Trekking in the Annapurna Foothills, Nepal
We stepped outside the Kathmandu airport in the late-night darkness to be greeted with a wall of noise, air-pollution, and people clamoring to give us a ride. Kathmandu felt like a different planet from the sterile and reserved city of Dubai where we had stayed the last few days, coming from South Africa. We had expected this, but there is no way to really prepare for that kind of culture shock beyond just letting it wash over you.
Our guesthouse had arranged a taxi and there is no better sight to see than someone holding your name up on a placard amongst the hundreds of taxi drivers. Our driver had us to our guesthouse within 40 minutes after driving through an alleyway in the Thamel district so tight that the sides of the car were scraping on the wall at one point. We were passed out in a pile in our room within minutes.
Nearly all trekking in Nepal starts off in the capital city of Kathmandu, regardless if one is headed to Everest or the Annapurna range as we were. The plan was to stay two nights here in order to take in the sites and arrange the 8-hour bus ride up to the mountain town of Pokhara, where all Annapurna trekking starts. This gave us one full day to walk around the city, arrange for bus tickets, and purchase trekking equipment we might need.
Kathmandu was hit by a massive and deadly earthquake in 2015 that displaced millions of people and reported damages up to 1/2 of Nepal’s GDP at that time. The city is on the way to recovery, but evidence of the destruction is all around from the piles of debris to the choking dust in the air, which is probably a combination of building debris and exhaust fumes since they appear to have no restrictions on emissions. Nearly all the locals were wearing masks outside to combat the air pollution.
We spent the day wandering the unnamed streets of the Thamel district and even in that very short time, we came to admire the character of the city amidst the audible and visual chaos. Even in a day, we saw people adapting to these rough conditions and they were proud to show us the local rebuilding efforts they had already achieved.
Pokhara
Our eight-hour bus ride to Pokhara was uneventful, which is the best you can hope for in a drive up roads carved into the Himalayan foothills. We spent a few nights in Pokhara renting supplies and arranging with our guide before beginning our 5-day trek up and around the foothills of the Annapurna mountain range.
Annapurna Range in distance from our rooftop in Pokhara
As this was our first experience trekking and we had Zach with us, we had decided not to do 12-day Annapurna Base Camp trek that, as the name implies, is a return trip to the base camp where the actual technical climbing up the Annapurna South peak takes place. Instead, we opted to stay at lower elevations and see the famous sunrise at Poon Hill and then visit a few other mountain villages along the way.
Sharing the trail
We learned that in Nepal, “trekking” is defined as any hike that includes an overnight stay (longer than a day). A “hike” is something that can be done there and back within a day. And “climbing” is of course the technical climbing up the actual mountain peaks. Nepal trains and licenses guides and porters based on these categorizations. So we had a trekking guide and porter and did a circular route that included stays at guesthouses, or teahouses, in 4 different villages along the way. I think our max elevation was around 12K feet, but we never slept over 9K. At home in the U.S., this seems high. But set against the Annapurna’s with peaks at 23K feet and higher, it felt like ground level.
One could do this trek fairly easily solo as the route is very well marked. However, we chose to hire both a guide and a porter as they would organize the entire thing (transportation to/from trailheads and also nightly accomodations) and also provide for a more local experience and knowledge than we would get solo. Trish and I both agreed it was one of the best decisions we could have made as our guide and porter made this trek much more of a total cultural experience. If we ever get the chance to go back, we would certainly do it this way again.
On the second day, we were out the door at 4:30AM to hike 90-minutes by headlamp to the top of nearby Poon Hill in order to watch the sunrise. It was an overcast morning, so the peaks were not visible. However, the cloud cover created an amazing sunrise moment.
Sunrise from Poon Hill
Sunrises are a big deal when trekking as it is the best chance for bluebird skies and views of the peaks. One the third morning, we were treated to a day so good that even the local villagers were coming out to snap pictures on this morning.
Each late afternoon, we would settle on a village and stay at a guesthouse for the evening. Accommodations included a single room along with dinner and breakfast. Most places included a hot water shower, powered by the propane tanks we constantly saw coming up on mules as there were no roads after the first village. All consumables and building materials came up via porters or mules. At one point, we saw a line of porters walking up the mountain, each carrying two twelve-foot steel girders on their backs. I would not thought possible, if I had not seen it myself.
Rooms are not heated, but each guesthouse has a common room to sit and eat around a wood-burning stove. This makes it a great place for social time with the local guides and international trekkers as we all gathered around the stove to eat, read, or play games each evening.
Guesthouse prices and food menus are all the same and set by the mountain association, so there was no need to negotiate or price shop and our guide had reserved us rooms at places with amazing views of the mountains. For meals, we typically stuck with the local dal bhat option, but we were surprised at the dozen or so options that each guesthouse had and also very surprised by the delicious food. Who knew you could get great pizza in the Himalayas?
While Trish and I took our time enjoying the scenery with our guide Ram, Zach was typically 30-minutes ahead of us for much of the hike as he preferred to keep our porter, Praem, company. I suspect much of this was because they played Candy Crush at breaks waiting for us to catch up. So we did not have many pictures of Zach during the hike. We did however run into this school group who were taking a break and listening to Pink Floyd. We started chatting about music and they asked us to pose with them.
Nepal was never on our initial plan, yet it ended up being one of our favorite parts of the trip. We had no expectations going in and it blew us away - the people, the countryside, the entire experience. It is one of the places we have pegged to return and trek again.
