Nepal: Happy, Poopy Trails on the Annapurna Circuit

We have spent nearly a month in Nepal. And Nepal has stretched me (Kenzi) in so many ways. My life has been so safe and clean, until now...

A figure at Swayambhunath (the Monkey Temple) in Kathmandu

The snowy peaks of the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal

We arrived in Nepal on October 4th, and got lucky such that our trip overlapped with friends who were finishing up a trip with a non-profit called Grid Alternatives. They installed a solar power grid for a remote Nepali village. Bill has volunteered with their organization a few times in Nicaragua. This was their first trip to Nepal, and it sounds like it was a big success. We really enjoyed seeing familiar friendly faces for a few days as we spent time getting organized for our upcoming trekking. We visited and got quotes from several trekking companies and purchased a few items of gear while in Kathmandu.

Bill with his good friend Jay. Jay was in Nepal volunteering with Grid Alternatives, and we just got lucky that our trip overlapped with Grid's. 

Kathmandu, Nepal has the same crazy traffic that Delhi, India had, but because the temperature is much more moderate, it is much easier to handle. Thamel is a neighborhood in Kathmandu where all the trekking companies and gear shops are located, and this is where you find all the tourists. So we walked there each day, sometimes multiple times a day. During our days prepping for hiking, we also visited the CIWEC hospital very near to our hotel. For $70 we got a kit of trekker's medicines and medical gear for every possible eventuality that might occur while on the trails, and indeed it did come in handy, but we'll come back to that later...

We loved the CIWEC hospital! They hooked us up with our trekker's medical kit and also some vaccinations before we left the country. Thanks CIWEC!

We finally picked a trekking company (on the cheap end) and the cost included a 16-day hike around the Annapurna circuit, lodging at tea houses along the way, an experienced guide named Raj (age 24), and a 1st time porter named Raju (age 18). Raj spoke some limited English, but Raju did not. We affectionately called Raju "Junior".

Me, Raju (our 18-year old porter), Raj (our 24-year old guide) and Bill. *Note: Raj's nose got messed up in this photo, it's not that big. 

Early the morning of October 9th, Raj and Raju met us at our Kathmandu hotel. We crammed all of us and our gear into a tiny taxi and headed to the local bus park, which as far as we could tell was just a bunch a buses that people jump onto if it happens to be going the direction they're going. Raj arranged seats for us on a mini bus with 17 seats. Unfortunately, my tummy was still not back to normal from our time in India, and the first hour or two of the drive was windy and bumpy, so I was feeling quite nauseated. Thanks to our CIWEC medical kit for providing me with anti-nausea medicine that helped a lot by making me drowsy. As the day went on, the drive got much hotter, but locals don't like to open the windows because of the dust and pollution (about half of the locals wear face masks in Kathmandu because of pollution), so we were sweating quite a bit. At one point, there were 27 people on the mini-bus, standing room only. Yes, it was quite uncomfortable! In August, there were a couple bus crashes in Nepal that killed about 55 people. Both were overcrowded buses that skidded off the road and plunged hundreds of feet over the side the cliff. Once you've been a passenger in Nepal, it is very easy to see how this could happen. Yea, it was difficult not to think of this while riding in the mini-bus.

Our 17-passenger mini-bus to Besi Sahar, that was at times carrying up to 27 people. 

But this is where we learned about bus/mini-bus culture in Nepal. There is a driver, and what I like to call "a fixer". The driver obviously sits in the driver seat (right hand of the bus since the Nepalis drive on the left side of the road), and the fixer stands at the door of the bus. The driver's responsibility is pretty clear: drive as safely as humanly possible on some of the worst roads you can imagine. The highway in Nepal is a poorly paved 2-lane road, where people are constantly passing each other into oncoming traffic (yes, we did witness some accidents, usually involving motorcycles, yikes!). The fixer, however, yells out the window the destination the bus is headed, and gets the driver to stop if someone in the local village wants a ride. He then collects the money from the passenger and figures out a way to cram that person onto the crowded bus. It's quite a system! Fixers tend to have a lot of personality.

Anyway, after about 5 hours on the mini-bus, we finally reached our destination, Besi Sahar (2,500 feet in altitude). We had lunch and Raj was eager to start our hike. Given that it was a rough ride and I was still not feeling great, we made the right decision to rest for the afternoon and start hiking in the morning. I started a strict BRAT diet (bananas, rice, apples, toast) to try to get my belly back in order, and started taking some heavy duty probiotics from the CIWEC medical kit.

