Machapuchare

Monday 28th November 1983

As we had breakfast, we watched a small army unit load up some porters with huge metal trunks for the uphill haul to Naundanda. We checked out and walked along the wide flat glacial valley into Hyanja, a fair-sized town.

We strolled along in the sun chatting about maps and compasses and this led on to talk of our old school days. The mountains were in clear view on our left, but the fish tail of Machapuchare was hidden now, showing only a single triangular peak.

We stopped at the Rabi Restaurant for a tea break at 09:30 hrs. From there it was a trudge along passed a huge quarry and along a track with increasing build-up of shops, houses, souvenir sellers and eventually those bloody noisy hooting cars and taxis.

We made our way back to the New Asia Hotel, recovered our stored kit safe and sound, and booked into room 216. We bought postcards and ordered a big pot of tea on the lawn, where we sat writing in the sun. Worried that the Post Office might close before we finished, we moved down there at about 14:30 hrs. to buy some stamps.

We joined the press and spent thirty minutes fighting off queue jumpers as the stamp vendor idly did sums in his book, stopping occasionally to deal out a few stamps. Eventually we were served and, as usual, we had three huge stamps to try to fit on each card without obscuring the addresses. Future advice: stick the stamps on before writing the address.

We sat on the Post Office wall to complete our cards and hand them in for posting. We then walked down to the Bus Station and were surprised to find a proper booking hall. We bought two 35 Nepalese Rupee tickets for the Pokhara to Sunali Express leaving at 07:45 hrs. tomorrow morning. Sjunali (Sunauli or Sonauli) is a dusty town on the Nepal/India border that offers little more than a bus stop, a couple of simple hotels, a few shops and a busy border post.

We wandered back munching monkey nut peanuts, shucking them from their shells, with a persistent little beggar scampering at our feet, and steamed into the shower at the hotel. Rivers of dirt ran off us and we emerged looking less tanned. The shower was cold as usual despite the “solar heating” that the reception idiot assured soapier customers was in operation.

We packed our kit and went into the slow service hotel restaurant for the usual egg curry. We read our books for a while and drank hot lemon drinks until 19:30 hrs. when we went to bed. We chatted for ages before dozing off.