Langtang and Gosainkunda Trek

Tsergo Ri summit group.
Back: Kul, moi, Machhendra, Jordi
Front: Marcel, Chris

Since getting back from the Annapurna, i was itching to get back out to the mountains and do some more trekking. I toyed with the idea of the Everest region, but the costs are much higher and it would be the place i would want to be with close friends (hint hint). I decided on the Langtang region which is in the north of Nepal, about 130km from Kathmandu. Even though it is so close to the capital, about a third of the people trek there compared to Annapurna and Everest. I combined 2 1/2 treks into 1.... Langtang Valley, Gosainkunda and Helambu.

An unsuccessful search later for another willing trekker, i decided to join a group with a guide. I say group, it was me and Jordi from Catalonia and our guide Machhendra. Machhendra was originally from the Everest region, a devout Buddhist and had a great sense of humour. Throughout the day he would chant and come out with quotes like "No worry, chicken curry" and "hows your head, tibetan bread". He is also a very experienced trekker and climber so was a very good pace setter. A few days before starting this trek he had summited a 6600m peak, the man is a machine.

Anyway, instead of boring everyone with every detail of the 13 day trek i'll pick out the highlights....

The bus journey

The only way to the trailhead is to take one of the infamous local buses. The bus was an old Tata bus (something like this) and my god was it busy. It was the start of the Hindu festival Dasain, so alot of people were going back to their villages. This meant that people, livestock filled the alleyway, drivers area and the roof. I was a little unfortunate and had the seat at the very back of the bus, with my bag on my lap and just about enough room to breath. Next to me was a lady from the villiage i was heading, Syrabru Besi, and her bag of live chickens, that were persumably going to be slaughtered for Dasain. It wasn't the most comfortable 11 hour journey but was very interesting to see all the villages on the journey.

The jungle

The first 2 days of trekking was through thick jungle. It was very humid and just over 25 degrees which made walking very sweaty. We soon met with a guy from Holland, Marcel, and his guide Kul, who we would walk with for the rest of the trek. The first part of the trail was littered with the most cannabis that i have ever seen. Not quite on the scale of the scene from "The Beach", but we must have walked for about 45 minutes with seeing little else! During one section of trail, Machhendra and I were a little ahead of the others so decided to rest. At that exact moment we heard a high pitched barking and a red panda shot across the path only a few meters in front. It was a great albeit brief sight, and i feel very priveliged to have seen it as there are estimated to be <10,000 left in the world.

Tsergo Ri

The highlight of the Langtand trek was to attempt the 4984m peak of Tsergo Ri (pronounced Chergo Ree). It was a climb of about 1200m from the village we were stopping, so was about a 3 hour ascent and just less coming down. For the trip we were joined by Chris from Germany who we had spent a couple of days with. We started at 06:30 and started to switchback up the first ridge at a very steady pace. This continued for about 2 hours making regular but brief stops to ensure no one was suffering from altitude sickness. The final hour was a scrambled of large boulders until the summit was insight! The last 10 minutes seem to last for ever. I was tired, very sweaty and out of breath. When i finally reached the stupa and prayer-flags of the summit i have to admit that my eyes teared up. It was one of the greatest feelings of accomplishment that i had felt for a long time. I was soon joined by the others for lots of photo's, local cheese and chapti lunch and dancing and singing from Machhendra and Kul.

Gosainkunda

It took 4 days of pretty strenuous walking to reach Gosainkunda from Tsergo Ri. We started by dropping Jordi off so he could catch the bus back to Kathmandu. The following day we had to climb 2200m, from 1300m to 3500m. This was probably the most i have ever had to push myself. The altitude was not a problem, its the heat and humidity that get me. I was also getting over a cold so breathing was much more difficult. It was the longest 7 hours of my life. 

Gosainkunda is a lake at 4600m and an important Hindu sight. There are also a number of other smaller lakes on the mountain side. They are all perfectly clear, very peaceful and surrounded by stupas, prayer flags and hindu monuments. We took some time walk around before having an early night. The following morning, we rose at 05:30 so that we could see the sunrise over the lake. It was a beautifully clear morning and seeing the mountains reflected in the lake was awe-inspiring. It was hard to get going knowing that we were leaving it behind.