Bill standing in front of our hotel in Besi Sahar, which surprisingly was one of the worst we stayed in on the hike. Surprising because it was in an actual town, not a remote village. 

The next day got off to an interesting start. We were all packed up and ready to go early, ready to start our big adventure. But Raj marches us left through town. Bill and I looked at each other, thinking this doesn't seem right - aren't we supposed to go right through town? After a few minutes a stranger on the street says something to Raj, they both laugh, and we turn around and walk the other way through town. We're wondering to ourselves, why did we pay for a guide if he doesn't know which direction to walk?? Not a good start. Shortly after, Raj seems confused about how to cross a river. So Bill checks out a little suspension bridge to see if there's a path on the other side of the river. There wasn't, but again, we were wondering why we paid for a guide. Thankfully, things went much smoother after that. We walked on the dirt road, at just a small incline for most of the day, until we climbed a steep hill to a village called Bahundanda (4,300 feet). It was hot and humid at the lower altitudes, so we were sweating for sure. We stayed at the "Super View" lodge, which had the same name as the place we'd stayed in Besi Sahar (basically every place has a super view). The bathrooms were pretty gnarly, but there was actually hot water, so we took hot showers in spite of the fact that the squat toilet and the shower were in the same dirty little room together. As happened many times on the trek, I just had to put hygiene out of my mind...

And the adventure starts! Raju "Junior" on the left carrying our pack with sleeping bags attached to the sides, and Raj, our guide on the right, carrying his own and Junior's combined pack. 

A common view at the lower elevations: lush green forest and beautiful blue skies. And the ever-present Marsyangdi river. 

The next morning was rough. Bill woke up with a really bad headache, which is rare for him, and my stomach was not getting any better in spite of the BRAT diet and probiotics. So on Day 3 of our adventure, we decided to take a rest day, which was kind of embarrassing but definitely the right decision. We rested while Raj and Raju were bored out of their minds I'm sure. But there were plenty of other hikers, guides and porters around for them to talk to. Plus, we got to witness the fullest, longest-lasting, most brilliant rainbow that either of us has ever seen. That day, I decided to start taking Cipro (antibiotic) from the CIWEC kit which may have been overkill, but I wasn't sure how long it would take for my belly to get back to normal on its own. It worked.

The stunning, long-lasting, double rainbow we witnessed during our rest day at Bahundanda.

So on Day 4, we are hiking-ready again, and went from Bahundanda to Chamje (4,700 feet). We spent another day hiking in the heat, and the scenery was just stunning, but much more tropical than you might expect from a hike around the Himalayas. We were sensing a theme so far on our trek - WATER. We were always near a very large river, the Marsyangdi, and we saw countless small and large waterfalls. When we arrived in Chamje, we met a really nice couple from Barcelona. Conchita is a medical doctor and her husband, Alfonse, is in sales and has worked for big companies like Apple and Adobe. They were absolutely delightful, speak 7 languages each, including sign language because their daughter is deaf (she's also amazing - she's a psychologist that works with deaf children all over the world). We had a very nice time talking to them at dinner that night and breakfast the next morning.

This day's theme was bugs in my food at every meal and snack. Thankfully, this was just an off day and did not continue for the rest of the trek.

More pretty views

The next day, Day 5, we hiked to Dharapani (6,100 feet). We passed through a really nice place called Tal, where the valley widened up a bunch and the river was much calmer. Things started to cool off a bit this day. Along the way, we noticed that Bill's leg was bleeding just above the ankle and it just wouldn't stop. There are ground leeches in Nepal, our friends from Grid Alternatives went on a hike with extensive amounts of ground leeches and anyone not wearing leech socks got leeches, we weren't in an area with that many leeches but the only thing we could think was that a leech got him, but didn't stick. Thanks again to the CIWEC kit for providing band-aids! In Dharapani, we met another really nice couple, Dylan and Lauren, recent graduates from Tulane University who are traveling for many months. We proceeded to run into them many times over the next couple weeks.

Crossing one of many suspension bridges over the Marsyangdi River

More gorgeous views

Us near the lovely village of Tal, where the valley widens a bit and the river becomes calmer. 

