Trek The Unknown

After a few days of walking…it’s time to rest! So that day we decided to have a resting day.

Chame Is the largest village in the district and actually you can find some pretty cheap trekking gear or food that you might need later. Of course it all compared to the prices along the trek.

We bought some twix bar which were 50 rupees each. We also bought some trekking gear. A friend of mine bought a walking stick since his got broken. I bought another fleece shirt…(I thought I’m going to freeze when being closer towards Throng La (La means, pass).

Chame has hot springs! but….At that time of year which is the dry season ( We were visiting there at the end of October) the springs are actually a tiny pond you can either put in your hand or leg only.

On the other hand, I met some people taking a bucket, filling it and having a shower by the spring. The water are warm and great!

In order to get to the hot springs turn right, right after the last bridge in the village (when coming from Danaqyu village direction). Then you walk through a few guest houses courts down the river ( river on your right). After passing those guests houses you need to go down straight to the river, there you’ll see a concrete pool (which was empty at that time).

Our porter said that one or two month later there would be more water in the spring and the concrete pool would be full which would allow a splendid bath!

enjoy

oh! also, HAPPY NEW 2008!

On my recent trip which I came back from, 3 weeks ago (3 weeks already?!) I traveled with one of my best friends. This was a special trip for me, I never traveled with a good friend and it was truly a great experience. We had our argues on what we want to do and where to go, but it was all on an open and very understanding atmosphere.

When we visited New Delhi, We used the metro to ride around town. It’s cheaper and faster than a rickshaw. one day an Israeli girl ( many Israelis are traveling in the far east , especially India) asked us how to get to a certain place in town. I told her that the best way to do this is to use the metro. She said, it sounded too complicated and she will just take a rickshaw to that place. I told her It’s much slower and much much more expensive. She didn’t really mind.

My friend was there at the same time and I told him I can’t understand why people are traveling to new places and just stay at the few touristy places they know and not trying to explore a little more from what they read or know about..just to do things aliitle bit different and that would make your trip a whole lot differente. I say, be a little adventurous, explore, experience….

He said I was being arrogant by thinking this. Not all people are the same and are very comfortable of being in strange different places by themselves.

I guess he is right. Not all people like the same way of traveling and although I’m not too happy about “classic tourism”, some people do like it ( Fully guided tours for instance). The problem is that these people are missing what’s so special about the places they are traveling. They don’t “feel” them.

The key is to find the right balance and even if you afraid of riding\walking\being someplace because It’s too much of a “challenge” for you, you should gather a tiny bit of courage and just try…

Remark: Mickey, Thank you for being a great friend and a great travel partner.

Marry Christmas everybody and happy new 2008!

This Day begins with a hard climb inside a forest , then the trail goes above the Marsyangdi River again. Towards Tanchok the trail goes down again and crosses a small river and goes up again for a short steep climb. Right after this climb there is a very nice place to rest on top, so gather all your strength and smile!

A few minutes walk more further and you’ve reached Tanchok Village. The trail doesn’t go straight through the village.

After Tanchok, it’s a really easy nice walk to Chame. The Next Village after Tanchok is Koto and it took us 45 minutes reaching there. 20 minutes after Koto and you are in Chame ( ACAP map states it taked 45 minutes walk from Koto to Chame).

On total we started walking at 7:25 in the morning and reached Chame at 12:00 ( 4 hours 35 minutes) , including some stops for rest.

Have a fun walk!

“you should go to an Indian movie. It’s really funny seeing the Indians watching it…” this is what my sister told me 7 years ago after she visited India. Since then she was not the only one telling me that.

After spending a few days in Delhi with a friend, I told him we are going to watch a movie tonight. “please tell me it will be in English…”. “maybe there will be subtitles” I said. “oh, great…”

Film was suppose to start at 21:30, so we had some time walking around Connaught Place in Delhi, seeing and window shopping at the most exclusive stores in the city.

At 21:15 we arrived back at the movie theater. The film started 5 minutes later (have you ever been to any show that starts AHEAD of time?

Our pick was “Om, Shanti, Om”, a romantic Bollywood film. But we were more excited about watching the people watching the film and not the film itself, so the particular film didn’t really matter…

The film started and we found ourselves looking at the screen more than looking at the people who were just too quiet, which was pretty disappointing, the film was wonderful! colorful, interesting, but in Hindi…

Fortunately, there are many words in English got into the Hindi language, so from time to time the actors spoke some English words which helped us tracking what’s going on on the screen. the crowd…was still silent…

Then there were some whistlings and we started to get excited! Beautiful Hindi women were singing and dancing on the screen. This almost empty theater with almost only men sitting at, still looked very sad compared to what we heard suppose to be.

But we kept enjoying the movie which wasn’t very complicated to understand even though we speak only 1 word in Hindi (which is Namaste, surprisingly).

When the film ended we tried to figure out why we enjoyed the action on the screen and why there was no action in the crowd.

we thought that the fact that we went to a romantic film and not an action one didn’t help the crowd to “rave”.

in conclusion, the movie was great, but the crowd didn’t play it’s role. we still had great time!

comment for your stories on a Bollywood movie experience! thanks

All I can say about Day 2…It was a HARD day! It doesn’t seem so hard on the map we got from the NCAP ( Annapurna Conservation Area Project ). 460 m climbing on a 16 KM walking…But This was our 1st day of really walking and not sitting-on-the-bus type of day….We started at 8:20 in the morning in Bhulbhule and finished at 17:20 in Jagat village which is almost dark by then.

The next day (day 3) we walked from Jagat (left at 8:00) to Danaqyu (arrived at 16:20). This day was a little easier from the day before. On the ACAP map (it’s not really a map but just tells you how much you need to climb/go down from one village to another, how much time it suppose to take and how many KM you walk) it says that the end of the walking on that day meaning from Dharapani to Danaqyu? suppose to be a very steep hard walk.

We were very tired at that point but wanted to go a little more. eventually that part of walking was climbing but a really easy walk comparably to other parts we already done that day and the day before.

On that day after a hard climb before Tal village We met the Maoists. On the previous post I also talked about them. Generaly speaking, they are a political group, that makes this country unstable politically and that’s why people are afraid to come to Nepal ( By the way…no need to be scared. read the previous post )

Anyway, after this really hard climb ( It was even written on my map: “hot steep climb!” ), we see a bunch of people sitting near a table with a red flag next to it. As we approached the table they were really nice and said: “hello, we are the Maoists, We take donation…”

We’ve been told by our porter that they ask for money according to the number of days you are trekking, therefore you need to say you finish in a closer place than you are really going to end your trek. They take 100 Nepali Rupee per day per person.

After a short negotiation my friend and me each paid 1000 Rupees. We even got a receipt so the next time we meet them , we can show them we already paid.

We also met some large groups of people traveling together that just walk though them without paying…So if you really broke and can’t pay…well…get your own conclusion…I don’t want to cause any harm to any tourists because of that…also, we haven’t seen that they are carrying any weapons …:)