Helambu

Gosainkunda at sunrise

For the final few days we joined the Helambu trail towards Kathmandu. As with the rest of the region, the local people are amazing. I have never met such friendly and interesting people. The are all buddhist and are very similar to Tibetan in their dress and culture. One family stands out in particular. It was our penultimate night and we were staying in a small village called Khutsumsang. We were joined by an english couple, Pete and Lisa, who we actually saw on the Annapurna trek in Chhromrong. Small world. We were almost immediately greeted by the family and welcomed into their kitchen / dining room. We spent the evening playing cards with the son, Neem, and talking about what we were all doing. They cooked us the most amazing Dal Bhat and we all drank Raksi (the local liquor) until the crazy time of 9pm! Machhendra told me the next morning that we were very lucky to be invited into their home, and not just kept seperate as usual. They said they liked our politness and how we talked and played with Neem. Amazing experience. I also bought a litre of Raksi from them for a special occasion.

It was a great experience, very different to the Annapurna trek, and although the mountains aren't as high (Langtang Lirung is 7200m compared to Annapurna over 8000m), the people really made it. Made some great friends along the way and been to almost 5000m above see level!

Summit of Tsergo Ri with Langtang Lirung mountain in background

"Poo with a View"

Drinking Raksi in Khutsumsang

Paragliding back to the UK...

Ms Redmond doin' a paraglide all up in the air!




Okay, so the title is misleading! No- we didn't paraglide all the way back to the UK. We did catch a plane or two (one of which upgraded us to First Class darling- get in! Fully reclining seats, mmm!) After a relatively short wait in the airport, a few too many vigorous and intimate friskings and a film or two, Kaz and I touched down in Heathrow at 6am on Saturday. We were half an hour early and after scoffing an M&S sarnie and drinking some smoothie we had Kaz and myself home and safe by 9.30am- we had a very good run! Our return was made complete later in the day when our home-coming was celebrated with sausage and mash, wine and a film with Amy, Quint, Tom and Ben. Just like we'd never left!




Before we disappear off the blog forever and leave it to El Ricardo to fill with tales of hemp, daal bhat and monkey muggings in India, I want to put up some pics of Kaz and I paragliding in Pokhara. It was our final exciting activity before we reluctantly caught another terrible bus back to Kathmandu to fly home. Through some elaborate exchange rate calculations and by paying some of our fee in dollars and the rest in rupees- we somehow managed to pay less than we should have for a half an hour flight. We caught a perilously rickety bus up to the top of the hill and to the panicky cries of "do they have shoes? They don't have shoes! Where are their shoes?" we skipped over to two diddly Nepalese men in our flip-flops. Little did they know we had shoes in our bags- panic over!





After a brief explanation of what would happen for take off- don't run, don't jump, don't sit down... we were strapped in and stood waiting for the wind to pick up. Before long Kaz's parachute was up and she'd walked quickly to the edge of the cliff where she was immediately lifted up and out into the air over the paddy fields and out towards the other hills nearer to Pokhara. A minute or two later I followed, although I hadn't felt nervous at all there was a brief moment of panic as I went to put my foot down and I'd run out of ground to tred on- but I was soon whipped up into the air to follow Lady Ka Ka, floating about on the thermals.

Once in the air the whole experience was so calm and so relaxing. It felt strangely natural to rise and fall on the different currents in the air. At times my feet felt like they were almost going to brush the trees as the parachute glided gently down, then we'd catch a thermal and you'd feel the chute fill again, lifting you swiftly up again high above the hills and out towards the lake. In the distance you could see the Annapurna Range, with its pointed snowy peaks just breaking through the top of the clouds. I could have stayed up there all day and I know Kaz loved it too. Definitely an experience I'd repeat if I had the opportunity. After landing back on firm ground I had a little read up about paragliding and apparently Pokhara is one of the most popular and beautiful places you can do it, so we were extra pleased we'd decided to do it! Now we just have to get rich so we can take it up as a hobby.... we can always dream...

So... Goodbye! I'm home and boring again now, so I'll leave Rich to tantalise you with tales of his travels (Miss you already TinyPants!)

Thanks for reading! Sadie xxx

And then there was one.....

I've just come away from saying goodbyes to Sadie and Kaz as they shot off in a taxi to Kathmandu airport to get their flight to the UK. I can't believe its come around so quick! It doesn't seem like 5 minutes since we left Heathrow on 26th July, Moscow bound. Since then we've traveled across Russia, Mongolia, China and Nepal! Its been an awesome trip. Sadie had always planned to go back, and Kaz has been offered a job in Melbourne so is heading home to sort stuff out before heading down under.


