11/12
A rest and errands day in Kathmandu. We had breakfast at our hotel, then dropped off laundry. I did some research for our next trek and China. Oh, and while we were on our last trek, Arjun, was able to get us our Chinese visas at the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu.
We walked to the tourist commission to get trekking permits for the next trek, but someone told us not to bother. See, Nepal just passed a new law that you are required to have a guide on EVERY trek, not just the treks that had always required guides. They say that the law is to improve safety on treks, but this quite controversial. If you read the articles on the Kathmandu post about it, it seems more likely that the government officials who have ties to some of the big trekking companies are just trying to figure out how to fill their pockets more. The reason for this thought is that 1. the guides aren't required to take any extra safety training; 2. Nepalis aren't required to have a guide, and statistics show that per capita they actually have more accidents and 3. Accidents are about equal between independent trekkers and those with guides, indicating that guides, at their current level of training, aren't really effective at preventing accidents. And many people think this will lead those people who want to do independent trekking to travel to other countries where trekking can be done independently, which would hurt the local people economically. But anyways, we had heard that they still aren't enforcing this new rule yet, so we opted to go without a guide since obviously hiring a guide increases the cost, but we also really enjoy the freedom of not having a guide or itinerary and just feeling free to do what we want how we want.
Today as part of Tihar all the shops, houses, restaurants, hotels, etc created artwork in front of their door with flowers and colored sand and candles. From there, they made a path with painted footprints coming inside to an offering area. So we walked around checking out all the cool illuminated art. Pets are also given flower necklaces and paint is put on their heads. We had a delicious dinner at a Thai place in the traditional Thai style where you sit on the floor.
11/13
More errands today. We went to a nice buffet breakfast at the guesthouse across the street from ours. I worked on booking flights to China then went to the bus station to buy tickets for the next day.
We visited the "Monkey Temple", which was cool because it had lots of monkeys running around this Tibetan Buddhist temple. It was a steep, steep and long stairway up to the top, so there were good view of Kathmandu as well. We had lunch at a Chinese noodle spot and dinner at an Indian place
11/14 Day 1
Early local bus from Kathmandu to Syabrubesi. It was a really cool road going steeply over a pass out of Kathmandu and back down to the agricultural valleys on the other side. There were some good views of big white mountains, including Manaslu (the mountain we had just returned from). We drove in the valley for a while and then back up a high on a pretty wild road with very steep drop offs and cool mountain views and also views of towns clinging to the steep hillsides with agricultural terracing. Elisha was nervous due to the wild road and rickety old bus. We stopped at the Langtang National Park checkpoint. Langtang NP has red pandas and snow leopards among other rare species.
We arrived to Syabrubesi in the afternoon. We had some soup and then hiked to Tiwari (1560m/ 5116ft). We stayed at a small teahouse in the canyon. It's run by a a nice family, and we chatted with the owner's son during our dinner of dhal bhat. They have a friendly dog and cat as pets. We were the only one there. As mentioned above, guides are now technically required on all routes in Nepal. This law was passed this April of 2023. However, they don't really have the infrastructure in place to enforce it, and after reading many things about it, it seems more like a money/power grab by the politicians in Kathmandu rather than the safety reason that they are claiming. Manaslu circuit always had required a guide bit it is in a specially protected area, but Langtang (and Everest Regions and Annapurna Regions) never did. Because of the lack of enforcement, because others told us it's fine (including in the Kathmandu government office), and b/c I feel comfortable trekking on my own, we decided to go solo. The vast majority of other trekkers on this trek also went solo without a guide.
11/15 Day 2
Trekked to Gumnachok (2770m/ 9086ft) passing by Bamboo, Pairo, Renche, and Changtang (Lama Hotel). We had breakfast snacks at Bamboo, which overlooked the rushing and cascading glacial river. We had lunch at REnche where a nice older lady was the chef. At Gumnachok we had nice views of some big, snowy peaks. The whole way we followed the frothing and rushing river. We saw 3 langur monkey troops along the way. The dining room at the River View teahouse that we stayed at was very warm! Like a sauna almost.
11/16 Day 3
We trekked to Ghumba (3400m/11,152ft), which is just short of the larger village of Langtang. The reason we stopped short was because a lady at a teahouse offered us to stay at her place and she would give us a free room, free hot solar shower, free wifi, and free charging for our phones if we stayed at her place and ate meals at her teahouse. This of course sounded great to us, plus, most people continue onto Langtang, so we knew we'd be basically alone, which is always nice. This deal would be a common thing as we continued up and it was something I remembered from doing the Annapurna circuit. When the treks aren't very busy, teahouse families will try to convince you to stay with them by giving you a lot of free things. This is because it is the meals where they really make a lot of money. The rooms are really cheap (like $**** normally), but the food can be a bit pricier comparatively, so they are happy to give you a free place to stay if you'll eat with them.
