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It was actually a relief to finally get to Kathmandu after our 7 hour bus ride from Pokhara. It’s funny to think that as we arrived here from Pokhara I was so pleased to be “back in civilisation”, whereas when we flew in from Malaysia I was quite apprehensive about LEAVING civilisation. Everything is relative!

Kathmandu is a fascinating town but it takes its toll on you. Apparently it used to be a peaceful and beautiful place before motor vehicles were around - you could see mountains from here. You can’t see anything now apart from crowds, dust, and a hodge-podge of random vehicles all honking at each other and going in all kinds of directions - reversing around blind corners etc.

As you leave the tourist area of Thamel, you enter a medieval world of ancient houses and apartments, sprinkled with religious monuments like Buddhist stupas, tiny Hindu shrines, little temples etc. Women sit around these monuments selling fresh vegetables, and kids climb over them as though they were a playground.

The people here have really moved on though - there is a lot of fake Western gear (mostly from Thailand), and young people are incredibly trendy (the rapper look is in fashion).

We enjoyed a rooftop dinner at Helena’s restaurant, where we looked out onto the lights of this sprawling urban metropolis (if you could call it urban??) and had cocktails and grilled chicken and chicken Kiev for about $8 total. The next day we had Illy coffee at a swanky new cafe that offered free Wifi.

I then succumbed to my first illness since being here - a day of frequent diarrhoea, leaving me pretty much bed bound (or toilet bound). It’s painful being ill in Kathmandu. Our hotel room had no ventilation and got terribly hot. You have to filter your water before you can drink it. The street noise is unrelenting. If you wander outside to get some oral rehydration salts so you don’t dehydrate to death from what you fear might be cholera, you get bothered by pesky men who follow you asking “Hello, hello, you want rafting? trekking?” Fortunately we have an ensuite toilet within stumbling distance of my bed.

Hopefully we have no more illnesses after this. We leave tomorrow for our little village of Gundu where we definitely won’t have an ensuite toilet.

Some of you may be considering trekking in Nepal, and others are wondering about the conditions along the way, so I thought I would write a little about what it’s like.

I think there are two main difficulties that trekkers may run into - one is physical, and the other relates to creature comforts, or lack thereof!

Physically, the Annapurna Circuit was not a difficult trek by any means. You do need a certain level of fitness before you start (if you find walking 15 minutes too exhausting, you might want to start doing a little bit more exercise). This is mainly so that you don’t suffer too greatly in the first few days of the trek. We walk about 10-20km every day with frequent ups and downs so some experience with doing hills will help. We didn’t do any specific training before we left apart from a couple of short 1 or 2 day hikes in the Grampians (We highly recommend training in the Grampians as the rocky and rugged conditions there are pretty similar to Nepal). We kept our fitness up with a couple of jogs or swims a week but you don’t need to be an elite athlete to attempt this trip. Bad knees might get worse during the trek though.

The trail itself poses a bit of a challenge as it is very very rocky, sometimes very steep, often studded with animal poo, and can be slippery and muddy at times. There are frequent landslides in Nepal so you find yourself crossing over huge piles of loose rocks almost every day. Trekking poles help a great deal.

Acute Mountain Sickness is a potential problem, and even if you don’t get sick with this you will most certainly feel some effects from the increasing altitude. The altitude often makes you feel very out of breath, especially with any effort - even climbing two steps seems like a big deal. This usually passes by the evening or the next day. You may spend a few evenings feeling really quite ordinary - I describe it as feeling like you’re recovering from a bad case of the flu.

Now on to the creature comforts! Plumbing here has not reached the levels we enjoy in the West. Most toilets will be located in an odorous outhouse, which may or may not have its collection of flies buzzing around. Some will just be a hole in the ground. Flushing is manual (pour a bucket of water down). Toilet paper is BYO, and cannot be thrown into the toilet - instead, everyone has to put their used paper in a bin, and it’s burnt later on.

At some towns along the way, you may get rooms with attached toilets which are the sitdown ones we are used to.

Every lodge claims it has a shower, and these range from fantastic, to a pathetic cold dribble (usually somewhere in between).

Sometimes you have to do some plumbing yourself. CJ unblocking our attached shower in Manang.

Rooms range from a tiny wooden crate with two plank beds and no lock on the door, to carpeted rooms with proper brick walls and ensuite. Usually the wooden crate with plank beds is the more common, and what you should expect. There is usually no heating in the rooms, and there may not be electricity so bring a torch!!

The reassuring thing to everyone is that plenty of older people enjoy this style of trekking, proving that it is not too difficult physically or in terms of the comfort stakes. Just be aware that there are no “deluxe” versions of the trek - you will be staying where everyone else is staying.