And now there is moi.... and i'm very excited about the next part of my adventure! I have another month in Nepal to do some more trekking and climbing before heading to the jungles in the South. Early November i'll make to 3 day trip to the eastern most point of Nepal and cross into India, starting an epic 3 month journey starting in Darjeeling and ending somewhere in the south.


Right now, i have 4 or 5 days in Kathmandu to sort out visas, trekking permits, bus tickets and to visit all the sites. Its the start of the Hindu festival Dashain tomorrow, which starts with a music and food festival :) Apparently the headliners are a Nepali band called Albatros who are the "Nepalise Incubus"...


I have skpe now, so if anyone fancies a chat then my username is richcolley5


Rich x

Annapurna Sanctuary Trek- Nepal

Annapurna Base Camp- Well worth the pain, rain and amount of huge stone steps we encountered! Here we are with Ganesh and Igor, our adopted guides and new friends!

We left the busy Kathmandu with all our newly acquired fake polyester clothing and got a bus to Pokhara, about 7 hours west of the capital. It should have been 7 hours, but after about 4 hours driving and a brief stop for lunch, we stopped in a huge queue of traffic... nothing unusual until we looked about 200 metres up the road to discover that there had been a landslide overnight and the road was blocked by a boulder. It looks just like the boulder in Indiana Jones and 2 large JCB's were trying to break it down to clear the road. After about 4 hours stuck in the midday sun we finally started to get going.

Pokhara is a huge contrast to Kathmandu. Its next to a lake, mountains in the distance (you can only see them if you're up at 6am as the cloud comes in..) and a very chilled out atmosphere with a mixture of trekkers and hippy types.

We'd planned to start trekking the day after we arrived, but poor Sadie was sick for a few days so we just chilled. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as people we met that went said they didn't see much because of the cloud, but we had perfect weather.... well for most of it!

Day 1 - The WET day....

The trek started in a small village (a couple of wooden shelters) call Phedi and started with a 2 hour climb up some stone steps. This is when the rain started and our loving relationship with stone steps started. The rest of the day was a mixture of paddy fields, forests with monkeys in the trees and more wet and perilous stone steps! Despite the bad weather we got to our first teahouse in Tolka 8 hours later.

Day 2 - Steps....

Probably the hardest day on the trek. It started with us having to put on damp clothes and boots as nothing had dried overnight. Our spirits were raised when the sun eventually came out and we could see further than 20 metres into the valley. We had a pleasant walk along the river to a the next village Jhinu Danda for tea and food. Behind us we could see our destination Chhromrong... To get there, we had a 1-2 hour climb up some very steep steps. I met with a Nepali guy and I think the talking helped the time pass and my mind not concentrate on my burning legs. It was very tough and even he was struggling towards the top.

Day 3 and 4

We were up and 6am and was greeted by our first clear morning and some amazing mountain views. For the next 2 days we followed the valley to a small place called Bamboo (it has a bamboo plantation) where we stopped for one night. The lady in the teahouse we stopped in was a great cook and i had the tastiest dhal bhat i have had in Nepal! This is also were we met our new trekking partners, Igor from Slovenia and his Nepali guide Ganesh. We all trekked together for the next 4 days and would spend the evening talking and playing cards. Our next stop was a place called Deurali at 3200m above see level. Stopping in the guest house with us was a South Korean expedition who were going to be climbing one of the 6500m peaks.

Day 5 - Annapurna Base Camp

Today was what we had been waiting for. We had about a 3 hour climb to Machhapuchhare Base Camp (3800m). It is just a collection of hotels and technically not a basecamp as climbing the mountain has been prohibited since so many people died trying. We had a rest to ensure none of us were suffering from the early signs of mountain sickness, and were soon on our way for another 2 hour walk up to 4130 m and Annapurna Basecamp. It was such a great sense of achievement to get to basecamp and we were rewarded with some great views... but nothing compared to the morning.

Day 6 - 9

We were at 05:30 and climbed a short distance to wait for the sun rise. It was the most beautiful sunrise and the mountains changed to an orangey-pink colour. The photo really doesn't do it justice. It was so cold but we were mesmerised as we watched the sun touch each of the peaks in turn and gradually light up the whole surface of the Annapurna range.

