Snowed Out
Location: Pokhara, Nepal
Local Time: Wednesday, Oct 26, 2005 - 5:20pm
Well, maybe no one will be reading this since I said I wouldn't be posting anything new for a few weeks, but here it is anyway.
Yesterday Seth and I caught a bus to Besisahar at 6:30am. Well, the bus was suppose to be at 6:30, but they waited until 7 to get more passengers. The ride took until about noon, then we started walking.
The first part of the walk was a rough, but drivable road. We crossed several shallow rivers that flow over the road, walked up and down hills, passed rice fields on each side of the road, passed through several little villages of 20 - 30 people. We also crossed a couple of suspension bridges that were crossing the main river. However, these bridges are pedestrian only, so the drivable road stopped at the first bridge. After that, though the road was marked on the map as the main road, we are really talking about a footpath, 5 feet wide.
Trains of donkeys are used to transport goods up to the villages and houses after the first bridge. We passed several such trains going in each direction.
There is normally one man, possibly with a young boy as his assistant, in charge of 5 - 10 donkeys. Going up river the donkeys are packed with goods, coming back the pack saddles are empty. The man walks along behind the train with a stick that he uses to prod any laggards, but mostly the donkeys amble along at an even pace, proceeding in single file.
They wear bells around their necks, so a train of donkeys actually makes music as they move.
Around 4:30 we walked through a place called Ngadi. It has about 6 little hotels. No single hotel is as large as an average house in Canada. For those of you who know what Scott's house looks like, that is about the size of 4 hotels.
We continued on, hoping to make the next stop, but after about half an hour we met some people coming back who told us that the next stop was an hour walk further on (it was nearly sunset by this time) and it was full. You see, the problem was, about 4 days down the road, the pass was snowed in. And had been snowed in for several days. The people we had been passing all day were not finishing the circuit having started from the other side, they were all returning because they didn't want to wait any more.
So, we turned around and went back to Ngadi for the night. We chatted with the other people who were there for the night, and decided that we weren't really keen on being snowed in 4 days up the trail, so the next morning, we headed back to Pokhara.
Now we are back to the land of plentiful internet connections (hence this post) and we'll decide what trek to try next.
Local Time: Wednesday, Oct 26, 2005 - 5:20pm
Well, maybe no one will be reading this since I said I wouldn't be posting anything new for a few weeks, but here it is anyway.
Yesterday Seth and I caught a bus to Besisahar at 6:30am. Well, the bus was suppose to be at 6:30, but they waited until 7 to get more passengers. The ride took until about noon, then we started walking.
The first part of the walk was a rough, but drivable road. We crossed several shallow rivers that flow over the road, walked up and down hills, passed rice fields on each side of the road, passed through several little villages of 20 - 30 people. We also crossed a couple of suspension bridges that were crossing the main river. However, these bridges are pedestrian only, so the drivable road stopped at the first bridge. After that, though the road was marked on the map as the main road, we are really talking about a footpath, 5 feet wide.
Trains of donkeys are used to transport goods up to the villages and houses after the first bridge. We passed several such trains going in each direction.
There is normally one man, possibly with a young boy as his assistant, in charge of 5 - 10 donkeys. Going up river the donkeys are packed with goods, coming back the pack saddles are empty. The man walks along behind the train with a stick that he uses to prod any laggards, but mostly the donkeys amble along at an even pace, proceeding in single file.
They wear bells around their necks, so a train of donkeys actually makes music as they move.
Around 4:30 we walked through a place called Ngadi. It has about 6 little hotels. No single hotel is as large as an average house in Canada. For those of you who know what Scott's house looks like, that is about the size of 4 hotels.
We continued on, hoping to make the next stop, but after about half an hour we met some people coming back who told us that the next stop was an hour walk further on (it was nearly sunset by this time) and it was full. You see, the problem was, about 4 days down the road, the pass was snowed in. And had been snowed in for several days. The people we had been passing all day were not finishing the circuit having started from the other side, they were all returning because they didn't want to wait any more.
So, we turned around and went back to Ngadi for the night. We chatted with the other people who were there for the night, and decided that we weren't really keen on being snowed in 4 days up the trail, so the next morning, we headed back to Pokhara.
Now we are back to the land of plentiful internet connections (hence this post) and we'll decide what trek to try next.
posted by Jaye | 5:00 PM
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