This is the day that our porter, Raju, aka "Junior" switched from his boots back to flip flops. Here we were with our heavy duty hiking books and trekking poles, carrying just little day packs. And meanwhile Raju is carrying our giant pack, with our sleeping bags attached to the sides, wearing flip flops while hiking on very uneven ground. Yes, this made us feel sheepish. Granted, he's 18 years old...

To be honest, I was a bit anxious as we got farther and farther from civilization and medical care, especially since I started the trek not feeling so great. There was a big earthquake in the Ghorka region of Nepal not far from the Annapurna circuit in April 2015 that killed 9,000 people and injured 22,000, so yes, I was worried about earthquakes. As fate would have it, that night we were both awakened at 3:50am by a loud rumbling, and a shaking of the walls of our lodge. I had a really hard time falling back to sleep after that. Dharapani is in a narrow, steep valley. And we had seen countless giant bus-sized rocks that had at some point in history fallen off the rock faces down into the valley. I just couldn't get the image of a giant rock crashing down into us out of my head. We also saw evidence of many rockslides along the way. Thankfully, everything looked better in the light of day - thank goodness the sun rises every day, right?

Another suspension bridge across the Marsyangdi River

Another suspension bridge. These red and white blazes showed us that we were on the right path. 

Our teahouse in Dharapani

Our room in Dharapani. We rooms usually had two twin beds, and that's about it. 

On Day 6, we hiked from Dharapani to Chame (8,700 feet). This was the day where the scenery really started to change from tropical jungle forest with lots of greenery and trees, to more mountainous scenery. During the transition, we hiked an incredibly long flight of rock stairs and hiked through a very muddy forest. This is the day that I started to feel the altitude. We were at about 8,000ft, so we started taking Diamox, which is supposed to help you acclimatize faster. We saw Alfonse and Conchita and Dylan and Lauren as we were walking through Chame that night. It's a very small world on the Nepali trekking routes! Contrary to everything we'd heard, the teahouses seemed to get a bit nicer as we got farther from civilization. Occasionally, we had a power outlet in our room. Closer to Manang, we even had an attached bathroom (squat toilet of course).

Our very own little cottage in Chame. It even had a power outlet!

Purchasing Yak cheese in Chame. It was kind of like swiss cheese, not a ton of flavor, but still yummy when you haven't had cheese in awhile. 

On Day 7, we hiked from Chame to Lower Pisang (10,500 feet). The temperature was getting much colder, especially at night. During the day it was fine because we were working up a sweat, and the sun would keep us warm, but nights were pretty cold. The nice thing about Pisang was that the tea house we stayed in actually used the wood stove in the dining room. We were very happy to have some heat for once! Mind you, there was no heat in any of our bedrooms along the trek.

Me with the Marsyangdi river, which is getting smaller as we go higher in elevation. 

This was the day where the valley widened again and we saw lots of apple orchards, so we stopped for some apples and fresh apple juice in Bhratang. Also, we saw a huge "bowl" cut out of the rock. Locally, it's called Swargadwari Danda, the "gateway to heaven". It is pretty incredible and looks very smooth like it was carved from a glacier. Just one of many sights along the trek where our pictures don't do it justice.

The amazing smooth rock of Swargadwari Danda "gateway to heaven". Pictures don't come close to doing it justice. 

Bill spinning Buddhist prayer wheels in Lower Pisang. 

On Day 8, we hiked from Lower Pisang to Manang (11,500 feet).  We only had to climb 1000 ft that day, and we got frequent views of snow-capped peaks. Manang is one of the largest villages on the trek because this is where trekkers usually spend multiple nights in order to acclimatize. Upon arriving in Manang, we got hot showers, and then headed to a free medical seminar on altitude sickness put on by US and Canadian volunteer doctors. Manang has multiple movie theaters. We saw "7 Years in Tibet" and were served hot tea and popcorn, while we sat on hard wooden benches covered in itchy yak fur. Our room in Manang had a private bathroom, our very own squat toilet(!), which was nice because you are supposed to drink lots of water at altitude which means you have to get up several times in the night.

The views have really changed as we've gotten higher. Now, it's more pine trees and snowy mountains. 

Learning about Altitude Sickness at the free medical seminar in Manang, thanks to some volunteer Canadiana and US doctors. 

