A trek to Annapurna Base Camp

My friend Rajendra and I (Vinayak Shrestha) had serious motivation to have this trek this year, starting from October 6th, 2007. But at the same time, we had second thoughts of changing the schedule as there was nobody else to join us. We thought a group, as small as two, is unlikely to be so perfect. September-October is best season for the trekking in Nepal, the peak season during our biggest festival Dashain. We had heard rumors of hotels being fully occupied at best days, and internal tourists would be left out, giving lowest priority. There were also some more things to be thought about; but when you are really motivated, there is no second thought.

We took a flight from Kathmandu-to-Pokhara, at about 8:30AM. We had some shopping in Pokhara and we took of to our starting point for the trek: Phedi. For those who are referring this article to visit ABC self-planned, there are several routes to reach Chhomrong (from where there is only one way to reach ABC). They are mainly:
(a) Birethanti (Naya Pul) - Ghorepani - Tadapani - Chhomrong
(b) Birethanti (Naya Pul) - Ghandruk - Chhomrong
(c) Khare - Landruk - New Bridge / Jhinu - Chhomrong

Route (a) is most popular and longest one, as people plan to have night-stay at Ghorepani, and visit Poon Hill in next early morning to view sunrise and mountain views. Route (b) is popular to stay at Ghandruk, to experince the hospitality of the Gurungs. Route (c) is shortest and easiest route; and I would recommend this unless you are planning route (a). The road from Khare to Pothana isn’t there in most of the maps found in the internet. So, we never knew that road, and we had planned to start from Phedi.

We started the trek from Phedi at around 12:00 noon, with hot sun beaming on our back. We were each carrying about 12kg bag and we had no porter (yes, we were so ambitious). After climbing the hard hill for about 45 minutes, we had to take rest for about an hour. We realized that we are not going to make it without a porter. We found a local porter boy at Dhampus, to carry some of our load for the day. We reached Pothana at around 4:00PM and decided to continue targetting Tolka for the night stay even if it goes over 6:00PM to reach there.

me, starting trek from Phedi

Rajendra reaches to top from Phedi

.

playing with village kids

.

About 20 minutes walked, and, all of a sudden it started raining heavily. We did had clear signs of raining, but we were fools not to think about that. We were nowhere in the jungle, to stay safe from the rain. We both had put our raincoats on the bottom of our bags. By the time we wore the raincoats, we were thoroughly wet. The rain did not seem to stop, the next safe place (Bhickok/Deurali) was about 30 minutes walk. So we had to run back to Pothana. By the time, we dried ourselves and started to look for good hotel room, the rain had already stopped and warm sun was shining happily. We never had plans to stay at Pothana, so we decided to move on again. We reached Bhickok/Deurali at around 6:00PM, and again we did not stop, hearing that Bhede Kharka is just 10 mins downhill. It got dark, we had to walk with our torches and we could see nothing. We walked for over 30 mins, and still we could no see any light and found no one passing by. Finally, we found a village with no light and a home with people in kerosene lantern lights.

Fortunately, it was house of Gurungs. The head of the family was an old man named Porey Gurung. He happily welcomed us to stay for the night, and was so keen to talk with us. He talked about his village life and his family. He let us have dinner on the floor in his family kitchen. He also did not take any room charges from us. It was very suprising to find people so kind, so welcoming and so happy, even when they are living in village of with no light, no technology and no education. I felt so lucky to find the family and not a cosy hotel.

Porey baje’s wife and his grandson

.

Porey baje’s family kitchen

.

Porey baje’s house

.

photo taken with the family

Day 2 began with Porey baje arranging a porter for rest of our trek. He was Munneshwor Chaudhari from Rupandehi district, and his primary job was to sell vegetables around the area. We started at 8:00AM, reached Tolka at 9:00AM, Landruk at 10:00AM, and New Bridge at 11:30AM, where we stayed for about 90 mins for lunch. We dried up yesterday’s wet clothes there. We continued at 1:00PM. Everybody knew Chaudhari in those areas. People used to ask him, “How come you carrying a tourist bags and not tomatoes.” We used to answer, “We have tomatoes in our bags that he is carrying.”

on a bridge with Chaudhari

first mountain view of the trek

We passed by several other trekkers. Mostly were of small groups of 2 to 4. Some were large groups of about 10. Everyone always had a smile for us. Everyone would greet us “Namaste”. We did not meet any other Nepali trekkers. It was amazing to see so many foreign people enjoying nature’s beauty, and at the same time so sad that very low percentage of Nepali people has experienced it.We reached Jhinu at 2:00PM. At the other side of Jhinu hill, there were hot spring pools. We threw ourselves into one of it for a refreshing hour. There we met a guy from Austria who was travelling alone without a porter. He had completed the Annapurna Trek Circuit, then Annapurna Base Camp, and was returning. Impressive!

Jhinu marketplace - reminds of Thamel / Basantapur / Pokhara

We started again from Jhinu at around 3:30PM and reached Chhomrong at around 5:00PM. It was the hardest part of the whole trek. Chhomrong had much denser settlement, and was unlike a rural village. We had a night-stay there, and have good time talking with other trekkers and guides.On day 3, we left Chhomrong at 7:30AM. Chhomrong was 2170m and Sinuwa was 2340m on the map. That had our mind set for quite easy morning walk. Not to be, we had to go downhill from Chhomrong and walk up again. We reached Sinuwa at 9:30AM. There we already had glorious view of Mt. Machhapuchhre. We reached Bamboo at 11:00AM and stayed there for lunch till 1:00PM. We reached Doban at 2:00PM, and while having some rest there, it started raining. We had to stay there till 3:45PM. When it stopped raining, we had two rainbows. First one came from mountain areas towards us and gradually disappearing. We then continued the trek, and reached Himalaya at 5:00PM. We wanted to reach as near to the base camp as possible, so we continued to reach Deurali at 6:30PM, and had the night-stay.

on the way to Bamboo

It was important to know number of hotels at each location, during the season days, especially in higher places. ABC had only 4 hotels, MBC had 5, Deurali 4, Himalaya 2, Doban 3, Bamboo 5, and Sinuwa 3. According to the rules, each hotel had 6 rooms; with 2 single beds in each room (some had 3).On day 4, we left Deurali at 7:30AM and reached Machhapuchhre Base Camp (MBC) at 9:15AM. We had magnificent views of Mt. Machhapuchhre (6993m) and Mt. Gangapurna (7454m). The sun was right behind Mt. Machhapuchhre, so we waited for it to move past. We stayed there for quite some time taking photos. We then headed towards Annapurna Base Camp (ABC), and reached there at 2:00PM. We had brief glorious views of the mountains, as clouds covered everything there. The rooms of all hotels were already occupied and we have to arrange to sleep in the kitchen hall. We met guys from many different countries, Korean, Chinese, Swiss, English, Italian, etc, and it was a fun dinner that night. Next morning, we had splendid mountains view, all clear and all around. Mt. Annapurna I (8091m), Mt. Annapurna South (7219m), Mt. Hiunchuli (6441m), Mt. Singu Chuli (6501m), Mt. Gangapurna (7454m), Mt. Annapurna III (7555m), Mt. Gandharba Chuli (6248m), Mt. Machhapuchhre (6993m). Felt so high to meet them all.