Trekking in the Himalayas

Sun, Mar 31, 2019

9 min read

What an amazing experience! We thoroughly enjoyed our trek through the "hills" (our entire route was higher than Snowdon and mostly higher than Ben Nevis) of the Himalayas.

Trekking in the Himalayas

Our guide, Ram, was excellent. He’s been running treks for 12 years and so knows the mountains really well. Having watched us walk on the first day, he suggested we change our route to make it longer so we got more out of our trip. Every day he managed to judge the timing perfectly so we knew exactly how long we had to walk for, which for me was great as walking is as much a mental challenge as a physical one. He also taught us some Nepali and gave us an insight into Nepali culture.

If you’re ever in the area and looking for a guide, I’d highly recommend Ram. If you want to book a trek, you can email him at mountainguide12@gmail.com.

Day One

We were picked up at our accommodation and driven for an hour and a half to Nayapul. Luckily we were in a comfy 4x4 as some sections of the road were quite bumpy! However we got great views back over Pokhara and the lake.

The first part of our walk was along the dusty road, which was fine until a car came past and then you had to try not to breathe for a minute or two while the dust settled. The road was uphill but not too strenuous (what we later came to know as “Nepali flat”!) and a nice introduction to getting the legs working.

Once we left the road, we entered the Annapurna Conservation Area. You need a permit to enter, but luckily this had already been sorted for us by our hotel and Ram sorted out the rest at the checkpoint.

Along the way, we picked up a couple of bamboo sticks, which would become invaluable over the next few days. We named them Lenny and Lena, as they were something to lean on.

We stopped for lunch at a restaurant overlooking the river and had our first experience of Daal Bhat. This is a platter of rice, lentils, curry and a selection of other accompaniments, typically some greens, a poppadom, a spicy sauce and some pickled things. The best thing about Daal Bhat is that everything is refilled so you can eat as much as you want. We ended up having it at least once a day.

After lunch, we crossed a couple of suspension bridges that had been built by donations from the British Gurkhas, before encountered our first experience of “Nepali Up”. This is essentially straight up. Surprisingly it’s not as bad as it sounds, provided you take it slow and steady. I found it easier to zig zag up the steps as it made it appear less steep and less painful on your knees.

After an hour or so, we finally made it to the top and our guesthouse for the night. We spent the rest of the day reading, admiring the scenery and avoiding the fighting dogs and chickens!

We quickly came to realise that every guesthouse and restaurant up the mountains has the same menu, as the food has to be carried up. Luckily there was a wide range of options (curry, rice, noodles, mo mo, spaghetti, macaroni, pizza) so we didn’t feel too constrained, but it was nice to have something different when we got back to Pokhara!

That night while admiring the view up the valley, we met a British couple called Dan and Rheanne who ended up staying at the same guesthouses as us for the whole trip. They were a nice, friendly couple and it was good to have some familiar faces to share stories with at the end of each day.

The other thing that quickly became apparent was how cold it got once the sun went down! Luckily we’d packed down jackets which came in very useful each evening and to sleep in overnight. We also made use of our head torches as the power kept going out, something we were soon to find out was a common occurrence in the mountains!

Day Two

This was the shortest day, as Ghorepani is the closest place to Poon Hill, which we would climb the following morning. The route wasn’t too taxing and we passed some lovely flowers, particularly rhododendron trees.

As we were walking along, we suddenly heard cow bells and Ram told us to keep to the inside of the path. Around the corner came about a dozen ponies, some carrying packs. They were so nimble, they put us to shame!

Another thing that’s commonplace on the hike is strings of multicoloured flags. They are prayer flags and each colour represents a different element.

We had noticed how moss-covered the rocks and trees were so it wasn’t a surprise when it started to rain. However, being so high up, this quickly turned to hail! The hailstones were pretty big and quite painful as we were walking along, but they transformed the landscape and made it feel very wintery, something we’d missed this year!