Along the way we saw a big troup of Langur monkeys warming up in the sun. We also picked some seabuckthorn fruits (high in antioxidants) that were very sour, but also good. At our teahouse we saw some Tahr (a goat like animal, native to the Himalaya). After we put our bags down, we hiked to "new" Langtang. Langtang was completely destroyed and buried by a landslide that occurred during the 7.2 magnitude earthquake of 2015. So now you walk over the landslide to get to the new Langtang with the old village buried deep below (20 meters below as you walk over the landslide). I heard about 400 people died in the landslide.
In Langtang we stopped at a bakery for a donut and chocolate croissant, then we hiked up a little hill to see nice views of glaciated peaks. At the bakery, the owner said he had 22 family members die in the landslide. We also visited the earthquake memorial.
Back at our place, we had lunch and hot showers and then visited some nearby teahouses to have a glass of seabuckthorn juice and to visit another bakery for apple pie and brownies. We also saw some deer-like animal. There is an Israeli guy and his French girlfriend also staying with us (the only other guests), and he was happier to talk about Antarctica than the war in Israel.
That night I had an interview with Colorado Parks and Wildlife for a mountain lion research job. It worked out since their was wifi. Since it was cold and the time difference was 12 hours, I did the interview at about 8pm our time while in my sleeping bag.
11/17 Day 4
We hiked to Kyanjin Gompa (3850m/12,630ft), but on the way up we stopped at the bakery in Langtang. Once we got above Langtang, we were in a wide glacial valley with beautiful mountain views. Before we reached Kyanjin, we stopped at a giant chorten that had lots of hydro powered prayer wheels and one giant prayer wheel inside the chorten. There were also stone carvers creating the mantra mani walls. Soon we reached the top of a moraine (that had a wind-powered prayer wheel!!), and we were able to look down on the town of Kyanjin. It was an interesting sight because the town is fairly large and full of colorful, multistory buildings set amongst this beautiful mountain backdrop. Some people refer to it as "New Yak City". We decided to stay in one of the 3 lodges above the town because of the views of the valley and nearby glacier.
We are staying at the Himalaya Hilton Lodge where our room, hot solar shower, and wifi are free as long as we eat there. It has great views out or room window of a glacier as well as the tallest peak in the area (Langtang Lirung 7234m/23,734ft; 99th tallest mountain in the world). And the sun deck that our room opens up to has a great view of Kyanjin town and the mountains beyond.
After lunch we hiked up to ice lake, which was glacial green-brown and indeed partially frozen. We continued up the moraine and hill until we reached a holy cave. It had nice views of the glaciers, one of which we looked down upon. If we had continued up, we would have reached the Langtang Lirung basecamp. Once we got back down, we explored town including visiting the yak cheese factory where we sampled and bought some. We also stopped at a bakery. In the late afternoon we took a very hot shower from the solar shower and watched the sunset on the mountains.
11/18 Day 5
Our first full day in Kyanjin. We climbed up Kyanjin Ri (peak) which is 4600m/15,088 feet. It was very steep up, but had beautiful views of the glaciated mountains all around, of the ice lake, and of Kyanjin village. Just superb 360 views! We went down a different way through an empty glacial valley below the Kimshung glacier. Back in town we had Sherpa stew and a pizza. We then went to town to the bakery. Dinner of Dhal Bhat.
11/19 Day 6
Hike up to Tsergo Ri (Cherko Ri) which is at an altitude of 4984m (16,348ft) and one of the highlights of the region. It was a beautiful hike! We started at dawn, so we saw the sunrise light up the big face of Lantang Lirung. We were the first to the summit and had the summit all to ourselves for an hour. We we arrived to the summit, there was a herd of Tahr at the summit, that soon scattered below. From the summit there were beautiful 360 degree views of glaciers, the braided glacial river and mountains all around. You could even see over to mountains in Tibet.
We had a packed breakfast on the summit, and when we got back to town, we had lunch on our nice roof (tuna pizza and mushroom chowmein). After reading on the sunny deck for a while, we walked down to the Tsona lakes (5 small lakes). Then we hiked back to the village to visit our favorite bakery for cinnamon rolls and masala chai. And of course Dhal Bhat for dinner.
11/20 Day 7
Hiked to Langshisha Kharka which lies up the beautiful Langtang valley. It was a long hike, but not too steep. It followed the glacial green river the whole way. There were lots of yaks and of course beautiful mountain views ahead of us as we walked towards Tibet. At Langshisha Kharka--a summer yak pasture--there was one small structure in a beautiful valley surrounded by high mountains with 3 large glaciers coming down. It's not a popular hike, so we only saw one other guy out there. On the way back we saw so many tahrs--at least 100 with the males being so big and shaggy. We made it back to the Kyanjin in time to watch the mountains turn pink. We had some masala chai and apple pie at the bakery before heading back to our place for a hot shower and dinner.
