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Claire & Steve's Excellent Adventure
We got the bus from Kathmandu very early this morning for the 7 hour ride to Pokhara. It was quite an experience travelling up into the mountains and passing through the villages as they became more and more remote.
Pokhara is the base for most trekking trips to start from - its a really pretty place centred around a huge lake and of course surrounded by the snowy mountains. The people were so friendly and greeted you with "Namaste" wherever you go.
We left Pokhara the following morning by taxi to head up further into the mountains and start our trek. We offloaded a lot of our luggage at the hotel so our porter, Ramsingh, had only one of our bags to carry along with his own. We still felt slightly guilty that this tiny man was carrying all our gear but seeing him run and charge up the side of mountains with it on his back put our minds at rest. He is quite possibly the happiest man we have ever met - constantly smiling and laughing and keeping us entertained!
We trekked from Birethanti to Tirkedhunga - which was quite a nice leisurely walk with a few inclines thrown in for good luck (little did we know what lay ahead the following day).
We got our first glimpse of how the local people lived in the mountain, seeing them going about their daily lives. We were so surprised to see just what supplies they had to carry up the mountain....baskets laden with food, fuel, wood, railway sleepers and huge metal sheets to construct a new bridge. All of this strapped with a band around their heads to support the weight - Steve and I were sweaty enough carrying our day packs!
We reached Tirkedhunga in the afternoon and enjoyed the last hours of sunshine playing Rummy with the locals. We got our first experience of "teahouse" accommodation - some MDF and a bamboo roof to construct a bedroom but we did get a bed! It was good to talk to some other trekkers over dinner who had just come down from the mountains - apparently Tirkedhunga is one of the warmest places on the trek which left Steve and I slightly worried as we were already freezing!
We got introduced to a traditional Nepalese game (Chrona?) where you have to play against an opponent to flick coloured discs into corner pockets. It was quite addictive although Steve did get severely beaten by Bishwa several times!
We went to our cold beds with the knowledge that tomorrow we have to trek continuously uphill to get to Ghorepani.....can't wait!
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