The Hike That Had It All: In and around the Annapurnas (Part I)

Intense heat and extreme cold. Burning sun and blue skies, afternoon rains, hail, snowstorms, fog and dust-storms. Monkeys and big horn sheep. Tropical-colored bright red and green birds at low altitude and some high-altitude pheasants digging into the snow at over 4,000 meters. Cows, goats, chickens, ducks, yak... More cows, goats and chickens (and even more cow dung and goat droppings). Tall waterfalls and small waterfalls, roaring rivers and quiet little creeks. Bamboo forests, pine forests, deciduous forests, Rhododendron forests and no trees at all.

One of the things that had originally drawn me to doing this hike rather than the Everest Base Camp trek was that it's known for it's cultural and geographical diversity--hence the title of this post, the hike that had it all. It certainly lived up to its reputation...

We hopped on a bus to Besi Sahar around 6:30am the morning of Tuesday, March 5th, fully loaded with all the gear we could possibly need for three weeks of the unknown up in the mountains of Nepal. After our earlier than expected arrival (11:15am!) we ate some lunch (a delicious veggie burger--with an Indian curry flair--and fries), we checked in at the TIMS office and then stepped onto the trail for the official start of our trek.

DAY ONE (Tuesday, March 5th): Besi Sahar (820m) to Upper Ngadi (~900m)
15 kilometers, 4 hours
We passed through a lot of small villages this day, filled with surprisingly friendly people and smiling children (given the fact they see so many foreign faces every year, I was caught off-guard at how outgoing they were as we passed right through their everyday lives). The small children would see us coming and run up and clasp their hands together in a prayer position and utter the word "Namaste" as best they could. A few were brave enough to reach up and grasp our hands and hold them as we walked along (though, I'm sure they've been conditioned by seasons past and really just wanted chocolate or school pens from us).

We arrived to Bhulbhule around 2:40pm so we decided to push on. No sense in sitting around if we had the time and energy to keep moving! Next up in the line of villages was Ngadi Bazaar, but reaching that only an hour later we still had the notion to keep moving, despite some generous offers of hotel managers for a "cheap price" for their rooms ;-) Finally, we passed a long suspension bridge into a little village with only one lodge and decided this was where we'd like to stop for the night. It was the right price (which was always either free or 100 NPRs), offered beautiful scenery with the green mountains around us, and a river below us, and was nice and quiet. We shared the place with two French couples (who became trail friends in the coming days).

Our first picture on the trail, just after we left Besi Sahar

Our home for the night in Upper Ngadi

 DAY TWO (Wednesday March 6th): Upper Ngadi to Jagat (1,300m)
10 kilometers, 6 hours
Ordering breakfast the night before is the norm, so we got up and ate our 7am pre-ordered breakfasts of apple porridge and tea and had our first views of snowy mountains towering over all else in the distance. We hit the trail just after 8am toward the next big village called Bahundanda. We could see the village up above us on a high ridge far before reaching it, the snowy white mountains lurking in the distance behind it with only their peaks teasing us down below.

It was still quite hot as we walked past glowing green rice paddies. My SteriPEN had failed us this day and quit working, so we were quite dehydrated from having no clean water to drink while we waited the four hours for my back-up chlorine pills to work.

This was the first day we ran into the German family and the second day we'd run into two young British guys (all of whom we'd be seeing again for the following weeks).

Around noon, our water was finally good to drink and we stopped for lunch feeling exhausted and a bit disheartened at how the morning had shaped out (and how no SteriPEN the rest of the trip would be a huge inconvenience to us). We shared a big plate of fried noodles and some plain chapati for lunch and then, after adequate rest and rehydration, carried on up seemingly endless switchbacks on a dusty road under the scorching sun. The only way we could continue on was not to think about how tired we were and just to maintain the rhythm of putting one foot in front of the other.

On our way up, a man on a motorcycle stopped us to ask if we'd seen about 30 mountain bikers (umm, no?!). Not much later, another man asked us if we'd seen two cows (also a no).

When Jagat came into view (but still a good 15-20 minute walk away), we came across a small waterfall and, without hesitation, let the frigid water run over our heads and soak our hair through. BEST IDEA EVER. It felt amazing and gave us just enough energy to make it to the village. I was on such a high for about five minutes straight after that.

We arrived to Jagat and chose the brightest colored (pink) lodge at the end of town, just in time to get shelter before the rain started. We watched the rain pour down from our room and took showers  in unexpectedly hot water--which brought so much excitement to our lives that evening.

