A little bit up, a little bit down, a little bit more up

3 Oct - Ghandruk - Chomrong

Woke at 5:30am, just before my pre-dawn alarm. BAM! There was the whole range from Annapurna South to Muchupuchere, in bluebird clear sky. I chatted to Hannah, Jo, Nancy and others who got up for it too. We shared the morning with cows and Minah birds.

The sun filters into Ghandruk and the valley

Muchupuchere through Jo's binoculars

Tibetan bread with egg and fried potatoes for breakfast. 

Another hard day, another baking hot day. In theory less altitude gain than the 1200m yesterday. In practice we went over two saddles so lots of steep up and steep down. 

The day started walking through Ghandruk - the new town, in concrete and steel, and then the old town in stone and slate.

It was about now that Alex and I worked out why yesterday's route had seemed so strange, and why the town seemed so thoroughly developed since we were here last. It's because we went to Hille, not Ghandruk last time. Yeah, that makes sense. 

Then the 'up' began. We slogged up stone steps, and the sun was as baking hot as it was yesterday. We would touch a gravel road, but cross it and go back to steps again. Alex and I were suspicious that we could have just taken a bus the whole way. 

Chenda on the way

Pleasant travelling

We met plenty of horses and donkeys today. A horse with a beautiful blanket that a girl rode along with a big sack of millet or something. We watched her and her sack being led off, with a very jaunty lean to the left. 

Horse with beautiful blanket, sans girl, sans jaunty lean

At last it was break time at the 'Hill top tea house', and the name didn't lie thank goodness. Then for a change we went down, down, down to a big swing bridge that, like the girl and the sack, also had a jaunty lean. 

We spread out quite a lot.

Hi Georgina!

Nice wee river

The latter part of the day was quite the blur. Just plodding. Not thinking. One foot in front of the other.

This must be what a donkey feels like.

Plod plod plod

We did stop for a photo

Chomrong is a large town, with mains power still, and a big cellsite looking over the town - but not for NCell though. Abruptly I had reached the end of the internet. With one bar of signal I tried to get a message out to Angela to tell her.

Approaching Chomrong

Welcome sight

As our rooms at the Kalpana Guest House were allocated I got the "view room" with big windows overlooking the valley. I think Expansion and Bechan are looking after me.

Our guest house came with an in-house masseuse. Jenny, Trish and Hannah were VERY happy with this.

As we were tucking into tea and biscuits in the dining room, Bechan came in to talk to me. "Atul. Atul is calling for you!" This was worrisome. What was wrong? I followed Bechan as he strode out of the dining room. To find that the issue was that Atul had bought me a beer and I needed to drink it with him. Atul, Sacchi, Expansion, Bechan and I were soon drinking beers and Raksie, then Hannah joined us and taught me a new card game. Note to self, hanging out with Bechan and others is where the fun goes on!

Soon though it was dinner time. Garlic Tomato soup, and chips and noodles. The soup was yummy, I didn't mind the chips and noodles but it didn't go down as well with the team. I got lots of leftovers. 

Porters "formally" introduced themselves to us.

I was wandering off to bed when I bumped into Bharat who was chatting to a group of Bangladeshi women who were also heading to Annapurna Base Camp. They're in a womens' travel group and all are professionals - bank managers, architectures, executives. In varying islamic dress from completely western to headscarf to hijab and robes. Definitely though, nobody would have got away with telling any of them what they should or shouldn't wear!