NEPAL 041012 Trek Day #5: Tadapani to Ghandruk

Dear Friends,

This morning we got up at first light, about 5:30 AM, and stepped just outside our rooms onto the deck of the Hotel Grand View to watch the sun light up Machapuchare and her neighbors Hinculi and Annapurna.  Here is my first shot of the day. 

Machapuchare at first light

Karma and Dick were also at work with their cameras, and Donna, warmly attired in a fashionable, full-length sky blue down sleeping bag for the occasion, savored the scene of trekkers, cameras, and mountains. Jawane interrupted our photography at 7:00 with a call to come downstairs to breakfast.

A cozy Donna watches the sun light up the Annapurna Himalaya

My favorite picture from the hotel deck:  Annapurna South and the prayer flags of the Hotel Grand View

This morning I got a bit of insight into the sleeping arrangements for the workers and their families at a teahouse trekker’s lodge.   When I went downstairs to plug my iPhone into a charger next to the wood stove in the dining room, I found children and adults sleeping on every available flat surface:  a man was rousing himself on the table where we had celebrated Karma’s birthday the night before; there were children asleep on the benches of the other table; and two people were still asleep, tucked away under the stairs.  Three or four women were already busy in the kitchen.  After breakfast, another woman with a calculator and a yellow legal pad covered with lists of numbers stood at the reception desk to settle accounts with the various trek leaders. 

Jawane and another trek leader settle their clients’ bills at the Hotel Grand View.
Nepali women can be accountants/lodge managers.

Hitting the trail at 8:20 AM after our big day yesterday walking from Ghorepani to the Hotel Grand View was good for our spirits, but a little hard on our bodies until they warmed up. Nevertheless, it was a fine day of walking with a short hike of 2-3 hours in “Lonely Planet time,” a descent of 2,400 feet, and a fun stop in the hamlet of Baise Kharka (“Buffalo Pasture”).   Our typical order of walking had Donna in the lead with Dick, Karma, and me with our clanking walking sticks lolling along the trail behind, or farther behind if we stopped for photos.  When our irrepressibly friendly lead hiker reached Baise Kharka, she discovered a woman sitting in front of one of the (two) hotels preparing green beans and plopped down beside her to help.  Donna explained that she had not cooked for so long that she just wanted to get her hands on some food to prepare, and her companion seemed happy with the assistance.  When we arrived they had switched to peeling potatoes, and I had a hearty laugh at the bumper sticker that Donna – a confirmed devotee who is never without her Starbuck’s Via -- was sitting under (MAKE COFFEE NOT WAR – in case your email won’t let you see it. 

Donna the sous chef with a trail-side grandmother/lunch chef 
and her green beans in Baise Kharka

             After the green bean stop, we kept moving downhill and saw this porter laboring up the hill with a typically enormous load. It is really a mind-stretcher to be where everything moves on the backs of people and animals. You can see that he is holding th eload-bearing white tumpline over his head with both hands.

A porter carries tarps, pots and pans and other gear for a camping trek.

About ¾ of the way to Ghandruk, we stopped for a coke and coffee recharge and a little rest at the Lonely Planet Hotel. 

Dick takes a quick power nap before hitting the trail for the last leg to Ghandruk.

             At about 1:00 we arrived at the Breeze Lodge, where we discovered a different living arrangement for the lodge’s resident family: three generations lived in two downstairs rooms, and had their family alter and TV in the dining room, where after lunch our trek staff and the family’s children watched a Sylvester Stallone as Rambo in American English followed by cartoons of Dora the Explorer.  We took an after-lunch nap, and then went out for a walk to explore the town. There was a jersey cow and her calf in a stall behind the hotel, women trotting downhill with heavy loads of firewood in conical baskets, men carrying enormous loads of freshly cut forage grasses back to their livestock, and a small boy tending his two small donkeys as they grazed – pressing their white muzzles into the terrace walls to pull off tender on plants growing between the rocks. 

Ghandruk – clouds foretell afternoon showers that threaten the neatly hung laundry.

            After dinner we headed for (another) early bedtime.  The walls in this hotel were particularly thin, but with earplugs, tired bodies, and Dick’s astute observation “'He-who-shall-remain-unnamed’s' snoring sounds like a big cat purring.” 

"WOW! It's really all in your point of view. isn't it,' 
I thought, and nodded off peacefully.

Namaste, Marian (Chico CA 05/22/12)