Kyanjin Gompa is a very plush place for trekkers. You can always enjoy a hot solar shower, with reasonable pressure, at the end of the day. There are bakeries with microwaves to warm up their items. The dining rooms are all warm with wood and yak dung stoves. There is good electricity and pretty reliable wifi. The beds are decent enough and have blankets to supplement your sleeping bag (all lodges and teahouses on our treks had these blankets this time around). The rooms are of concrete, and thus have some insulation which keeps the room from dropping below freezing like it does outside.
The food here is about the same as everywhere trekking. Breakfast menus of muesli with hot milk, oat porridge, tsampa porridge, pancakes, Tibetan bread, chapati, and eggs. Lunch/dinner is momos, chowmein, spaghetti, macaroni, potatoes, rice, pizza, curry, soup, noodle soup, ting momo, sherpa stew, dendo, and, of course, the main item: dhal bhat. This consists of papadam, pickle, rice, potato veg curry, cooked green veggies, and dhal (lentils). And the best thing is that it's unlimited! So it's great for trekking fule. They have a saying here (new since I was last here): "Dhal Bhat power, 24 hour". Basically as soon as you start eating, people come to top off the various parts of the dhal bhat meal. You definitely never leave hungry. And then the menu always has all types of teas and a few desserts like apple fritters/pie and snickers and mars "springrolls".
11/21 Day 8
A long downhill day to Rimche (2485m/8151ft). We ate at our favorite bakery in Kyanjin (apple pie and masala chai) before heading down. For lunch we stopped at a place where a deaf gal was the chef and baker. According to Elisha, her donuts were the best Elisha had enjoyed in Nepal. We saw a big troupe of Langur monkeys on the way down. Found out today that I was offered the Colorado Parks and Wildlife job...
11/22 Day 9
In the morning, the guesthouse owner invited us to have tea with her by her stove. She was so friendly and nice. We then took the "high road" to head back to Syabrubesi. It was a cool route, leading us along the cliffs looking way, way, way down the valley. We also had some nice views of the snowy peaks. We walked through Sherpagoan, which was a quaint little village. We had lunch in Khangjim with a nice man who had some friendly cats. As we were walking through Kangjim, we were persuaded at a guest house to stay instead of heading down to Syabrubesi, partly because the views were so nice and, there was such good sun to enjoy the afternoon and because the rooms/shower were so very nice. So we stayed the night in Khangjim (2280m/7478ft), where we read in the sun on the rooftop and enjoyed the sunset. They had a very nice cat to pet. I ordered some seabuckthorn juice, but because the lady at the hotel was covering for her sister, I don't think she knew to use mineral/bottled/boiled water, so she mixed the strong fruit juice with tap water, so I was pretty nervous I would get sick. I ended up not getting sick
11/23 Day 10 Happy Thanksgiving!
We started trekking before sunrise to get down to Syabrubesi in time to catch a bus to Kathmandu. The bus ride back to Kathmandu was of course tediously slow and long, but it had great views, especially at the beginning with the terraced villages built on steep cliffs in front of snowy mountains. And the road built high up on the steep mountains with the river a long, long drop below! We got to ride a bit in the front of the bus, which was fun. On the journey, the bus of course stopped for lunch so our first Thanksgiving meal was Dhal Bhat.
A few notes on Nepali generosity: The man at the lunch the previous day gave us Tibetan bread at no charge; the woman at lunch 2 days before gave us each an extra bowl of Sherpa stew at no cost, and the lady running the place we stayed at the previous night had us sit by her cooking fire and gave us free milk tea. She was so appreciative that we had come back (we had eaten lunch at her place when we were going up the valley)
When we arrive back to Kathmandu, we checked into our same nice hotel. We were overwhelmingly surprised to see, when we opened the door to our room, that Raj (the super nice hotel manager) had a cake arranged on our table with "Happy American Thanksgiving" written on it. So sweet and thoughtful. We quickly showered and then headed to the New Orleans Cafe where they had live music and a Thanksgiving dinner set menu: We had pumpkin ravioli as a starter, then turkey with potatoes, cranberry, stuffing, and veggies as the main. Then it was pumpkin pie and masala chai for dessert. We also had a couple orders of ice cream cocktails!
11/24
A foodie day in Kathmandu and some shopping. Breakfast at a French creperie. Lunch at a momo join, then additional lunch and lassies at the Fat Buddha Cafe (Indian food). Beer on our guesthouse's rooftop balcony. During our shopping, we bought a nice painting. Did some laundry. I got a haircut and close shave at a barber, all for $3 USD. Dinner back at the New Orleans Cafe where we got steak sizzlers for $6.26 USD. Mine had rum on top that they lit, and it really flamed big! Then we had flaming brownie with ice cream.
11/25
Nice buffet breakfast at the hotel next to ours. Did some packing and some internetting before going for an hour massage at the "seeing hands" massage place where blind folks give the massages. Only $15 USD for an hour! And it was very good. Great for after trekking. We had a last lunch at an Indian place, then it was off to the airport.
We then flew to Kunming, China where we managed to find the airport shuttle to our nice (and super cheap) hotel. Snickers and beer were given to us on the plane! We went out for noodles late that night.
No comments:
Post a Comment