Lastly, the awards for Best and Worst toilets go to:
Worst toilet: a wooden outhouse with no door, at 5000m along the trail to Thorung La, with a knee high pile of human excrement inside. Needless to say I didn’t visit that loo! (NOTHING decomposes at that altitude - yuk!!!)

Best toilet: a spotless porcelain sit down toilet with a flush and toilet paper, a sink that worked, and a mirror, and absolutely no odours. This was in a small town we passed through in the first few days of the trek and was a real surprise!!

Our guide has a very thick Nepali accent and had great difficulty in pronouncing our names. From the very first day he gave us new Nepali names. Vincent became Bimsen and I became Kalpana. He called us Bimsen and Kalpana the whole way. He also gave us the surname Gurung, which are people from Mongoloid/Tibetan descent living in Nepal.

We were constantly being mistaken for Nepali here, especially as our skin got browner with the daily sunlight. These are pictures of us taken in Manang. Don’t we look Nepali???

The trail from Ghasa to Tatopani involved lots of climbing over steep rocky slopes and over landslides, as the route changed frequently due to construction of a new road nearby. It was a relief to arrive at the lovely little town of Tatopani. There are two hot springs pools here, which sound luxurious, but looked slightly feral, so we didn’t go in - plus it was so awfully hot when we got there anyway. It was strange to be surrounded by the lush tropical vegetation again - bright pink bouganvillae everywhere, banana trees etc. We stayed in a little garden bungalow with our own bathroom, and it seemed very luxurious indeed.

The next day we headed to Pokhara, which involved an easy two hour trek, followed by a harrowing series of taxi and bus rides for four and a half hours. I am not sure how vehicles make it over what passes for a “road” here (which is basically an uneven gravel road riddled with large rocks, potholes and frequently flooded right over, shared with trains of donkeys and lots and lots of pedestrians… all of this running along a steep cliff next to a precipituous drop into a large rushing river!!) If the roads were not roadworthy, the “taxis” definitely shouldn’t be allowed to run at all. We travelled in ancient Toyota Corollas older than ourselves, I am sure, with broken tail lights, broken mirrors, doors that wouldn’t shut properly (Our guide had the most annoying habit of opening and closing his door throughout the trip, and complaining repeatedly to the taxi driver that it didnt’ work) and a wheezy old engine that barely made it up the steeper slopes. We finally made it onto bitumen after about two and a half hours. Somehow we got to Pokhara in one piece, though I had reservations throughout the trip, especially when we flew through flooded roads as though we were in 4WDs instead of worn-out Toyota Corollas!

Our trusty Toyota Corolla, modified for Nepali “roads”

Pokhara used to be a sleepy little town on the hippie trail back in the 60s and 70s but now is a tourist extravaganza with more bars than you can poke a stick at, souvenirs galore, etc. It does have a large lake in the middle of town where you can see the surrounding mountain ranges on a clear day, but it is rarely a clear day here and we could not see anything when we were there. Being in a tourist town has its advantages and disadvantages. It’s very annoying to hear shopkeepers constantly calling out “Yes, please” and “Maybe bicycle?” and “Come in and look, please” or my favourite - Tibetan ladies gesticulating wildly and yelling “Hello! Hello maam!! Hello!” On the other hand, it was pleasant to enjoy the trappings of civilisation, like having a proper coffee instead of Nescafe, sitting by the lake and reading, browsing the numerous bookshops, and indulging in some home made cocktails with local gin and tonic.

After our ordeal making it over the Pass, it was pleasant to spend a night in the town of Muktinath, a famous pilgrimage spot for both Buddhists and Hindus. We remember it of course for its temples and monasteries, but also for its Bob Marley Restaurant or “Regge Bar” where we went to celebrate our achievement with a couple of other trekkers and our guide and porter. Here we had our first taste of meat (chilli chicken) in 10 days, and I had the “Thorung La Volt”, a potent mix of brandy, rum and a smidgen of lemon juice.

Fortunately the next day was an easy day. After a sleep in and a very late breakfast we wandered up to the white walled temples and monasteries at the top of town. It’s a very peaceful setting with a few pilgrims wandering around, and Tibetan prayer flags fluttering from the ramparts. The site is considered very auspicious because of the presence of a spring of holy water and the discovery of an eternal flame feeding off a natural gas source. The combination of water, earth and fire makes this a very important pilgrimage site.

The water spouts from 108 brass spouts shaped in the form of little cow’s heads. Pilgrims walk under the water (which is freezing) to cleanse them of their sins.

