Annapurna-Dhaulagiri Trek

I’m sure you don’t need a blow-by-blow account of the trek, so I’ve tried to group some of the highlights under key headings (this may be a very green approach for my HBDI friends out there…)  However, apologies: as it is still quite long - there were so many amazing and surprising aspects!

The daily routine

·         The 10 of us were supported by Tsering, and a crew of 27 (Our sidhar - in charge of the crew, 4 additional guides, a crew of 7 cooks and 15 porters) – at least, I think that split is roughly correct.

·         Each night, Tsering would give us a briefing, including what time our wake-up call / breakfast / walk start would be: the usual catch-cry became 6/7/8!!

·         Each morning started with a couple of our guides bringing a cup of tea to our tent (in reality, most mornings started significantly earlier with the town rooster starting at 4:30am – or, in subsequent villages the dogs often persisted throughout the night).

·         After tea, we would receive a bowl of warm water for washing, and then had to pack up our belongings and vacate the tents so that the porters could dismantle camp – this process was usually chaotic (particularly on the first morning, as we all tried to figure out the routine).

·         Breakfast was served ‘al fresco’, with our table and chairs set up in the open – enabling us to admire the view as we dined. (The exceptions to this were the really cold mornings – when we would often retreat indoors to a local tea-house… more about them later!)

·         Breakfast, lunch and dinner were all served as we sat, with our guides bringing out platter-after-platter of foods to serve to us.  Breakfast was typically a hot ‘porridge’ (alternating between oats/semolina and rice each day), muesli, granola, followed by eggs (fried/scrambled/omelette), toast or roti-style bread and sausages.  After breakfast on the first day a few off us felt like heading back to bed (being far too full for walking!)

·         At the conclusion of breakfast final packing was completed, and off we would go.

The chores

·         Doing washing became a communal drama – after the first couple of days, we were all hanging out for the opportunity to have some clean clothes.  We had some spectacular mountain outlooks – but attempting to clean clothes in a kitchen-mixing bowl, with only a limited supply of warm water was still a challenging process.

·         However,  other than cleaning clothes, there was very little else that we had to do for ourselves – everything was arranged, catered and served for us – a strange feeling not having to think for myself from day-to-day (I actually found it hard when the tour ended, and I had to start making my own arrangements again!)

Tea Houses

·         Day 2 of the walk kicked off another factor that was to become all too routine… the weather.  Although the day dawned fine and warm, a massive rain and hail storm hit us in the early afternoon (fortunately, we arrived at camp just as it was really starting to hit, and were able to take refuge in the tea house next to our camp).

·         ‘Tea house’ is the name for the accommodation/restaurant establishments set-up for trekkers throughout Nepal.  Typically, they had a main dining hall (with central fire), rooms, and communal bathrooms (sometimes with hot showers!)  Tea houses became a mixed blessing for us:  each night, our tents would be pitched in the grounds neighbouring a tea house – many of us had thought that we would be wilderness camping, and it was disappointing that we were always near another establishment.  On the other hand, with the weather pattern established (rain each afternoon), and increasing getting colder as we ascended in altitude, the dining halls and fires were often a welcome refuge from the elements). 

·         Also, with many of the trekking days being much shorter than anticipated (we often arrived at camp in the early afternoon, and dinner was not served until 7pm each night), we often whiled away the hours in the local tea house: a couple of -not very good- bottles of wine were consumed over the trek, many bottles of the local beer, and -on one occasion- a few rounds of local rum!   (This was in marked contrast to my expectation of a healthy detox in the mountains).

·         As we climbed in altitude, and after several nights of hard, cold ground (I MISSED my Thermarest!), we reached camp one night to discover the coated in snow.  It was at this point that several of us decided tea house rooms were the go for the night… I felt like a bit of a wimp… for about 30 seconds!  For about $4 each, we got a soft(ish) bed – and while the rooms were not heated it was at least dry.

The changing scenery –

·         At lower altitudes, the land we travelled through was almost entirely terraced for crops (an amazing sight over very steep hill sides).  The range of crops grown seemed to be really broad- corn, rice, millet, wheat, cabbages, potatoes, leeks).

·         As we ascended, we reached forested areas – many of which had a distinct ‘Lord of the Rings’ quality: with moss-draped trees, progressing into rhododendron forests.  It was particularly amazing to see rhodos, magnolias and daphne growing in the wild – all things that we cultivate in gardens back home.

·         Nearly every day provided amazing mountain views, and as we ascended they became more and more spectacular.

