5 day Trek pt 2 Days 3 -5

5 Day Trek Part II

Day3 Ghorepani - Tadapani After Breakfast we set about our second walk of the day ( its now only 8 a.m ) we started as usual in an uphill fashion to the summit of Gurang Hill, the same height as Poon Hill and a lot prettier as it was shrouded in the blooming Rhododendrons making for a great “mask” to the backdrop of the high peaks of Annapurna II and Fishtail Mountain. A short stop at the top to take in the exceptional views was made ( and to catch our breath ), at 9630 ft we are just on the edge of thin air and as this was our 2nd walk of the day we felt we deserved a short break. After taking far too many photos we continued on our journey to Tadapani, passing through some superb scenery on the way. The sting in the tail to this section is the very steep downhill path followed by an even steeper uphill path to reach the village that looked only a few hundred meters away, this last bit took over an hour to complete and we were mighty glad when we reached Tadapani. As we arrived a bit late, there were only a couple of rooms free at the lodges so we had to take what we could get, the price being 2 pounds for a double room and an extra pound if you wanted a hot shower, the room was nothing more than a bed in what looked like an old stable block but it served a purpose and we slept well.

Day 4 Tadapani – Ghandruk. This was our easiest day of the 5 a short downhill trek of about 4 hours to reach the pretty Village of Ghandruk, the purpose of this short section was to allow some time to explore the village, we also went mad with the accommodation, we splashed out on 4 Pounds a night room with attached Loo and shower !! Such luxury . The village was indeed worth the stop over, set high in the valley it has manged to mostly ignore the effect of the tourist and many dwelling were genuine Nepali constructions. In the evening we chatted with fellow trekkers in the nice dining hall of the lodge before settling down to another good nights kip !.

Day 5 Ghandruk – Naya Pal. Our last day of the trek. We were expecting an easy gentle downhill walk to finish off or trek but the hills had another agenda, a steep section for about 2 hours kept the pressure up on the knees. After that the going did indeed flatten out somewhat and we had our “easy cruise” back to Naya Pal albeit 3 hours on.. We reached Naya Pal around 1 pm and caught a cab back to Pokhara. That evening we celebrated with Odette ( the Canadian lady we met up with ) and downed a couple of bottles of half decent Australian Chardonnay over a superb Dinner at the Moondance Restaurant. A fitting end to our trek. We decided to stay in Pokhara one more night before heading back to Kathmandu for some more trekking ! Are we mad?

Ghorepani, after breakfast, not bad views.. Annapurna II with a carpet of Rhododendrons.

Annapurna II & Rhodo's
Sorry, more of the same.

The path to Garang Hill.

A Rhodo.

The view from Garang Hill.

Close up of Annapurna II

Him and Her with the Annapurna's as company.

Getting a bit boring isn't it ?

Also available in Red.

Linda on a downward slope.. some say that's been happening for years !

Yak.

The path now goes down, why is it never flat?

Linda with a rhodo and a bridge.

Mule train, this is how the stuff gets up the hills..

Best keep out of the way as you can easily get mowed down

Tadapani, when the last two rooms are these then you know you should have booked ahead !!

Still at 2 pounds a night its not that bad, ours was number 6 .. complete with doors, windows and roof.

More downhill, Linda with waterfall on the way to Ghandruk.

Corn Drying on a house in Ghandruk.

Ghandruk Village.

Prayer wheels on Village Temple.

Home made bee hive.

Ghandruk House

Ghandruk.

Day 5 the walk back to Naya Pal.

A short stop for a snack, Garang Bread, Yummie.

Views on the way back

How hard do we have it? not anything like this, A human haystack. we saw hundreds of Women carrying unbelievably heavy loads on our trek, life isn't that Rosy for these souls.

Shortly after we arrived back in Naya Pal.

Trekking info: when you set about doing a trek in Nepal you are required to make sure you get the correct permits, for Annapurna treks you need the ACAPS permit at $30 each plus you need a TIMS registration which until 1st of April was free but is now $20 per head per trek so the costs can rack up, all part of the Visit Nepal year in 2011 just another way of rooking the tourist me thinks.Apart from that the basic cost is pretty good as the Lodges are cheap and much much better than those we had in India on our Darjeeling / Nepal Trek. All in all really great, hoping to do Everest base camp in 2012, anyone interested in joining me ?

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