Poon Hill Trek

I'm resting my aching muscles after a 4 day trek of some of the most beautiful walking I have ever done up to Poon Hill and Ghandruk. On Wednesday morning after eating a hearty breakfast of porridge and honey Sarah and I set about trying to negotiate a taxi to take us to Nyapol the entry point to the Annapurna Conservation area and the start point of most of the Annapurna based treks. We arrived into Nyapol and were greeted with the site of nearly 30 trekkers all layden up with enormous bags, shiny boots and beautiful down jackets all with their guides and team of porters. I had a moment of doubt- we had decided that as teh trek was a short one (and on the advice of another teacher) that we could carry our own bags and wouldn't need a guide... yet suddenly this idea seemed a little foolhardy. However after talking to some of the other trekkers and looking at the map again we decided to carry on with our no guide, no porter plan.

The first day involved walking through the villages of Nyapol and Birenthanti along the banks of the river before starting a rather gentle climb up to the village of Tikkedhungda. The path meandered along the edge of the mountain and we climbed only 500m that day giving me confidence in our plan. (My trekking companion however was ready to kill, she'd never walked far before and was exhausted by lunch time so I volunteered to carry most of her luggage as well!) The path went through some lovely forested areas, giving beautiful views of the hills, however the mountain views proved invisible due to the large amount of dust in the air. Arriving in Tikkedhundga we located a nice guest house advertising hot showers and good food. All the prices are set by local lodge management committees and I suspect that it doesn't really matter which lodge you stay at as they all seem to have the same basic facilities (all I really needed was hot food and a bed!).

The second day involved an impressive climb up 5000+ (I lost count at 5300ish) stone steps up 1000m to the village of Ghorepani. This is possibly some of hte most exhausting climbing I have ever done, the steps seemed to go on forever. We stopped a couple of times for a cup of Nepali tea (a great drink made by heating milk, cardamon, cinnamon, sugar and ginger and then adding black herbal tea.) to provide sustenance as well as the obligatory Dal Baht lunch stop. After the steps the path carried on through the forest following a small stream up to teh top of Ghorepani hill (2700m). The last part of the journey was conducted at great speed as I noticed the ever growing black looking clouds forming above us. We arrived at the guest house just 2 minutes before the heavens opened with monsoon like rains which quickly turned into hail and then snow. I felt very smug sitting by the fire drinking tea as group of trekkers trooped past wearing make shift coats made out of rice sacks and plastic bags! It turns out that their porters had rushed on ahead (I suspect they knew about the on coming rain!) leaving the poor unsuspecting tourist with nothing but their summer clothes as their coast were in teh bags with the porters!

The next morning we rose at 4:30am to trek up to Poon Hill 3200m to watch the sunrise over Annapurna 1, Annapurna south and Fishtail mountain. The torrential rain the night before had the effect of washing all the dust out of the air so we were greeted with one of the best sunrises I have ever seen ( A Nepali boy who had been walking with us for most of the way told us that this was the best view he had seen since October!) The trek down the hill was a little more treacherous - the rain the night before had all fallen as snow up here which mean that my descent was a rather ungraceful slide to the bottom. After a quick breakfast of porridge we set off for the climb up Ghorepani hill (3500m ish). This is possibly some of hte most beautiful walking I have ever done. Once at the top we walked along the ridge for 1 hour with the views of the mountains to our left. Every 5 minutes I stopped to take a photo... The path then descended gently though the forest next to the river to the small village of Deurali and then up some steep steps to Tadapani. We were then faced with the option of stopping the night in Tadapani or carrying on to our original planned destination of Ghandruk. By this stage we had been walking for 6 hours (including the Poon Hill climb) so were quite tired and the views from Tadapani were quite stunning. That coupled with what looked like building clouds for a downpour we decided to stop the night in Tadapani. Unfortunately ever trekking group on the circuit had the same plan. Although we arrived a the village earlier than most of the big groups they had sent ahead a runner to book rooms so we were left with no rooms available for the night. So armed with my Nepali phrasebook (I found the locals much more helpful if we tried to speak Nepali) I traipsed round the village to find a bed. After much negotiating and sign language we secured a room which was just large enough to lay two mattresses side by side! We then spent a very enjoyable evening and afternoon playing card games with a group of Belgium trekkers who were also travelling like us with no guide or porter. I found out later that some groups couldn't find any beds and ended up sleeping on the tables or trekking the further 3 hours to the next village!

Day 4 and our final day... We were faced with an 8 hour walk down the hill (mostly stone steps) in the bright sunshine to the bottom. The hillsides here would have been covered in trees, however most of these have been cut down for fuel to feed the huge amount of trekkers. Teh Annapurna Conservation area council is now trying to introduce solar power and other sources of fuel to stop this deforestation but it was obvious how much damage has been done on this last leg of the journey. The way was also complicated by lots of land slides - I suspect this is also due to lack of stabilisation from trees?!?

Once in Nyapol we joined the rather large queue for a local bus back to Pokhara. After waiting for half an hour I dug out my phrasebook again to try and discover the source of our waiting. (Most people speak exceptional English, however these are normally taxi drivers who are unlikely to tell you when the next bus will arrive!!) It turns out that there had been an accident further down the road and all the buses were stuck behind. Eventually a bus arrived and we rode the roof of the bus back to Pokhara enjoying incredible views of the sun setting turing the mountains a golden yellow.

It was on the bus ride that the triop was slightly spoilt. the bus driver obviously didn't like tourists - he tried to charge us 4x the normal price and we only managed to negotiate down to 2 x the normal price. He then made all the tourists get off the bus at the taxi stand on the outside of the city rather than letting us ride to teh bus stop like all the Nepali people on the bus. this is the first time I have encountered an attitude like this in Nepal where so far everyone has gone out of thier way to be friendly.... We didn't have enough money for a taxi into town so had to walk the last 5 km to our hotel - finally arriving at 9pm where we showered an fell into bed eating a highly nutritious dinner of crisps and a mars bar!

So another day in Pokhara - I may try paragliding over the mountains :) and then back to Kathmandu.