By the time we arrived at our guesthouse, we were extremely grateful for the fire inside and spent a good hour thawing out! We had plenty of time to kill, so passed the time by reading, blogging, wandering into town and admiring the view. As the clouds cleared, we were treated to a stunning view of Dhaulagiri, the seventh highest mountain in the world, standing at over 8,000m. So many of the mountains initially looked like clouds and it was incredible to see them emerge, particularly as they are so high!

That evening, we had dinner with a group of Polish guys who were on a whistle stop tour of Nepal. They were really friendly and a good laugh.

Day Three

We were up super early for our pre-dawn ascent of Poon Hill. This was much easier than the Kinabalu ascent, mainly because it wasn’t so long or as high. It was also dark enough to see lots of stars. We got a good position at the top, surrounded by hundreds of other people all doing the same thing.

The view was stunning and we were really lucky with the weather to be able to see Dhaulagiri, Annapurna South and the Fishtail Mountain. We spent an hour up there taking pictures of the ever changing scenery before heading back down for breakfast.

Our sunny start continued for the morning part of our trek. We first had to climb a similar sized hill to Poon Hill. From the top you got more great views, but the oddest thing was seeing a plane fly past below where we were standing! I guess that happens a lot when you’re 3,000m high!

From here we started our first serious descent of the trek through a gorge. I was lucky that Ram had packed crampons for me to use as it was pretty icy in places and they massively helped with walking. We saw many others struggling with the conditions, including a German lady who kept falling over but couldn’t stop laughing, it was really funny to see!

At the bottom of the gorge, there were loads of cairns, which James happily added to. Crampons off, we carried along the flat to our lunch stop.

The restaurant was in a gorgeous setting, surrounded by lovely red rhododendron trees. We also came across the cutest dog I’ve ever seen, so much so I felt compelled to stroke it!

Almost as soon as we’d left our lunch stop, Ram spotted a family of monkeys in the trees. There were at least two babies clinging to their mothers and maybe five or six others.

Further along the path we arrived at a ridge which looked down the valley to Ulleri, where we’d stayed the first night and looked up at where we were now standing. Unfortunately, after that point the rain set in so it was a rather soggy and muddy two hour walk to finish the day. Oddly enough, it reminded me a lot of walking in England as we were following a slightly undulating path through the trees. It was also really peaceful, at times all you could hear were the birds and the water from the river. All in all, an enjoyable day.

Day Four

The next morning, the clouds cleared and we had the best view of the mountains for breakfast. We genuinely had to keep pinching ourselves that we were actually in the Himalayas, it was incredible.

Today was a lot of down, followed by a lot of up! Coupled with aching legs from the day before, it was slightly more challenging than previous days. However, this was made a lot better by the fact that it was Holi.

The Hindu festival of colour sees Hindus cover each other in coloured powder paint, and foreigners are a fun target for children! We got “attacked” twice, ending up with our faces pretty much covered in red paint.

That night, we experienced a rather violent thunderstorm. The rain was so loud on the tin roof that we had to put our headphones in to watch TV. It was quite fun watching from inside.

Day Five

Our last day involved another early start for sunrise, although only 6am this time as we could see the mountains from our guesthouse. Again, it was magical to watch the sunrise over the Annupurna range.

Our walk out was pretty short and before we knew it, we were in Kande meeting our driver to be taken back to Pokhara. We said goodbye to our trusty sticks and jumped into the jeep for the hour long ride back.

The journey back was interesting, particularly as for some of it, the road was actually a river bed! It was less bumpy than on the way up though.

We dropped our bags at the hotel and went for a final lunch of traditional Nepalese momos with Ram. We’d had a terrific five days and were sad to say goodbye.

Little Princes book

As a side note, while on the hike I read a fantastic book about Nepal called Little Princes. It’s the story of an American man who came to Nepal during the civil war (which happened between 1996 and 2006) to volunteer in an orphanage, only to discover that the children weren’t actually orphans at all and had been trafficked. He then tries to reunite the children with their families. It was a really interesting read, particularly as many of his observations about Nepal were very similar to ours. If you get a chance, it’s worth a read. You can read more about his work through his charity, Next Generation Nepal, here.