Nepal Trek 1: Nayapul to Tikhedunga

After picking up a few things – a forehead flashlight, a camping towel, a pair of fleece pants for night time – we left for Nayapul, a distance of about 30 kilometres, one hour. In ten minutes we had passed out of the north end of Pokhara past fields planted with rice and mixed vegetables. The car swerved around bicycles piled with bales of insulation or large blocks of paper towels bundled with string, and around scooters encumbered with three or four family members clinging happily or stoically, depending on their age; past the occasional donkey, pace unaffected by the a weary-looking owner tapping its haunches with a stick. We climbed up switchbacks, around frequent potholes that cratered the whole width of the road and which required us to crawl around on a single, less-rutted path.

The Buddha Hotel - sumptuous surroundings

Finally, Nayapul. Joan, Krishna and I  piled out. The Buddha Hotel, our meeting point, was a three storey affair with a tiny ground floor shop that sold chocolate bars, candy, Nepalese beer, water, a few potatoes, bags of rice, and Bagpiper Whiskey (the largest-selling whiskey in the world, made in Nepal under licence from the parent company in India). Out back, a toilet one steeled oneself to visit. A couple of Caucasian guests of the Buddha Hotel descended the stairs, put on their shoes (shoes not worn indoors, by and large), and disappeared into the town, presumably on a trek of their own.

We met our team: in addition to Krishna, our guide, there was the cook and his assistant, and two additional porters. Five of them for the two of us. We were not to carry anything except a small pack containing a couple of bottles of water and perhaps a sweater and cameras. Everyone else, on the other hand, carried the stipulated burden of 25 kg, about 60 pounds, in a wicker basket supported on the back by means of a strap that went around the forehead. True, they were used to it, it was their livelihood, but it felt a little much to be so spoiled. Little did we realize how much we would need our energy and resources – we who exercise frequently and who consider ourselves in good shape.

kubiri and his load

Joan and our porter, Balram

Off we went. Through the town of Nayapul, whose economy was built on trekking. A dirt, stone and mud roadway soon petered out and became a wide donkey path, flanked by simple shops that sold food, dusty and mainly ignored appliances, trekking gear, maps, and all kinds of dubious looking medicine. We checked in at the guidepost – all trekkers have to check in at various posts, and submit their itineraries, along with their trekking visas.

The trek begins

This first day was pretty civilized. One mountain village gave way to another, the distance between them gradually getting greater, until eventually we walked about fifteen or twenty minutes between one village and the next. These villages were tidy, the dwellings tidy, low, dark structures whose few windows made them dark inside. In each village was a guest house or two where you could get a meal or a simple room for the night, and a shop selling potato chips, chocolate bars, Nepalese beer and the ubiquitous and curious Bagpiper whiskey. Since we came with our own cook and food (a good idea, we were advised, because this arrangement guaranteed that the vegetables would be washed in sterilized water, and the food would be sound). I wasn’t sure what to expect in the way of cuisine. At lunch the first day we stopped at one of these guest houses. Joan and I sat at a red-painted wooden table under a carved wooden gabled roof, while everyone else disappeared around the back to prepare lunch.

A Guest House advertises its fare

The path at this point, in this little village, was not dirt but well-fitted stone – as I said, quite civilized. Next to us the establishment formed a spacious courtyard of similar stone, next to the path. On the opposite side of the courtyard a woman was flailing at a pile of millet, separating the grain from the chaff, a steady, slow regular pounding of the millet on a blanket, her colourful sari adding a few brushstrokes to the green of the adjacent foliage, the gray and brown of the buildings, the blue of the sky. At one point a large brown water buffalo came lumbering into the enclosure where the woman was pounding the millet, quickly followed by a much older woman who beat the beast with a thin stick that was remarkably effective. Soon afterward, the woman working the millet stopped, stood up and started tossing the millet in the breeze, the breeze separating the lighter chaff, which blew to the side, leaving the heavier grains to fall directly onto her blanket. Low tech, but effective, as the centuries had proved.

separating millet

Lunch: we were surprised to see some pieces of chicken, along with fried tomato and cheese sandwiches. Ketchup even. Sweet tea. A salad of iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, some mushrooms and peppers. Cookies for dessert. Our porters and cook on the other hand, when we visited them afterward out behind the guest house, ate an appetizing concoction of rice, vegetables and chicken. Apparently they weren’t going to risk local cuisine on us. We used the toilet, among the cleaner toilets we were going to encounter – a basic squatting facility, that you sluiced with water afterward – took a couple of pictures and started out again.

The climb was relatively slow, and we passed many groups coming down, or going up. Closer to Nayapul one did encounter groups out just for the day – twenty or so in a group speaking Japanese, or English, or German, or French, or Korean. These groups thinned out as we climbed, but it was still pretty busy. So busy, in fact, that our planned stopover for the first night was packed – no room at the inn, so to speak, and we continued to the next village, twenty minutes further, a much less busy spot called Tikhedunga. This tiny village consisted of a poor hovel of a farm harbouring some sheep and a couple of water buffalo, a guest house, and a couple of other poor structures perched on a steep hillside. The village was announced by a long sturdy bridge suspended over a picturesque gorge down which a river plunged in small falls, rapids and pools, disappearing eventually amid the fields and outcrops below in the distance.

We prepared for our first night of camping. The porters pitched our tent and laid out our sleeping bags, while the cook and his assistant took off, returning about 45 minutes later with two pairs of white-feathered chickens dangling from their hands, to be plucked, eviscerated and prepared for dinner. Joan and I explored our little hamlet briefly, seeing that one could get a meal at the guest house if you ordered before 4 p.m.. The little shop sold the usual combination of apparent essentials in the mountains: potato chips, cigarettes, soft drinks, pickles, spicy sauces, Nepalese beer, and of course the Bagpiper whiskey whose label of kilt and skirling piper didn’t really impress me with authenticity. We arranged to buy some of the Nepalese beer for ourselves and our crew, a gesture that Krishna said would be much appreciated. As we returned up the twisting stone steps to our campsite, we looked in on a girl of perhaps twelve, still in her uniform, c her homework by the last light of a slanting sun, a picture of diligence. Tomorrow I would ask where the school was.

As Krishna predicted, the beer was appreciated. We drank it with our chicken dinner, and settled into our tent for the night. Joan made one of her regular comments about her caveat from the time when we were courting: “I don’t camp.” But here, with the white tops of the Himalayas just peeking behind the steep hillsides – we could glimpse Annapurna II through a cleft in the hillsides – the river cascading below, and the walls of the tent breathing irregularly in the fresh clean mountain breeze outside, it became clear why one camps to begin with – you can get to places that otherwise you could only imagine.

Tikhedunga Bridge

Joan and her tent