I forgot to mention a few things about Day 1. The drive through the valley along the Trisu river was amazing. The road after Mugling (where we had lunch) was the most terrible road I'd ever been on (until we went offroading with the bus, as I mentioned on Day 2!)
There were numerous "burnt-out" busses on the highway in the valley. Work of the Maoists, they will stop the trucks on the highway, tell everyone to get out, then blow up or burn the truck. The carcasses of numerous busses were still sitting on the highway as we drove by. It was quite a sight.
As we were driving along, every town has an army contingent and a checkpoint of some sort. Often times, in the small towns, we would see soldiers having coffee in a local restaurant, chatting with locals, or chatting up the cute girls in the community.
The Terai (flat bit in southern Nepal) is very much like parts of Vietnam...jungles has been removed, and agriculture has taken over, for as far as the eye could see, flat terrace farming, locals working their buts off planting or harvesting or whatever, water buffalo doing their work.
Now, on to today:
Up at 6:00, had tea/coffee and breakfast at the lodge. The sleep was nice, the beds were comfortable. We started hiking about 8:00.
We had lunch at a place called Bhedi about 1:00. The guides make everything from scratch out here. No restaurants.
We ran into a few "yak caravans". Yaks (Yak?) are used to carry things around in the mountains. It's quite hilarious, because there will be two lead yaks, both will be wearing lots of bells, have big pink or purple feathery earrings hanging down, and a big pink wig on their head! They look absolutely ridiculous!!! The rest of the yaks, which may have fewer bells, and may or may not have the earrings, follow along behind. The lead yaks will stop and look behind the to make sure others aren't falling behind or whatever, then continue on. The yak herders (two or three people) will follow up behind.
We passed by a village called Cheuki...there was a huge celebration happening. Lots of hot local girls dressed up in their finest, the guides all flirting with them. Mani (our main guide and who speaks the most english), told us they are celebrating the Nepal New Year, and the celebrations will last for many days.
We stopped just outside of Cheuki for a rest and two very old men came along, and sat down. They were 79 and 82 years old, Ghurka soldiers, fought along side the British in Burma in WWII, these chaps did. Apparently Nepal Ghurka warriors were, and still are, known as some of the fiersest and best warriors available. They said a lot has changed in their life times. They get visited my two different armies now, and they don't know which one is the real army. One of the armies wants money (the Maoists). Things are much more complicated now than they used to be.
As we were walking along, I almost got trampled in a yak caravan. A bunch of yaks came over a hill, and I stood to the side to let them pass (as did everyone else). Some of the yaks decided to cut around the outside, and they started running down the hill, right at me (and Will). We didn't see them until they were almost on us and Steph was yelling at us. I turned around to see yaks running at me, and nowhere to go. I stood frozen for a second, a couple of yaks ran on either side of me, then I bolted out of the way of the rest of the yaks!! It was kind of scary, but I'm sure they wouldn't have actually ran into me...they all would have went around me, I'm sure.
We camped at Manglbara, in a valley. It was cold, very windy, cloudy. I didn't bring much for warm clothes, and ended up having to wrap my sleeping bag around me to keep warm while we were waiting for supper.
As we were trying to set up camp, we found out the two tents had no tent poles! Someone screwed up! We improvised by placing walking sticks and rafting oars inside the tent to hold them up. It wasn't pretty, but it worked.
Then, along came the Maoists. They wanted money. They talked to Mani (guide) and told him they wanted 5000 rupees from each of us. Mani told them where to go, there was no way we wuld pay that. Mani negotiated to 1000 rupees for each of us (which was the amount we figured we'd have to pay if we ran into them). We each gave them 1000 rupees, and got a receipt! If the Maoists come a knockin' again, we can show the receipt to prove we already paid.
The highest altitude we reached today was just over 3000 metres (3050 metres, I think). I believe we were camping at just under 3000 metres.
There's a haze in the sky, it sucks. We are unable to see the Himalayas from here.
Local kids were fascinated with us.
There are four of us rafting. We have five guides. And we have 30 (!) porters to carry everything for us for the next three days.
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