The final leg

Day 4 Tattopani (1200m) - Lete (2500m)

We set ourselves up for the day, taking advantage of the fresh baked products (we won’t divulge how many we ate) and headed to Ghasa. On route the hiking trail sign was obscured, thus we missed our turn off, taking the road instead which wasn’t the most pleasant- lots of jeeps spraying us with dirt and dust. As we progressed upwards, the terrain became rocky and barren on our left, with the deepest valley in the world on our right! The road while at first proving slightly hazardous with rocks and sand, turned into a scene similar to what we imagine The Gaza Strip looks like. Let us elaborate- Landslides! The road looked bombed! At first we merely had to shimmy over a three foot pass, with a slight sheer drop of 100 meters to avoid. We high-fived our survival, silently contemplating the loose rocks carelessly kicked over the edge by speeding porters; in this huge gorge, we resembled little more and were careful not to meet a similar fate. But our toils we not over, ahead of us the road simply disappeared, a few boulders clung to the mountainside in it’s place, and these were what we had to pass past. After pausing a few moments to psych ourselves up- but not long enough to truly think about what we were about to do and if our travel insurance covered clinging-to-side-of-mountain-to-petrified-to-move- rescue we finally inched our way over. Let’s not frighten you with any more details, but on the other side a little tent was set up where two other white-faced foreigners were shakily sculling back shots of coke congratulating each other on their feat, something tells me a whiskey tent would have gone down well here!

We originally planned on spending the night in Ghasa, but didn’t get the best vibe from the windy village thus after lunch we decided to proceed to Lete- the next town 2.5 hours away. Every where on the trek is measured in hours to walk rather then miles/kilometers, when you ask the locals how far a place is, they size you up and give their answer accordingly. They’re probably thinking, ‘well I usually walk it in 40 minutes, so that’s 40+20 for foreigness+ 10 for extra fat+ five for breaks!’. Our decision to keep going was rewarded as soon as we rounded our first corner and were met with the most incredible snowcapped mountain peaks surrounded by pine forests- beautiful. The scenery continued to amaze us until we arrived tired after another long day of 7.5 hours walking. Luckily we chose a lovely guest house where we met some very nice people. We spent the evening chatting away around a big table with hot coals burning underneath keeping us warm.

Day 5 Lete (2500m) – Marpha (2600m)

The walk to Marpha was another windy, dusty day. We walked through riverbeds and more magnificent scenery all around. Our dry throats were whetted with glasses of freshly pressed apple juice in Larjung, delivered by an encouraging woman in her pretty garden restaurant. We followed with lunch of fresh bread and melted cheese in Tukche, chased by further tall glasses of apple juice. We arrived early in Marpha, a picturesque Tibetan looking town and the ‘Apple Capital of Nepal’. We checked into Paradise Lodge a homely guest house, which really did feel like a Paradise when the hot shower water cleansed the day away. Marpha has a lovely temple and quant narrow ancient streets; we looked forward to our return.

Day 6 Marpha (2600m) – Kagbeni (2800m)

From Marpha we passed through Jomson to arrive in Kagbeni. We internetted in Jomsom- our first point of communication with the outside world for nearly a week. The town didn’t supply us with a decent lunch, being overpriced and undersized compared to any point on the trek thus far. We did however meet a nice German couple who lived in Australia. They were waiting unsuccessfully for the last two days for a flight out which are frequently canceled due to unsuitable weather conditions.

Kagbeni is another picturesque town, it looks medieval and perfect for a wander around. We discovered a ‘Yak Donalds Restaurant’ and a ‘Seven Eleven’- this particular restaurant/shop combination evidently had internet! We treated ourselves to a room with private eu-suite for 200 nrp (just under 2euros) and met a great lively bunch of hikers and our first Irish person! Another night was passed blissfully chatting away, well passed our bed time- but the yawns eventually overtook us all.

Day 7 Kagbeni (2800m) – Muktinath (3800m) – Kagbeni (3800m)

Our one month wedding anniversary- literally the highest (walking) point of our lives!

Due to the slow arrival of the food the previous night we jokingly noted that we should order our food for 4am, so as it might be ready for 6.30am- we should have heeded this! We all sat around the table and by 7.30 we were eventually eating - ‘Nepali time’ was the only excuse we received. Although Paola, the Italian woman in our company mentioned how the Nepali calendar is almost 60 years ahead of the west, thus you’d assume Nepali time would be some sort of speed warp. I though it was a good point.