Day 9 was a blissful day of rest to acclimatize. We slept in, spent time with our trekking buddies Dylan and Lauren, went to a bakery and played chess (Bill still clobbered me even with a 4-piece handicap). Bill was feeling good since we'd been climbing slowly over many days. He's used to going from sea level to very high altitudes in one day for snowboarding and usually feels crappy. I, however, was not fond of the heart pounding, rapid breathing that altitude gives you. The whole trip, especially the cold, was starting to wear on me and I was worried about the next several days of even colder temps and higher altitudes.

Playing chess in Manang

Nonetheless, we set out on Day 10. We climbed slowly another 1,500 feet and made it to Ghusang (13,000 feet), but I was having a lot of trouble breathing and it was freaking me out since I have a history of breathing trouble (you can read our previous blog about my trachea surgery earlier this year). So we decided it would be best to turn around. We had planned to cross the Thorung La pass (17,000 feet) in three days time, but instead we headed back to Manang. We visited the Canadian volunteer Doctor in Manang that day just so he could check me out. He didn't see anything obviously wrong with my throat/trachea, but he guessed that the cold/dry air and all the heavy breathing may have irritated my trachea scar tissue. He also said a lot of people are anxious at altitude because your heart is racing and you're breathing fast, so it makes you feel like you're anxious. So that could have been part of it too. Needless to say, it was a disappointment, but we talked to Dylan and Lauren about a week later in Pokhara after they crossed the pass. They said that the next 4-5 days for them after we turned around were pretty miserable from the cold (no heat anywhere!) and the altitude effects. It sounded like a suffer-fest, so I really think it was the right decision for us.

The view from our lodge in Manang

On Day 11, we headed back down the way we'd come, from Manang to Chame, which made for a very long day (basically two days in one). Our pedometer says we walked 18 miles that day, thankfully, most of it was downhill. Randomly, Bill had an upset stomach in the afternoon, so he took some antacid thanks to our CIWEC medical kit (that thing really came in handy on this trek!)

This is the day that our guide, Raj, got a call and found out that his dad was in the hospital.

On Day 12, we walked from Chame to Dharapani. We had intended to hike farther, but Raj said we should spend the night and hire a Jeep to drive us down the next day so he could get back to see his father in the hospital. This was an interesting development, because at certain times along the trek up, we had seen some Jeeps and motorcycles trying to drive up and down the terrible road that goes all the way up to Manang, and were always relieved that we weren't the ones in/on the vehicle because the road is SO terrible.

Day 13, our final day on the Annapurna Circuit trek, was definitely the longest day of our time in Nepal. I wrote in my journal, "There are no words for today. It was insane." We rode in several different kinds of vehicles throughout the day and have the bruises to show it (see Bill's upcoming post showing a video of our gnarly Jeep ride). In order for us to get down as soon as possible so that Raj could get on his way to seeing his father in the hospital, he hired a Jeep to get all four of us down. However, there were at least 5 other people in/on the Jeep, which makes for a total of 9 people, which is actually a small number considering how crammed we'd seen Jeeps before. The drive to Besi Sahar was 4.5 hours of bouncing, swaying, jolting, and holding on for dear life as we were inches from cliffs often. We were dazed and sore after that "excitement".

Us on our terrifying Jeep ride...

Once we reached Besi Sahar, we had lunch. Here, we split up from Raj and Raju because they were headed back to Kathmandu. Raj put us on a mini-bus to our next destination, the lakeside resort-ish town of Pokhara. This bus was much smoother. The driver was cautious and conscientious. It made lots of stops to pick up and drop of local passengers, and Bill was excited to finally be able to say that we'd ridden a chicken bus (there was a box of chirping chickens on board for awhile). We thought it was going all the way to Pokhara, but it stopped in Dumre at around 4:00 and everyone had to get off. So then we were stuck trying to find a bus to Pokhara. A guy told us that a bus to Pokhara would be coming in a few minutes. While we were waiting a school bus pulled up and a large group of adorable, dirty, sometimes snotty, dressed in uniforms, Nepali Montessori students boarded the school bus and when they saw us, they all started waving at us, saying Hello and Namaste, and when the bus pulled away, they all waved and said Goodbye. It was a very sweet moment in the midst of a crazy travel day.

