Trek The Unknown

Many people I’ve told I’m traveling to Nepal said to me: “You are very brave. I don’t think I can do that”. now, I know from many young Israelis who went to Nepal that it’s safe and there are no problems going there.

Nepal is dependent on tourism and since 2001 tourism has dropped down because of the political situation. After spending 2.5 months there, I can say say for sure Nepal is safe at least in the parts I was in. I just had the chance being on the most touristic parts.

The Maoists that everybody are afraid of are a political group which causing the “trouble” in the country. At the same time they are very aware of the mess they are making and that it’s hurting their main economical engine. Therefore their policy is NOT hurting tourists.

If you are a tourist in Nepal you’ll probably meet them in 2 occasions: street demonstration. I saw a few of those In Kathmandu. Walking and shouting down the street never hurt anyone…they are walking in large groups not causing any harm ( well, except of the traffic jams…)

The other place would be while you trek in the mountains. They have booths on the train, which is actually a small table and a flag. Usually there are a bunch of them and they oblige (or as they say:”Take donation” ) you to pay them some fee. It’s very safe they are not shootings anybody and not hurting. Just do as they want. I’m not in favor of what they do but I’m in favor of safe tourism.

This tourism helps this poor nation. unfortunately large sums of this money goes to Swiss bank accounts and not staying in this country and for the people, but that’s another issue.

We started our day on a microbus going from Kathmandu to Besisahar (300 Rupee). We’ve been told that if you take a bus it cost less but takes an extra 1-2 hours. we decided to pay the extra. We left at around 6:30 in the morning and arrived at around 13:30. From Besisahar it’s possible to save a few hours of walking and take another bus to a village named Bhulbhule. The ride goes through another village named Khudi. Since there were no seats inside to bus, we were sent straight to the roof. Hey, it’s Nepal!

Here are the friends I was traveling with on the roof. It’s very amusing at the beginning but then your a*s really hurts. It’s not really a road but more close to a VERY bumpy trail.

This bus costs 50 Rupees (no discount If you had a roof ride!). When walking there aren’t too many ups and downs so the hight of Besisahar and Bhulbhule is around the same and walking isn’t hard. Distance is 9 KM. We’ve been told it would have taken us 3 hours to walk, It took around half of the time to drive.

We ended the day in a guest house in Bhulbhule. It’s a nice village which is built on to sides of the river, and a bridge over troubled water is hanged over it. We were very excited, to begin our journey the day afterwards.

The “Annapurna circuit” AKA “around Annapurna” is one of the most popular treks here in Nepal. Being around here in Nepal, everybody are talking about the “around”. It’s a pretty hard trek, but more because of it’s length and not because of the climbing skills you are required for (no climbing skills required!).

It can be done in 15-17 days, depends on your pace. I heard of people doing it in 10 days (nowadays, it’s possible to get a jeep and drive some of the way and save a couple of days) and older groups of people doing it in 24 days.

Views in the trek are magnificent, it’s surrounding one of the Himalaya beautiful ridges.

The starting point of the trek is in a town called Basisahar (can be spelled in some other ways, depends on the map you are using) and ends in either one of 2 places, Beni or Nayapool. It’s all depends on how much walking strength you have

Basisahar is in the middle way between Kathmandu and Pokhara, so you can begin your ride from either of the two cities.

These 2 places are where it’s possible to take a bas back to Pokhara after finishing the trek.

In each and every day of the trek you have the possibility to sleep in a guest house, so camping is really not necessary and there is no need to carry a tent with you. If you do want to do some camping, you are most welcome. Tent, stove and all other additional equipment is then required , of course.

Many people say that living costs on the trek are very expensive. well, if you did stay in the Thamel for a couple of days, costs would be around the same.

Room charges are relatively low and gets to their pick almost at the pick which is high camp guest house at high camp after throng phedi. it’s the same price you will pay for a a guest house in the Thamel area in Kathmandu (320 rupees). The deal is that you pay almost nothing to the guest house for sleeping but in exchange you buy your food and meals from them. If you decide to eat your own food, room charge will be higher and sometimes double.

Get ready because this trek is going to be one of your major life experiences! not every day you get a chance to be out of civilization for 2.5 weeks.

One very important thing, these days a road is being built to most of those villages around the trek. In 4-5 year most of the circuit could be done buy driving and not walking. I’ve been told that the trekking committee or other Nepali organization are looking for new trekking routes in order to overcome this problem.

So…go now!

If you have some more questions on this trek, just add the questions on the comments, I’ll add it up to this post. I might be forgetting some points you are pondering about.

Trips are great! I just love it. These make you encounter with very interesting people , that otherwise you would have never met.

I already mentioned a few here on the blog, and here come another one.

Eric, Is an Israeli, he is 62. Try to ask Eric where his home is and he will say: “nowhere” ,and he really means that!

Eric is originally from Israel but I met him randomly here in the Thamel in Kathmandu. His card says he is a traveler and a photographer. He has been traveling for 5 years already with some very short brakes in Israel. He spent all those 5 years in the far east( around 15th time in Nepal already).

I had a chat with him about his life and where he is about to go next. He is thinking of going to south America for a few years and then go to Africa. Since I’ve been to both places already I recommended him to go 1st to Africa and then go to south America. When being to Ethiopia I’ve seen more things which are changing and disappearing , so it’s much more urgent to go there, the sooner the better. South America is amazing but can wait for a while. He said he will consider that. I was happy I can contribute from my experience even to the experienced ones!

Eric gives a service for free to whoever is interested. He is sending his photos by email, few photos in each email. if you want to can email him and get it too: eneemann@hotmail.com

Eric, hope to meet you on some distance places in the future again.

After Covering my favorite guest house in Thamel, It’s time for Internet places. Actually there are so many, and you can’t really try them all. Just like you can’t try every hotel around here.

Prices of Internet vary from 15-30 rupees per hour. The main differnece is on the connection speed and services, such as Skype, microphone, earphones, messenger that are already install on the computer. If you get to a place where your favorite software is not installed, it very OKAY just to download it and install it by yourself. I personally download to installation files on my disk on key, so whenever I need one of the programs I just install it from there. It’s a good way to save some valuable download time.

The fastest connection I found is at “MSN cyber cafe”. It costs a little more (3o Rupees per hour, which still makes it 0.5$ per hour….not too bad…) but the connection speed is great. especially in the morning time.

It’s situated across from the Pumpernickel Bakery( great sandwiches, try it!) at the heart of the Thamel.