wooded trail along a reasonably level stretch before plummeting once again and arriving at another lodge.
Here George dozed in the sun while I read my book for a while. From here it was a relaxing “English Country Walk” down to the bustling heritage village of Ghandruk, with its a relatively prosperous Gurung population. We were led to believe that staying in Ghandruk is a wonderful experience, as the village has a friendly vibe to it and offers amazing views of Himalayan giants Annapurna, Hiunchuli and Machapuchare (Fishtail). We arrived in the village at 17:00 hrs.
The trail passed through familiar looking woods, bracken and countryside and the peaks of the Himalayas just peeked over the rim of the nearer hills. Faint farmyard noises drifted up from the valley; the lowing of cattle and the crowing of a cockerel. The sun was behind the hills thus creating a false dusk.
We strolled along, each in his own mental world, as the track was not arduous enough to warrant paying much attention to the track. We came down into Ghandruk and plumped for the Gorkhali Lodge, rather than the more popular Himalayan Lodge, after a fruitless search for a more remote abode.
The village looks like an English one from the Middle Ages with slate roofs, flagstone paving and stone walls. Todays walk was very enjoyable in a tranquil way. According to the guidebooks, for todays walk a guide was essential, but we proved this to be not the case. For these treks all one requires is what you’d stand up in on a cold night and some shorts. We carried all our stuff in shoulder tote bags bought from the local market.
We went into the dining room, a mud-walled cave, to eat our solid vegetable noodle soup. We were joined by an unemployed Kraut (German) who peeled his boiled potatoes as numerous Nepali folk scrobbled about in the shadows around us. Granny turned in on her wooden bed and the children came to stare at us and give renditions of Nepali pop songs.
A little boy with a mans face stared stonily at us from beneath his coloured hat. His purple smeared face (probably iodine) only cracked into a grin when his brother started to manhandle him about. We steamed into the raksi, which was a nicer, sweeter version, and chatted with the Ausberg lad about his lack of job prospects in Germany.
When all the family had gone to bed we moved out to our room in the “barn”. We settled on the uneven, ungiving straw palliasses in compartment 4 and blew out the rum bottle candles. We fell asleep fully-clothed and tightly wrapped in a thin quilt to stave off the cold.
An early morning peep at the night sky revealed a very bright decapitated moon and the usual myriad of stars in vivid clarity.
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