A mini-bus to Pokhara pulled up. It was crammed with people already, but they were committed to squeezing us in. We got our gear tied down on the roof and squeezed ourselves in to a couple of backless seats, but they literally made someone stand up so I could sit down, which didn't seem right. So we changed our minds and hopped off the mini-bus and retrieved our bag from the roof (good decision!). Thankfully, just a few minutes later, an even cheaper, larger bus pulled up with two normal seats available. Whew! Then we rode this bus for several more hours to Pokhara. Apparently, everyone agreed to burn their trash that day, so the last hour of riding was super duper smoky. Yes, I was wearing my face mask. We arrived in Pokhara around 7:00pm in the dark. We hadn't arranged a place to stay yet. So we took a cab to the lakeside area, and wandered around for awhile looking for a hotel. We finally found one, and let me just say that after trekking for 13 days (and wearing the same pants for 13 days!), having a room with a Western toilet and a clean hot shower, was absolutely blissful! I think I slept almost 12 hours that night from sheer travel and hiking exhaustion.

Me modeling my lovely face mask in Kathmandu. The air looks clean, but it is not at all!

Here are some random day to day observations from the Annapurna Circuit trek.

Sights:

• At the lower altitudes, we saw lots of little yellow butterflies, and even some brilliant blue butterflies.
• We saw the aforementioned amazing rainbow in Bahundanda.
• We were always seeing Nepalis carrying heavy loads, not just the porters. And they tend to use a band around their foreheads to carry things. They must have incredibly strong necks!
• Prayer wheels, prayer flags, stupas and gompas (Buddhist temples).  In the mountains of Nepal, most people are Buddhist, whereas down in Kathmandu and the lower altitudes, most people are Hindu.
• We saw many helicopters during the days of our hiking, presumably taking rescued hikers back to Kathmandu for medical treatment.
• Dashain is an annual 15-day festival in Nepal. One of the parts of the celebration include swings made up of bamboo and coconut rope.  We saw many of these swings. People say if you leave the ground swinging in Dashain, the swing will take away ill feelings and replace them with new ones.
• Nepali children are really cute. They always say "Namaste" to trekkers, and some of them ask for sweets. We ran out of candy in the first few days of our trip, and it was hard to say no.

Some adorable Nepali kids. One little boy was running circles around Bill, saying Namaste!

One of many Nepali swings we saw, made from bamboo for the Daishan festival.

Nepalis paint their buildings with very bright colors. This is just a small sample. 

Some of the gorgeous flowers we saw along the way. 

Nepalis are famous for carrying heavy loads for long distances up steep paths. They often put a band around their foreheads. They must have really strong necks!

Sounds:

• At the lower altitudes, the forest thrums with life, a constant buzzing that sounds like cicadas.
• Also at the lower altitudes, you hear the roaring of the Marsyangdi River constantly.
• Every day, we woke up to and fell asleep to the sound of Nepalis clearing their throats and spitting. This description doesn't really do justice to how gross this sound is, but it is pretty much a constant in Nepal. We affectionately call it the Nepali mating call.
• We heard lots of roosters along the way too.
• In Manang, the highest little village we stayed in, the yaks made a very loud, screeching/groaning sound. Earplugs did not cover up this awkward noise, but we couldn't help but giggle because it was so bizarre.
• Because of the Daishan festival, we heard lots of loud music at night in Bahundanda.
• One day we could hear schoolchildren singing from all the way across the valley.

Some of the animals we saw, heard, and smelled along the trek (donkeys, goats, yaks, horses, roosters, cows, spiders, and a toy turtle for fun). 

Smells:

• Mothballs are a regular smell at tea houses and shops in Nepal - not exactly sure why.
• Poop and lots of it! From donkeys that carry heavy loads along the path, and horses, cows and goats that cross the trails.
• We did some sink laundry along the trail and some of the villages actually offered laundry. There is nothing like the smell of a clean shirt after you've sweat in it for multiple days.
• Bathrooms in Nepal are not known for their smells, as you might imagine. Most of them had no automatic flush. You had to fill up a bucket and dump it down the squat toilet to flush. 

By far the cleanest squat toilet we used. This was in our attached bathroom in Manang.

Tastes:

• We ate lots of rice and potato based dishes on the trails. Bill also ate lots of pasta dishes.
• We drank lots of tea on the trail. The lemon tea was more like a sugary lemony powder mixed into hot water. It was pretty yummy though.
• I drank Fanta and ate Snickers often, foods I would never drink/eat at home, but you've got to propel yourself up those hills somehow!

Sugary lemon tea, Fanta, and Snickers. The food and drink of champions! 

Some of the foods we ate along the trail. 

Next up: Bill will share his blog about Nepal from an engineer's perspective.