In a quiet Buddist monastery you can have a peek at the eternal flame, which looks and smells much like a gas stove. There used to be three flames - one of them was extinguished when a research group came and started taking photographs. No photography is allowed now. The second flame is a teeny faint blue light only.

During the next few days we descended through the windy Kali Gandaki valley. The winds howl with ferocious strength after about 10am. Fortunately the routes we took were all down hill and often flat. We often walked across dry river beds containing lots of rounded river  pebbles. Some of these contain ancient fossils of ammonites, some 140 million years old, a reminder of the fact that this high lands used to be at the bottom of the ocean and were pushed up and formed mountains when two tectonic plates collided. We got stiff necks from constantly looking at pebbles on the ground to see if we could find these fossils, called saligrams.

There were fantastic mountain views still, but unfortunately we faced away from these views as we were now heading south and completing our circuit.

We stayed in some lovely villages along the way. Kagbeni was a biblical looking town with cobblestoned streets, cows and chickens and goats everywhere, and very ancient looking mud houses. Marpha is the self proclaimed “delightful apple capital of Nepal”, and indeed there were lots of apple orchards there with the trees in full bloom, but as it was spring there were no fresh apples or apple cider for that matter! Ghasa was a tiny settlement of no more than 4 lodges. We stayed at the Paradise Guest House which is run by a very meticulous man with an ingratiating smile and slightly annoying manner, who runs the place like an army camp - Order dinner at 5pm, and sit in order of when you are getting your dinner! We were seduced by the offerings of chicken on the menu, and I ordered a Chicken roast and V ordered Fried chicken. We were then treated to the spectacle of our hen being decapitated and defeathered in the back yard!! Well at least it was fresh chicken….

Our hen being slaughtered in the back yard…

Yum, dinner!!!

Thorung La is literally the pinnacle of the Annapurna Circuit trek. La means Pass, and the Thorung Pass at 5460m is said to be one of the highest points one can get to without needing mountaineering and climbing skills. It’s 2 and a half times the height of Mt Kosciusko, and is higher than Mont Blanc!!

You feel as though everything is leading up to the massive effort needed to cross the Pass. All trekkers talk about it, especially as we get closer to it, and Thorung La virgins like we were spend a lot of time wondering what exactly it will be like. When preparing for the trek you hear so much about the Pass and how dangerous it could be (frostbite, Acute Mountain sickness etc) and sometimes a bit of doubt comes in and you wonder if you will be successful or if you will be one of those who have to turn back.

The difficulty of crossing the Pass is that it is quite a hefty ascent (1000m) at a very high altitude, and it is usually partly covered with snow, which adds to the danger. Plus it can get very cold, and if there is a blizzard it is obviously very dangerous. It is also a very long day, as after you get over the Pass you still have another 6 hours of descent to go.

Along the way you meet lots of trekkers who tend to stay at the same places as you, and then everyone stays at the one lodge the eve before crossing the Pass. There’s a certain excitement and anticipation in the air. You all go to bed early, and wake up at about 3:45am the next day so as to leave by about 4:30 or 5am. It was such a bizarre experience to sit bleary eyed in the dining room at 4:30am having breakfast and seeing everyone don their Goretex jackets and beanies etc.

It snowed lightly that morning but fortunately was a fine and sunny day after that. We were very lucky with the weather. It took us 4 hours to get up to the Pass. The first hour was spent climbing up a steep hill to “High Camp” at 4700m. Then we walked over a snow covered trail along a narrow ridge along a steep cliff…. This was nerve wracking stuff!! We made it safely across (the snow is hard packed and comes up to your knees with a natural sort of barrier so it’s not as dangerous as it sounds really) and then climbed slowly up to 5000m where we stopped to have a cup of tea!! The next two hours was strange - the air was really thin (50% less oxygen than at sea level) and I felt a bit spaced out and disoriented. Now I felt like I was 150 years old! But with one step after another, and another, just plodding along - we reached the Pass before we knew it! It was such a celebration at the top - people were congratulating each other, taking photos, having whisky…! We stayed there for about half an hour, and I had my highest pee stop ever!!

There were stupendous views along the way, if you actually stopped to look while you were toiling up that rocky slope! We seemed to be ascending higher and higher into the heavens, and all around us were magnificent snowy peaks and clouds in the early morning sun.

After the exhilaration of making it up to the Pass came the agony of descending 1600m down the other side. Oh my god I never want to go through this again. The trail was terrible - slippery gravel steep slopes all the way. It just kept going on for ever and ever and my knees got very sore after a few hours. Add to this the fact that we didn’t have any food on us apart from a few chocolate bars and a cinammon roll, it was a very trying time. We finally reached a teashop 8 hours after we first started off up to the Pass. After lunch I felt a bit more human, which was lucky as there was still another 1.5hours to go.