The next 3 days were retracing our steps back down the valley to Bamboo and Chhromrong, where we said goodbye to Igor and Ganesh who were going a slightly different route to us. On the way to our final stop off, Ghandruk, we came across a couple of cows. On earlier parts of the trail we had been stuck for a while because the cow would just stand in the middle of the path and refuse to move. We carefully walked past the first 2 and carried on our way... or so we thought. The largest and craziest one then started to snort and run towards us every time we we moved. Usually, I'm not afraid of cows, but having something that big with huge horns (they are a cross between a cow and yak) snort angrily at you is quite a frightening experience! We only got past it as a line of laden horses came past and blocked the cow's path.

The final day was an easy 4 hour descent to our destination Naya Pul, where we had a taxi back to Pokhara for a sleep and more importantly a shower!

It was an experience I don't think any of us will ever forget!

Milk tea in Nepal.

And now were in Nepal! My goodness, we spent a day in Kathmandau where we shopped for the requitite fake North Face clothes (we all have identical zip-off-at-the-knee trousers, its hilarious!) and bizzare wooly hats (sexy). We also had to go get a permit as we wanted to trek in the Annapurna reigion, so we had to find the Annapurna Conservation Area Project office to purchace this. Obtaining the permit itself was easy enough, but finding the office involved a bizzare, frustrating and frankly, frightening encounter with rickshaws and busy traffic that now it is over was an 'experience' and added to the rich tapestry of character building encounters that backpacking involves.

But Kathmandu is very crowded and touristy so we were glad to head out to Pokhara to start our trekking, which is where we are now and hopefully off soon to complete the Annapurna Sanctuary trek. There is limited internet in the Himalayas so we'll post after were done and will have loads of awesome pictures (as long as its Sadie behind the camera, not me) Also it's really expensive to drink here in Nepal so were tee total while were here, so we'll let you know how that goes!

Climbing at the Baby Frog.

When we got back to Yangshuo our primary aim was to chill out for a week as we were exhausted from being on the go for so long, but we also explored some of the cimbing sites which were amazing- beautiful scenery and awesome climbing with a good range of grades, great for us as we'd had two months of drinking beer in deserts and not doing much exercise, but also really interesting to watch the seasoned pros scale the giant Karsts on the harder routes. It was very easy to do, we rented gear for the day which was cheap (twenty quid all in for rope, quickdraws, harnesses and helmets between us) and cycled off to the nearest climbing spot which was the Baby Frog. It took us four hours, but between us we conquered two routes, which to our credit in our unexercised state and battling with the baking heat was quite a feat. It was really fun and it'd be worth a trip to China for the climbing in Yangshuo alone.

We spent the rest of the time in Yangshuo relaxing and eating steamed dumplings (the best in China, maybe?) before reuctantly getting on another sleeper bus to Guangzhou for our fight to nepal. Athough, in the sleeper bus's defence, it was very cheap.

I think this is me, and definetly Sadie.

Check out the background scenery.

Sadie - master of sport climbing!

The cycle there wasn't too bad either.

China part two - Yichang to Hong Kong.

Yichang is pretty but there is nothing there really it was just a stopover before we got on our boat that would take us up through the three gorges area. We had eagerly awaited the boat as the scenery was meat to be beautiful, but more importanty we had been promised thet there woud be on-board kareoke or 'Kariboaty!' as it was christened (in a strong northern accent). When we first got on the boat it was very exciting and the foyer has a chandelier and carpet and was very nice. And then we saw our cabins which were HORRIBLE! Being used to budget travel we have previously stayed in worse places, but the plush hotels of the tour had spoiled us and the cabins were dirty (and we diddnt even look behind the furniture) and smelled sooo bad. We were jeaous of Sara and Orissa's room because they had a toilet seat, but on the other hand our toilet door stayed shut. We all dealt with this by congregating on deck and getting drunk on various Chinese spirits. Our luxury cruise took us through the gigantic Three Gorges Dam through a series of locks that were over a hundred feet tall each. It was all very impressive.

The next day we were woken up at some ungodly hour to get on a smaller boat, to get on another even smaller boat so we could explore further up into one of the smaller rivers. The whoe area is very beautiful, the mountains are green, the cliffs are high and we even saw monkeys. But heavy drinking on the boat the night before meant half of us felt terrible, and it was very hard going. The views afforded to us by the boat were very cool and at night when we were all hungover we all snugged up in Spiv and Cath's cabin and watched a film with the window behind the TV screen and we could see all the twinkling lights on the hills and on the other ferrys on the water.

