I tossed and turned that night in the Ghetto-fabulous shithole we were staying at. I cursed myself for running out of valium before reaching Nepal and kicked myself for not stocking up on supplies in Kathmandu. I suppose it was a good thing. I had been reading some of the warnings about altitude sickness and most of them reccomended not drinking or doing anything else fun at high altitudes, so perhaps it was all for the best. The three of us woke up at 6ish and eagerly packed our stuff since we were excited to get out of that filthy place.
Now a note on the toilets. I started off this journey dreading the idea of spending 9 days using dirty Nepali squat toilets. The main issues were having to remember to bring toilet paper inside, and worst of all, having to take a crap while squatting. I have to say that by day 4, I was starting to prefer the squat toilets. Squatting wasn't that bad and even though the toilets were not that clean, it was certainly more sanitary than sitting on a toilet. And toilet paper? I'd really learned to conserve it on the trek and had finally understood the value of the water bucket for cleaning! I am disgusted to say that I was turning "Indian", bathroom wise. Now I know why they don't use toilet paper. The "Western" toilets in the ghetto place were pretty dodgy and I really didn't want any part of my body making contact with the toilet, so I opted to use the squat toilets so my body parts didn't have to touch anything in the bathroom. Yes, I opted to forgo a shower as well. I figured it could wait till we got out of the skanky place.
We started off the day with a steep descent downhill. I didn't realize this before the trek, but going downhill is a bitch. Walking 3000 steps uphill is not particularly pleasant either but at least its not so terrible on your knees or center of gravity. Surprisingly I didn't trip down the hill. The sun actually came out in full force for the first few hours of the day and the scenery was spectacular.  I wasn't so out of breath this morning, so I was actually able to savor it. I especially loved walking through the first few villages and seeing the rollling green paddies and the plethora of livestock on the small farms. We even came across some local gangstas! A couple cute Nepali thugs, no more than 6 years old each, were patrolling one of the villages with handmade slingshots, throwing rocks in our direction. They were surpringly very accurate shots for their young age. Of course, right before lunch, we walked straight uphill. We all moaned and groaned, and Harj tried to motivate us by saying that John Abraham would be waiting for us at the top of the hill to save us. I really doubted that, mainly because I couldn't see John Abraham doing this. He probably just eats boiled chicken 24-7 to keep his bod the way it is! Then Harj and I got into an awful conversation about who we most wanted to marry for their money. It was a tossup between Queen Elizabeth and the Google founders. Queen Elizabeth one because of her rapidly aging status. Raju was trailing behind us and I was really starting to think that his opinion of Harj and myself was rapidly depleting every minute of the trek. Oh well.
We finally reached our lunch stop, which we were all excited about because Raju had promised we would get good pizza. Harj, Jackie, Zara, Hannah and I each ordered a pizza and gorged away on them. I figured we deserved them after the 10,000 calories a day we were likely burning off. Roger and Abigail, the British father-daughter team had been trailing us today and had also gotten pizza at the neighboring place. It was kind of inspiring that they were doing this trek together. I doubt my parents would ever do anything like this with me. They'd probably make it through the first hour of day one, and then get a pony or quit.
I looked beyond the hills ahead of us and of course, the clouds were starting to roll in. Farmer Harj stated that today, "we were fucked."I was jealous of Hannah and Zara at this point. They were leaving our party after lunch and would be heading with their guide to the nearby hot springs. I wondered why the hell we hadn't done the same, but instead had another 5 days more of this trek. We sorted the bill and then started walking. True to Harj's predictions, it started raining about 15 minutes after we started walking, and yep, we had to walk straight downhill. My knees had pretty much given out and I was worried about slipping down the mountain so I was walking really slowly, and got really behind everyone. Neeran tried to walk with me but I couldn't help but feel we were going at a snails pace. I finally got a knee brace from Raju which helped with my speed a little, but I was still in a lot of pain.
I think by this point, all three of us were losing morale and were feeling sorry for ourselves, having to hike through the cold and rain. We were bitching about the walk at every opportunity. Finally, Harj had enough. "Ok guys. We have to get through this. If that old man (Roger!) can make it through this shit, we can too! So lets buck up and get to our next lodge." We picked up the pace and reached our lodge at around 5ish. The three of us headed to our room and stripped off our filthy clothes immediately, because Raju had alerted us that we were lucky enough to get a hot shower at this joint. I took a nice long, hot shower and washed my skanky sweaty underwear as well as the grime off my body. We then ordered pizza again, which was not quite as good as the lunch place, but was still satisfying. Then we had a conversation with an old Irish man who was also trying to make it to ABC (annapurna base camp). His girlfriend was sick in bed and was probably not going to make it uphill. We were confused as to whether his girlfriend was Indian or not because he seemed to travel around India quite a bit. The source of confusion was the fact that he said that his girlfriend "really loved" the atmosphere in Varanasi because it was so spiritual. "Dude, she's not Indian! Have you ever met an Indian who liked Varanasi...its a shithole!", exclaimed Harj. Yea, I'm guessing she's not Indian either, I replied :)
We headed to bed rather relaxed after the hot shower and warm pizza, and tried to mentally prepare ourselves for the journey into the avalanche death zone the next morning. I slept quite well that night.