·         After a night at our highest campground (3660m) about half of us did a there-and-back walk further up the mountain.  We were trekking through snow which was really hard work: often sinking quite deeply with each step (although I was bringing up the rear, so walking in the footsteps of others was significantly easier I think!)  As we progressed, we were faced with sloping mountainsides of snow to pick our way across… I found this really scary: there was nothing above me and nothing below me; just a slope of white.  I was a bit of a wimp, and had to be helped across by the guides on several occasions (although I’m not sure that holding onto my raincoat would have been very useful – I think I might have just taken the guide with me down the slope!)   We stopped for lunch at around 4000m

·         On one particular day of the trek (heading up the hill to Ghorepani on day 10) I started to feel that I’d had about enough: ‘over it’.  It was  on this day that we were treated to some glorious morning weather, gorgeous mountain views, flowers dotting the hillsides in a manner that looked almost like a planned garden, and Rob spoke for all of us when he said he’d run out of adjectives (see my blatant overuse of ‘amazing’ in the points above!)

·         Closer to the towns, the ‘scenery’ also included the people and animals.  The children were unbelievably cute (this is coming from me…) and the donkey transportation trains were always interesting (I especially liked the cages of live chickens as cargo).

The facilities

·         It was amazing what was carried into the villages we passed through – the tea houses were all stocked with beer, soft drinks, chocolate bars, toilet paper (very useful!).  Some of the bottles of beer were particularly explosive, and a theory was developed that related donkey-days (transport mode for getting supplies in) to safety of opening.

·         A couple of the towns we went through were significant in size – with large clusters of local houses and tea houses.  In Ghorepani (a town only a few days from the road – which we reached in the final couple of days of our trek) we hit ‘trekkers paradise’: a German bakery with ‘real’ filter coffee and very good apple strudel, souvenir shops,  a countless number of tea house options for eating and drinking, and a pool room!

·         We also developed a new understanding of the shrinking world: at our highest camp (3660m), having not seen a road for multiple days, several of the group were able to communicate back home (via a computer hooked up to the net… or using WiFi on Steve’s computer).  Personally, I think using internet on a Turkish bus is also quite impressive – but Nepal probably wins for magnitude of effort.

·         Steve’s IPad got a few outings for movie viewings: the cinema would be set-up in tea house dining rooms or in Rebecca’s tent, and a few of us would cluster around.  Again, it was just bizarre to have trekked away from civilisation (as we know it) only to be watching ‘The Social Network / Salt or Harry Potter’! 

·         - After the tent-cinema, Steve coined a new trek description “A slumber party with the occasional morning walk”

·         One evening, we decided some warmth was required, and had the IPad running the crackling fire screen as our dinner accompaniment.

A ‘Get well’ note:

In the middle of our trek we were camping at our highest point: 3660m.  In the very early hours of the morning I woke up to hear my tent buddy, Angela ‘whimpering’ (sorry Ang – I can’t think of a nicer description).  At first she said she was cold – but she felt hot.  What followed over the next 6-or so hours was quite scary:

·         I woke Tsering (who, as our lead guide had first aid training), and also Chris – another member of our group, who is also a doctor).  The guides carried Angela up to the tea house and lit a fire, and Chris tried to talk to Angela to figure out what was going on.  Unfortunately, she deteriorated, and began to drift in and out of full consciousness, and the decision was made to call the rescue helicopter.  This set in place another set of dramas:

·         Firstly, the choppers couldn’t fly until first-light.  Then, all the choppers are located at Everest, (as that is where the greatest number of emergencies take-place), so one had to be sent out to the Annapurna region.  Then, the chopper was searching the wrong ridge, and didn’t spot us (we could see it!) And finally, when Tsering managed to talk to the pilot, the clouds rolled in, the chopper had to land in a valley down below, and we all had to wait for a clear-spell. 

·         During this time, the whole crew + our trekking group + a few additional people from around the tea house (so about 40 people in all) were milling around, instructions were being thrown about and preparations appeared to be being made to signal the chopper.

·         Finally, we got a break, the chopper came in, and Angela was hauled on someone’s back (literally like a sack of potatoes – looked very uncomfortable) up to the landing spot.

·         Since we were only half way through the trek, the rest of us had to continue on with the schedule.  Despite only knowing each other for a very short time, seeing Angela in those conditions was very upsetting for all of us, and it felt like we’d lost one of the family.  Fortunately, Tsering was able to get mobile phone reception regularly throughout the following days, and could update us on her progress (although exact details were hazy, we did know that she was in hospital, and stable).

·         Although it was initially thought that she’d be out in a few days, Angela was still in hospital when we returned to Kathmandu (5 days later).  The diagnosis appeared to be: a mixture of dehydration, bacterial infection and altitude sickness.  She was sent home on her scheduled flight a few days later, and we all hope that she is recovering well back in Oz.

·         As for the rest of us – aside from a few mild headaches, and some breathlessness, there were no severe reactions to the altitude (however I think that we all slept better once we descended to lower altitudes).

Overall, the trek was an amazing experience, but I would have preferred something that was more physically challenging.  Also, if I return to Nepal (which I hope that I will one-day) I would definitely opt for a tea-house trek (camping is not necessary in Nepal!)  If anyone else is thinking of trekking in Nepal I can’t recommend it too highly – you’ll love it, and if you want any suggestions just send me a note and I’ll let you know my thoughts J