All in all, getting up to the Pass wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, though conditions were quite good for us that day and there wasn’t too much snow. The descent was truly unpleasant, and the whole day required a certain endurance that surpasses even that of doing a marathon (or two!) The views from the top, and the sense of achievement once you make it over, made it worth it.

We entered the arid region of Upper Manang on Day 6 - I love this place. It has a wildness about it that is so intriguing, and somewhat romantic. The vegetation had changed from sub tropical to alpine (pine and fir trees) and then further up to stunted scrub only. The villages we stopped at were fascinating - positively medieval settlements with mud and stone houses stacked on top of one another, mountain goats and yaks wandering around, and men riding past on beautiful horses.

My favourite place was the town of Manang, at 3500m. It was in a very barren looking valley, with the towering snowy peaks of Gangapurna and Annapurna II dominating the horizon, and the wind howled in a very lonely way around the mountains. We spent a wonderful “rest day” here to acclimatise to the altitude. It wasn’t really a rest day after all, as we climbed some 300m to a viewpoint, then another 100m or so to visit a gompa (monastery) where we were given a puja (blessing) by the monk so that we would be safe when we crossed the high mountain pass of Thorung La. Manang has very modern facilities within an ancient setting. This was the first place where we actually had a room with an attached bathroom - it was heaven not to have to run outside in the middle of the night to pee! We had wonderful views of the mountains from our room, and it was delicious to lie in our sleeping bags and look out at the scenery. We enjoyed coffee and yummy chocolate cake and apple pies in the local bakeries, and also attended a talk on Acute Mountain Sickness at the Himalayan Rescue Asssociation clinic. We were doing well with the altitude at this point with no problems.

A visit to the Gangapurna Lake and glacier on our “rest day”

In the tiny town of Mungji, just before Manang, there were baby mountain goats romping around in the meadows - it was such a sweet sight!

After Manang we ascended another 900+metres through the villages of Yak Kharka (which means Yaks Grazing - yes there were certainly lots of grazing yaks there) and to Thorung Pedi which was at 4400m. It started snowing at Yak Kharka, lightly, and the air was really starting to thin out. By Thorung Pedi we were definitely feeling the altitude - for me, putting one step in front of the other was all that I could do - I felt like I was 80 years old!

On the trail to Yak Kharka

Thorung Pedi was the last stop before our big climb up to the Thorung Pass. We went for an extra climb in the afternoon to help acclimatise, and I crawled like an ant up the hill panting and puffing as though I was running a marathon. It really helped though - I felt a lot better in the evening and it was much easier to climb the same hill the next day. It was pretty cold that night and I slept in my thermals, fleece, down jacket, woollen beanie, and my down sleeping bag!!

V at Thorung High Camp, 4700m

All bedded down for a cold night at Thorung Pedi!

Our trek began, as most do, with a gruelling 7 hour bus ride - from Kathmandu to Besi Sahar. We were on a local bus, and these are hot, sweaty, crowded, and have the habit of stopping every five minutes to pick up and drop off passengers.

From Besi Sahar we trekked for a couple of hours to our first stop, a tiny settlement called Khudi located by a roaring river. Dinner was al fresco and by candlelight (by virtue of a power failure - a frequent occurence here). Our room was a very basic little crate inside what seemed like a tin shed, and came complete with a resident big hairy spider. The only way I could sleep was to tuck my mosquito net securely all the way around my threadbare mattress!!!

The first few days of our trek were somewhat frustrating as we seemed to climb very very slowly with lots of ascents followed by descents! The vegetation was sub tropical with bamboo forests, ferns and lots of wild cannabis plants.

Along the way we passed through the gorgeous little village of Tal (Tal means Lake) located in a quite stunning broad flat valley of smooth round river pebbles and rocks with the river rushing through it. Before you enter the village you pass through a kani (a big white Tibetan buddhist archway) and then rock hop along lots of stepping stones across the river.

Wall of prayer wheels outside Chamje

On Day 3 we entered a region marked by Tibetan Buddhism - with lots of opportunities to visit little Buddhist monasteries. All along the way we saw Tibetan prayer flags fluttering in the wind, chortens (little stone cairns) and walls of prayer wheels. We also enjoyed the best shower in the region - a solar powered hot shower in the town of Chamje! Our first glimpses of snow capped mountains started to appear as well.