This morning was not a particularly idyllic one, primarily because it started off with me waking up in the freezing Nepali cold at 4:30 am. Usually, at 4:30 am I am sleeping (or having a really crazy night!), and I never, ever wake up at 4:30 AM to hike up a huge freaking mountain. Today was unique in many ways. Our group had elected for reasons beyond me to hike up Poon Hill at this time so we could "watch the sunrise" from the top. Now generally, I try not to experience sunrises because they are just too early for me. Its not natural to be up at that time of day anyways. Poon Hill is 3200 meters elevation, and to get there we walked about 700 meters straight uphill, which took about an hour. It was pitch black when we got outside, and of course I had no flashlight so I had to rely on Raju and Jackie's lights and hoped I wouldn't stumble. I kept stopping to catch my breath ever 5 minutes and couldn't help but think I was getting further and further behind. Halfway up the hill, I genuinely thought I was going to die. I was half asleep, freezing, out of breath, and my legs felt leaden. The world was spinning below me and I was losing the will to continue up the mountain. Amazingly, I made it up to the top of the mountain for a good view of the Annapurna range, but I'm not sure I can justify the walk up to the top at that time of morning. The pain may not have been worth it, because I was expecting slightly more spectacular views for being in fear of my life!

Exhausted, but still smiling :)

We woke at around 6:30 that morning. It had rained much of the night, and my clothes had not dried at all, despite my best efforts. Harj, Jackie and I had a carbo-laden breakfast of porridge, chai, and fruit and prepared for the day ahead. It was sunny and beautiful outside, and while I was not looking forward to the long walk, at least the day promised some beautiful scenery. Harj, said the sun was misleading, and she predicted it was going to rain today. "I'm Punjabi. And my people are farmers....I think its going to rain today, later in the day. We're fucked." 

Nepal: Day Cinco, Start of a Long Walk

We got woken up in the middle of the night by the blare of lights flashing on in our room. Apparently in Pokhara, the electricity comes on again at 3 in the morning after the standard power out. I got up and shut the lights off and fell into a few more hours of dreamless sleep. Jackie and I each had hot showers, probably our last in days. We packed our stuff and headed to the front of the hotel where we had cups of chai and met with Raju and Neeran, our guide and porter and the rest of the girls. We all piled in the van and headed to the starting point of our Long Walk.

So far, I had to say that I was enjoying Nepal. The similarities to India were many, but Nepal somehow felt a little different. Maybe a bit more laid back and a little less hectic, and the people were on average a bit nicer. I also noticed I didn’t get stared up and down by strange men as much as I did in India and Harj heartily concurred that she felt the same way. The food however, did not compare. As I mentioned earlier, daal baat is not haute cuisine and I had the feeling we would be eating it on the trek for the next 10 days.