Kagbeni is 2800meters high; we had another near 1000 meters to climb- perhaps too much for one day. The recommended daily climb in height is 500m meters at altitude. It was a slow climb, initially extremely steep, following a corkscrew road steeply hugging a loose scree mountain side. We started out with our fleece and warm clothes, but had to disrobe twenty minutes later as the sun hit us and the exertion of the climb warmed us right up. We were forced to stop again at Jharkot (3500m) due to a nagging headache that kept reminding Malachy he was climbing beyond his lungs comfort zone. We decided to have an early lunch to see if an hour or so would help him adjust. Our goal was so close, the Nepali lunch lady told us it would only take 30 minutes to get to Muktinath, so after a lunch that included a desert of sprite, snickers and twix (to help with the headache!) we decided to push on, despite the fact that Mal’s head wasn’t really that much better. We laboured on, stopping frequently for water breaks and encouragement from another older lady- who felt a lot better about her snail like process when we told her that we had left Kagbeni also at 8.30am. We didn’t have the heart to tell her that we stopped for an hour and a half for lunch, but I doubt she’d have believed us considering we were in a race for the slowest time to climb 100 meters award (she won!), we feel proud to have beaten that 65 year old! Not as unfit as we thought eh!

Muktinath was a slight anticlimax. I mean it was a nice town and all, but it didn’t provide us with the end of the rainbow experience we were looking for. The views were amazing, but just as beautiful as what we’d seen for the last few days. The town certainly had plenty of nice looking accommodation and restaurants, but all in all, it was grand. I’m sure if you’re coming around from the other side of the Annapurna circuit, after a grueling day climbing over the Thorung pass, the town would probably seem like a Mecca of comfort. We originally planned on spending the night, we even checked into a guest house, but Malachy’s symptoms we proving typical of altitude sickness- bad thumping headache, nauseous, dizzy. My instincts were to lie him down, ply him with water and let him rest, but those are not the instincts of a mountaineer, and getting down the mountain as fast as possible is in fact the correct protocol. Thus that’s exactly what we did, even taking a few shortcuts that led through marshy land. We made it back all the way to Kagbeni in record time, Mal’s head gradually decreasing from Roy Keane kicking pain to an under fourteens match.

For a nice comfortable evening (it’s or anniversary after all) we checked into the same en-suite room and had a lovely cosy evening in- we were the only guests!

The Return- Days 8- 11: Kagbeni-Marpha-Ghasa-Tiplyang-Pokara.

Rewarding ourselves for our wonderful accomplishment, we had a sleep in today not leaving until 10.30am! But we then negated the indulgence by walking as far as Marpha before calling it a night. The lure of the apple juice was just too great.

Our walk to Ghasa was as stunning as before and we managed to find the slip road into the centre of ‘town’ which was a lot more welcoming than our previous brief visit. We over heard a lot of groans from our fellow guests about various aches and pains, some hardly able to walk, looking for reassurance from their guides that the following day would be easy on them…and it was- well, it was short anyway!

The group left well before we did the next day and we didn’t see them along the trek, but as we were having lunch in Tatopani, they hobbled into the restaurant with friendly (if not embarrassed) waves! The hobbles were due no doubt to the climb down the deepest valley in the world. We’re actually not exaggerating here when we say that. The Lonely Planet writes the following about the Kail Gandaki valley “the river cuts a channel between Annapurpa I and Dhaulagiri, thus qualifying the Kail Gandaki for the title of the worlds deepest valley. The two 8000m plus mountaintops are only 38km apart and the river flows between them at a height of less than 2200 meters.” It was a tough walk, lot’s of steps if you were lucky, hardly any path, donkeys farting in your face (specifically Mal’s face!) and a generally unpleasant decent. Mal treated himself to a big steak for lunch, and I to a slice of Cadburys chocolate coated cake (I don’t think it was Cadburys, pretty disappointing, but not a bad effort considering we are in the Himalayas!), the steak incidentally was very nice.

Unlike the moaning group who were making a bee line for the smelly hot springs, we pushed on to Tiplyang. From Tatopani the road was new to us as we were taking a different route back, having already seen the delightful Poon Hill it was senseless walking back the same way (remember the stairway to hell?). Tiplyang was a tiny village, the guest house we stayed in was free- provided we ate our dinner there (not that there was exactly a selection of restaurants around!). We were entertained on the virtues of a Kosher diet by two Israeli women who were eating powdered mash potatoes out of their Kosher saucepan- somehow I doubt Mal will be converting anytime time soon. Although our ears did prick up when we heard about the two compulsory days of doing nothing a week, but considering we haven’t worked in three months to date, the idea of doing something seemed far more unusual!

The last day!

We had a short walk of 3.5 hours to Beni, largely uneventful- more beautiful scenery, chats about what we’ll do with the rest of our lives, that sort of thing. We caught a bouncy bus back to Pokara, skirting over the cliff edges like a rollercoaster ride, not for the faint hearted. Four hours of this, plus a taxi ride eventually delivered us back to our guesthouse, where a well deserved bath was in order; then another one as the first one turned brown very quickly!

Make-up, mascara, eye shadow, lip gloss, clean clothes, a slap up meal during cocktail hour (two for one, we had three each) and further drinks at club Amsterdam, led us drunkenly happily to bed before midnight.