Views of Annapurna II and Lamjung Himal on the way to Chame

On Day 5 we reached an altitude where you started to feel the effects of lower oxygen concentrations - 2710m at the town of Chame. After this we climbed only about 400-500m maximum per day so that we could acclimatise safely, and to prevent Acute Mountain Sickness.

We arrived in Kathmandu today. The city (if you can call it that?) is the same busy, crazy maze of congested alleyways, but some of the shops have changed - There are even shops selling DVDs now (at AUD4 a pop!) It is a strangely reassuring yet artificial thing to see other tourists here, especially Asian tourists like ourselves - probably from Australia, Canada, or Korea/Japan.

We are staying in the Hotel Tradition, a “Luxury” hotel - but their idea of luxury certainly is far removed from ours. The room is tiny, the bed is hard and the lights are so dim that you need all of them on to see anything. However there is a small attached bathroom and a teeny Sony TV with cable TV complete with Nat Geo channel, History channel, Star movies etc along with the usual Bollywood delights. Breakfast is included and at the discounted rate of US12 per night, it’s pretty much a steal.

Kathmandu is an enjoyable city to be in if you can tolerate the constant beeping of the cars, trucks, buses and motorbikes as they come up right behind you in the little alleyways that serve both pedestrian and motor vehicle traffic. Just getting round the block needs your constant attention as you play dodgem with moving vehicles and other pedestrians.

The weather is fortunately quite pleasant, averaging about 26 degrees. Right now an evening thunderstorm is threatening to roll in, and the peak hour traffic outside sounds quite brutal. There is an ineffective policeman that stands blowing his whistle at an impossible three way intersection - I am not sure what he achieves apart from adding to the noise pollution.

This  is our last encounter with the internet for the next three weeks - tomorrow we set off to Besi Sahar via a gruelling 7 hour bus trip by “local bus”, and we do not return until April 29th. We shall have plenty of news when we next hop on, so watch this space at the end of the month!

We flew Royal Nepal Airlines from Malaysia to Kathmandu. It was an unusual airline experience. First of all, the plane was full of Nepali men who we think have been working in Malaysia in construction. I was one of two females on the plane. The men were all checking  in identical flat screen TVs about the size of a small home cinema. We’re not sure if they all wanted to bring fancy TVs home for their family/village, or whether they were going to sell them. All the men were dressed up in their best Western gear - baseball caps and jeans are popular, as are fake leather jackets and Tshirts with pictures of Jessica Simpson or Mariah Carey printed on them.

The airline had some ridiculous policy of making everyone wrap their check in luggage in secure plastic wrap (and pay for the privilege) - a complete waste of time and money.

We slept through most of the flight, as it was a very early start, waking up at intervals to be served food and drink. We had an unusual breakfast of lamb meatballs and grilled fish, then they plied the whole plane with beer and whiskey for the last two hours. The men all got a bit tipsy and when I went to the toilet they all stared at me for some reason (whereas they hadn’t so much as looked at me before). Unnerving.

The air stewardesses are all in their forties and look like schoolteachers who have been teaching for too long. You can see why when they have to discipline the men constantly - one stewardess hit a guy on the head for continuing to talk on his mobile phone when already on the plane, and he ignored her completely.

When you arrive in Kathmandu you have to apply for a 60 day tourist visa which costs USD30 per person. Bring a passport photo along for your visa application. The process is fairly painless and straightforward, but be sure to check the date that your visa expires, as they are very strict on this. The last time we came to Nepal the official wrote down the wrong date and I got into a lot of trouble at departure time even though it wasn’t my fault.

All the men with the gigantic big screen TVs got to walk through the green lane without any hassles, but they stopped us with our two relatively small boxes of medications. The customs officials then had a minor hissy fit when they saw syringes in one of the boxes when it was being Xrayed. Suddenly they all converged and looked very serious, and demanded to know what was going on. I gave them my paperwork with a letter from Michael explaining what the meds were for, a list of what I was carrying, and my medical registration certificate and medical degree.

One of the officials opened one of my boxes carefully with a razor blade, and they all had a look inside. I took out boxes of Gastrolyte, Metronidazole and Paracetamol for them to inspect. “These are antibiotics”, I said, pointing to the Metronidazole. “For diarrhoea”.

“You have a placement here?” one of them asked me.

I replied in the affirmative, and he looked at the Metronidazole. “These are for the children?”

“Yes”, I said.

“Where?”

I told him I would be in Gundu, and he smiled gravely, putting the medicines back. “Thank you, you can go”, he said, and they waved us off.

So my medicines are here safe in Kathmandu, having made it through two sets of customs. It helps to have official looking paperwork, and as much as possible, as the officials get a glazed look in their eyes when they look through my documents!