After the boat there was a bus/overnight train/bus sandwich that seemed to go on forever (we were al sick of eating instant noodles on trains) but at the end of that we were rewarded with Yangshuo. Whenever you see anything promoting tourism to China it will have pictures of the region around Yangshuo, the land in the area is pretty flat but dotted around are these big mountains shaped like upside down cups. The prettiest part is the stretch of the Li river starting at Xingping (which is on the back of the 20 yuan note) and we did a cruise on a bamboo raft down the river, which was awesome. The next day we went off as a group cycling to an area of the river with smaller bamboo rafts. Before you get on them, tiny old ladies with dentures made completely from silver metal sell you water pistols fashioned from bits of pipe for 30p so that when you are going down the river, rather than a tranquil paddle its an extended waterfight across a group of rafts. It was a lot of fun, the handmade water pistols were very effective and everyone was absolutely soaked, including some groups of Chinese tourists that managed to cross our paths. Don't think that we were rowdy British tourists though, the Chinese gave as good as they got!

And the frightening woman we brought the water pistols off. Don't be fooled - she was about 4ft tall but she had a grill like Jaws straight 'outta 'The spy who loved me'.

Another great part of Yangshuo is that as a touristy place lots more people spoke English. Which was good for us as hard as we tried to mumble words in Chinese, we were just terrible - the pronunciation of words for us with our limited reptoire of sounds made it difficult for people to understand what the hell we were tying to say anyway so it was nice to be able to chat with the locals - something we had been unable to do before. (Except Lois of course, who 'released' all the infomation we needed including such questions as 'Why dont the babies in China wear nappies' which they don't and there is a very interesting reason why...) Another thing that was very helpful to know was the kind of sign language they had for different numbers in China, it made haggling a lot easier.

The view from our holel in Yangshuo.

After Yangshuo it was off on our very last overnight train to Hong Kong, where we had our last meal as a group and then wandered onto the bay (Which was another beautiful city view, like the Bund in Shanghai) to watch the Light show which is made up by all the different buildings flashing their lights to music accompanied by lazers pointing up into the sky. We went out with the intention of going to a kareoke bar (which we had all talked about non stop since we got to China) but after one failed attempt where we ended up in a strip club we brought beers (5% strength beers in HK thank you!) and utiised the hotel common room instead, where we had an emotional goodbye drink with Lois. The next day was sad as we said goodbye to Rob and Kate to continue their honeymoon at a much more romantic location in Thailand and Orissa who was off to Cambodia.

We had grown quite attached to the rest so we planned to meet up the next day, but dragged Cath, Spiv and Thomas off with us to our next hotel as we just couldn't bear to leave them. It was in Chungking Mansions which is famed for being a wreched hive of scum and villainy, but our guesthouse though teeny was clean, safe and had an awesome view over the city. Over the next couple of days we went to museums, took the Star ferry, rode up the Mid-level escalators (a bunch of escalators) and shopped at various markets. We met up with Sara, Jamie, Cordy Klaus, Louisa and Marco one last time for a picnic at the top of Victoria Peak which looks out over Hong Kong Central just as the sun went down.

The bay.

The Big Bhudda on Lantau Sadie and Thomas Tawn went to see. Huge!

The next day we said goodbye to Cath and Spiv who we made promise would come to see us when we got back as we had told them all abouts the delights of Birmingham and now they cannot wait to see the sights!. After that we all explored different parts of Hong Kong, Sadie went to Lantau with Thomas Tawn (sweetcorn) to see the Big Bhudda and soak up some rays on the beach, Rich took advantage of the uptown hotels swimming faciities with Sara and I went off up the peninsula to Sai Kung to meet up with the lovely June who looked after me just like I was back at home and took me out for the best thai food in HK!

And then all of a sudden our time in Hong Kong was over, and i'm sorry to say we diddnt try much food there (sorry Kwok!) as it had amazing western food (Hardys wine!!) and everything else was very expensive. We did shop our asses off though, the markets and malls in HK are wonderful. So it was a sad goodbye to Sara and Thomas Tawn (face of a prawn) and off up to Shenzhen where we discovered the horrors of overnight sleeper busses on our way back to Yangshuo. We planned to go there for a few reasons firstly being that it has great climbing and secondly because as I said earlier, people speak English there so we could get by without Lois there to guide us.