I was thrilled that I was going to be trekking with 4 other girls that were all roughly in my same age range. I would have been miserable if I had gotten stuck with a bunch of gung ho dudes. Jackie also looked a little less athletic than I had remembered (sorry Jackie!) so I was feeling a bit better about completing this ordeal. The five of us spent a good amount of the car ride to the trail laughing about various stupid things and talking about men and I felt a little sorry for Raju and Neeran. It was probably going to be a long 10 days for them as well. I found Harj especially entertaining and was so glad she was on our trek. Birmingham bred and Punjabi by nature, Harjinder was outspoken, witty, and hilarious. She was probably the only other Indian girl I had met on my travels that was also stupid and crazy enough to quit a lucrative job to wander the earth alone. Additionally, she wasn’t interested in settling down or having kids, which was also really unique for an Indian chick. It made me feel better that I wasn’t the only crazy Indian girl out there. She also had an obsession with cheesy Hindi movies and songs and we spent a good amount of time talking about our favorites. Mine has always been Aamir Khan, and she had a thing for John Abraham. Jackie was also turning out to be a good travel partner too. She didn’t seemed phased by the chaos of Nepal, or by the number of days we would be stuck on a mountain, and I thought that was pretty cool, especially since I was freaking out myself. She’s generally a mellow person, which works well for me in terms of traveling with someone.

We got dropped off in a town about an hour from Pokhara, where the trail head started. It was a small village, and we stopped to get chai and use the bathroom. I was pleasantly surprised that the squat toilet, though not glamorous by any means, was clean enough. I bought a walking stick for 30 rupees after I exited the bathroom because I was expecting that I would have to rely on it during the downhill portions of our trek. The first day of walking wasn’t a walk in the park by any means, but it wasn’t terrible. It was somewhat hilly, but nothing that I hadn’t done before on a day hike. The weather was warm, the forest was green and we saw a lot of pretty rivers and little waterfalls. My favorite point was having to cross a river, and seeing a herd of yaks pass me by. We stopped at a small guesthouse after a couple hours of walking and had chai and dal baat. I thought it was ok, but I was quickly tiring of the standard Nepali fare. I had read that it was the most sustainable, environmentally friendly eating choice but I wasn’t sure if I could keep it up. Especially with all the stomach rumblings I was having.

I did notice on the first day that I wasn’t exactly in tip top shape. To my dismay, the two “older” girls in our group, Zara and Hannah, were usually five minutes ahead of Jackie, Harj and I. Zara and Hannah were 32, and 30 respectively and I felt a bit sad that my out of shape, 28 year old fat ass couldn’t keep up with them. To add insult to injury, Hannah also confessed she was a former smoker and had only recently kicked the habit a couple of weeks prior to arriving in Nepal. I imagined that each day would get a little worse and more humiliating for me, but vowed to keep it all in stride.

To my amazement, we reached our destination for the night by 2:30 PM. We had only spent about 4 hours hiking on Day 1. Raju assured us that not every day was going to be like this. “This was an easy day. Tomorrow is much, much worse.” Honestly, I had found the day a bit tiring and was trying not to think about how much worse it could get. Our timing was perfect, because thirty minutes after we arrived at our guesthouse, it started pouring rain outside. I wondered how that was going to affect our walking the next day but I tried not to think about it. Instead, I took advantage of the hot water in the hostel and took a hot shower in the common bathroom downstairs and washed some of my dirty, sweaty underwear.

I then retired to our room for a bit and tried to take a bit of a nap but decided to spend some time reading Midnights Children instead. I had been enjoying the book so far, but it was a bit too clever for me. Salman Rushdie seemed like he was trying to impress his readers a bit too much with his knowledge of Indian history. Raju knocked on the door at around 5 and said we would need to order dinner soon, since of course, all the power went off by nighttime. Jackie, Harj and I headed downstairs. For some reason, Zara and Hannah were at a different hotel up the road so they didn’t join us for dinner. We ended up ordering cheese momo’s and lasagna, which could have been a weird combination in Nepal. On the contrary, it was quite delicious, though the lasagna was more like baked pasta than anything else. The three of us made quite a scene in the dining room because we kept laughing uncontrollably due to Harj and my recounting of foul stories about all the terrible things we had done on our solo travel trips. I took a look around and several other trekkers in the room were giving us odd looks. “Forget them,” said Harj. “Not one of them is having as much fun as us!”

Later that night we moved over a table to play cards with a British father and daughter who were also trekking the same route as us. The daughter, Abigail didn’t look like much of a trekker either and said she found today pretty bad. I concurred with her assessment. After they left, Raju made fun of Abigail. “She’s not going to finish the trek, she’s just going to quit!” Harj and I wondered if Raju was going to talk shit about us behind our backs to the other guides and porters about our miserable hiking skills. In any case, it was 8:30 PM and getting quite late, so the three of us headed off to bed so we could rest our legs before the beginning of a “tough” morning up the mountain.

