Trekking Day 3 - Ghorepani to Poon Hill to Gandruk

On day 3 (which was a Saturday), we got up super-early, 4:30am, and crawled very reluctantly out of our sleeping bags into the freezing cold lodge. It probably wasn't freezing, but it was definitely cold! Our plan was to hike up to the peak of Poon Hill and watch the sunrise. So, at shortly after 5am, we set off in the pitch black.

 

Thankfully there were loads of other people on the route, and even though I was the only one of us with a flashlight, we still made it up the half-hour climb to the peak (3193m) without falling off the edge. It was pitch black at the top - but delightfully (and, at the same time, slightly disappointingly) there was a hot drinks stand at the top! One tea and hot lemonade later, we could survey our surroundings, which were very foggy with cloud and slowly filling up with cold white people and their guides.

Eventually, our surroundings started to appear, like lights going up on a stage. It was not dawn yet but the 500-strong crowd was starting to warm up (not literally, of course, but with lots of singing). Eventually, photos became possible, and the first mountains started to enter view from behind the clouds rather like a giant strip tease... and then they vanished again! Cheeky!

We also met up with Roxanne and David atop Poon Hill. Their guide was around there somewhere as well, but not being able to find him in the morning, they just set off on their own!

This impressive view tower was a good place to take in the view, it must have been airlifted in as I can see no way that it could have been brought in piece by piece!

The cloud took a while to disperse, but eventually revealed the Annapurna and Dhaulgiri ranges of mountains on the horizon - magnificent peaks, most in the 7000-8000m range and white with snow. As usual, Alfie did a good job of capturing the view with the useful Panorama mode on his camera: 

And here's muggins, looking freezing cold in my blue purple jacket with a few more layers underneath. But still just about able to squeeze out a smile...



Eventually, we had our fill of the Poon view and descended with all other Pooners, back to our Ghorepani in which the fire was already roaring and I was able to enjoy a delicious porridge breakfast. En-route, we said goodbye to Roxanne and David, who we did not plan to see again on the trek, as their route (to Annapurna Base Camp) would part ours half-way through the day.

Straight after setting off, we summitted another sort of peak called Deurali Pass, which had another great view of the cloud-free mountains and also of Poon Hill. So, you now have a great image of what muggins looks like when he's trecking - hemp hat (almost a permanent feature here in Nepal), itchy rucksack (fake Marmot), Sunshine Village jacket, zipping trousers  (which I bought in Pokhara after the ones I hired ripped through the seat entirely while paragliding) and my boots which I had originally only brought to Nepal as working boots but are way too comfy to leave in Lokanthali!



About half way through the morning, we caught up with the school group again, at a small village with various stalls at which one can purchase tat (tat that's been brought all the way up from the valley on the back of a porter, but tat nonetheless!). One of the lads from the school, whose bag was being carried by a porter, fancied seeing how much the porter's load weighed for himself. I must add that all the weight is carried on the forehead. Needless to say, he did not last long, and that was just standing up! Furthermore, many of the porters just wear flip-flops while hiking up and down the mountains, it's very impressive but I just can't fathom why they don't invest in proper footware?!

The scenery later that morning was stunning - we were soon hiking through forest and jungle during a gentle descent towards lunch. Though just before we reached lunch there was a steep descent into a valley alongside a suspicious black pipe - this turned out to be feeding a micro hydro-electric power plant, a great solution for power in this part of the country.

 

On the left, we could just see Ulleri through the fork of the valley. On the right, the micro-hydro power plant.

Eventually we reached Tadapani, where many people stop for the night, but we were just having lunch. As we sat in the warm lounge (the sun had just gone in but the fire was burning), it eventually filled up with French people enabling me to continue the conversation of the previous night. There was also a little plaque on the micro-hydro power station, and a request for donations - thinking that it was a really awesome project and being slightly jealous of the volunteers who helped build it (possibly an Engineers Without Borders - type placement), I donated 500Rp in return for giving my address and hopefully being kept updated.

We also spotted a couple bringing in their crop of fruit, in the typical Nepali fashion of baskets supported by a strap over the forehead. Amazing loads that these guys can carry - they start training from 10 years old, I am told!

Walking on through the jungle after lunch, we had the privilege of spotting some monkeys playing and living in the trees right above the path, so we stopped to record them for a little while. We also started to get great views of the Machhapuchhre mountain (Fish Tail) as we rounded our mountain on the trek downwards towards Gandruk.

  

As we marched, we sang. Here are the lyrics to the Nepali trekking song that Santa taught us:

"Rey shom pi di di,
Rey shom pi di di,
Oo dey ma jon key,
Da rey ma ban jung,
Rey shom pi di di"

(and there are other verses but I don't remember them)
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/4296

In return, we taught Santa 'The Grand Old Duke Of York' (which mentions marching up and down hills) and I sang The Bear Necessities to him. It was great fun and he continued to be great company!

Eventually, having been on the go for about 7 hours and covering well over 20km, we arrived at the lovely mountainside village of Gandruk, location of our final lodge on the loop. We hadn't booked ahead for a room here, so we stopped at one of the first reputable places we saw. We were shown to our room - but the lodge had absolutely no character at all, seemed cold and white, and a tiny dining room which really didn't persuade people to socialise... We asked Santa what he thought, he said it was 'ok' but we pressed him for somewhere better. Good job we did! We ended up in a lovely lodge with big communal dining area, mountain view and en-suite, even with western loo (as opposed to squatter) and a warm shower!

 

Eventually, the school group turned up here as well (we shouldn't have been surprised) and after a nice dinner we taught our new card game to a couple of the students, and retired comparatively late at about 9pm (I have never slept so well or so long as I am doing in Nepal...). That was a good day!