Nepal: Day Cuatro, The Beginning of the End

We woke up that morning at 6 am and frantically organized our things for the next 10 days. We were not able to pack light and ended up bringing our two huge backpacks. I’m not sure why we did this in retrospect- its not like we had a whole lot of wardrobe options for our grand sojourn in the mountains. We were met downstairs by our guide Raju, and the other three girls. Harj was there, and we had two additions to our group. Two girls also from Birmingham, Zara and Hannah. The two of them were on a “relatively short” vacation: they had only taken 6 weeks off of work and had reached the end of their trip. The two of them were planning on doing half of the trek rather than the whole 10 day thing, which I felt was probably a wise idea on their part. I’m not sure why I didn’t do the same thing.

Another guide and porter joined us, and the eight of us walked towards the main bus terminal to catch our bus to Pokhara. We boarded an old, rickety looking bus and left the terminal a bit after 7 am. Harj was munching enthusiastically on leftover pizza from the night before and my stomach rumbled away on the bumpy ride. The roads outside of Kathmandu were not great, which is what I expected and the bus ride made me a bit nauseated. Nepal was still pretty far behind from a development perspective, even when compared with India. According to the World Bank Index, it’s the 14^th least developed country in the world, and it looks it.

About an hour and a half into our bus ride, the brakes started making this awful squeaky noise and we all started to notice a burning smell. “That can’t be good, “ Jackie remarked. Not good at all is what I was thinking, and I had a strong suspicion that we would be having some sort of breakdown soon. Sure enough, about 5 minutes later, the bus driver pulled over at this tiny village and got off to inspect what was going on. Something was wrong with the brakes and they would have to be replaced. Where they were going to find a mechanic was a whole other question. The village children were quite cute and were extremely amused at the bus break down situation. A group of boys inspected the bus, and then chatted with a foreigner who was reading Orwell’s 1984. I liked how the Nepali children tried to improve their English by reading passages of 1984- they passed around that book for a while.

Some of the school girls offered me candy and I ate it, though I don’t usually eat candy from strangers J After what seemed like an interminably long time, the brakes and back wheel was finally replaced by some local mechanics. We got back on the bus after our two hour stop in the village and then headed off to the lunch stop.  What followed was a not so tasty lunch and my first introduction to typical Nepali daal bhat (lentils and rice). A note on daal bhat. It’s actually one of my favorite dishes, if its made Maharashtrian style. It’s commonly known in my home state of Maharashtra as varan bhat. We use simple yellow daal, boil it with some garlic, spices and then pour it over rice with a couple of spoonfuls of ghee (clarified butter!). The daal is thick, bright yellow, buttery, and subtly flavored. It would probably be one of my final meals on earth if I could request it.

Nepali daal bhat, I’m sorry to say you do not fall into this category. First, the daal that’s used are green mung beans, which have been boiled and have been mixed with enough water to create a watery, thin consistency. The color is murky greenish brown and does not look appetizing when poured over the rice. Lastly, the flavor wasn’t so great, it was kind of bland and over salted and caused me a lot of err.... stomach rumbles. 

We got back on the bus again and I dozed off for a couple hours until we reached Pokhara. I liked the feel of Pokhara- it was very laid back compared to Kathmandu and seemed to have a number of restaurants lining the street around the lake. Our guesthouse- Nepal Guesthouse was nice enough. It was clean and the shower was hot, which had become my only requirements for a decent place. Jackie and I walked around the lake a bit and then headed back to Nepal Guesthouse to get a briefing on the trek from Raju, our guide. He went over the itinerary with us for the next several days and asked us if we had any questions. “What if we don’t make it,” said Harj, “Can we get taken off the trail?”

Raju laughed. “Well, we can always carry you too. That’s why there are two of us here- myself and Neeran.”

After the briefing Jackie, Harj and I went to get our final meal before the start of our trek. Harj and I were missing good Indian food, so we headed to an Indian joint and had some veg thalis, followed by a big dessert. The three of us spent most of dinner laughing maniacally about Harj’s crazy India stories, and how ridiculous it was that the three of us city folk would be spending the next 10 days on mountain trails and villages. We couldn’t stay out for too long however. Pokhara had even less power available than Kathmandu, and by 9:30 the city was pitch black, and we hurried home to our guest house for yet another early night in.