So far, so good.

Gearing Up for the Trek

We set out with a grand-(ish) plan of spending about three weeks hiking on the Annapurna Circuit, about 230 kilometers in total, going as high as 5,416 meters (17,768 feet). We'd have just enough time to do a side-trek to Tilicho Lake (the highest altitude lake in the world--so it's said) before getting back to civilization to face the ridiculously time-consuming and complicated task of obtaining on India visa from Nepal.

We arrived to Kathmandu mid-afternoon after a whirlwind of packing up our lives of two and three years in Korea, saying some difficult goodbyes, whizzing through Tokyo in about 48 hours (yet still were able to get our fill of sushi and flashing lights), and spending WAY too many hours in Chinese airports (which left us with absolutely no desire to ever return to that country--at least not to any of their airports). Needless to say, we were tired--no, exhausted, actually.

The day after arriving to Kathmandu, we left on an early bus heading for Pokhara. Being the 'gateway' city to the Annapurnas, we could easily prepare ourselves for the trek there. We hadn't even gotten out of the city before our mini-bus was ushered into the drive of a police station at a check-point. The policemen (who all dress in blue camouflage here) tapped on the window behind us and motioned for the four teenage boys who were sitting behind us to get out. It was clear that we weren't the only confused ones on the bus, as the Nepalis on the bus actually looked confused as well (more often than not it's usually just the tourists who don't know what's going on!).

Turns out, these delightful young boys (who had been chatting our ears off about Justin Beiber, PSY, WWF and the like, as well is playing with my hair and saying "I love Stephanie" much to our annoyance) had stolen a large sum of money from some hotel and were on the run to Pokhara. Though they had provided us with some small amusements on the ride thus far, I think everyone was glad to continue on the journey (an HOUR later) without them.

Welcome to Nepal, says the world.

Our arrival to Pokhara was relatively smooth and we found a decent place to stay after a long, hot walk from the bus station. With the goal of setting out two days later for the trek, that left us the next day to take care of business. And that we did.

We got our permits and TIMS (Tourist Information Management Syster) cards to trek legally in the Annapurna Conservation Area. We rented sleeping bags and a down jacket. We got a map, Diamox for the altitude and some other mysterious pills for any rogue parasites or bacteria that might find their way into our intestines. We bought a headlamp, extra batteries, sunscreen and granola bars for the trail. We bought water bottles and wool hats, mittens and booties to keep us warm during those cold nights we knew weren't far ahead. We visited several ATMs to get enough cash for the trek.

And despite my usual indecisiveness when it comes to picking out colors, we completed all of this by mid-afternoon. We. Were. Ready.

Packing madness--Figuring out how to fit everything into our two packs (47 and 55 liters, respectively).

That Time Again

It's that time again. Time to wander and let my senses and the world around me take the lead so I can sit back and enjoy the ride. In less than one week, I'll be hitting the road again--this time with a boyfriend by my side (how's that for a change?)--to Tokyo, Nepal, India and mainland Southeast Asia.

In the meantime, I'll stay busy packing up my life of over three years here in Korea and saying my goodbyes to dear and darling friends I've had the luxury of making during my time here. Bittersweet, indeed. BUT, I'm ready for yet another adventure.

Four months on the road, here I comeeee!

Let Me Come Home

(Love the song "Home" by Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeroes)...

After a semester of teaching at the university in Jinju, a mid-semester week-long wander to Japan and several more weekends of Korea outdoor awesomeness, I've pounced on the opportunity to wander home for six weeks before returning for another semester in Korea. SIX WHOLE WEEKS! This was perhaps the most exciting thing in my life for the weeks leading up to this trip... You wouldn't believe how often my mind wandered to thoughts of cheese, micro-brews, my kitty Luna, family and friends, new babies, bike riding in the sunshine... Ahhhh. Home.

Being home as been a true joy. I feel so lucky to have this place and these people in my life, to feel so attached to home. How have I spent my first two weeks being back?

Making sure I'm home in time for dinner. Dad's cooking is still out of this world (and, there's always good beer and wine to be had).

Loving the people in my life. And what better way to start off my first week than by witnessing my brother propose to his girlfriend? I gained a new and amazing sister in a matter of days after my arrival. Mom and dad always make me happy and, as it's always been throughout my mid- to late-20s, I always enjoy our ever-evolving relationship. My two longest-standing friends have beautiful children (one of whom was just born two weeks before my arrival) and being with them is a beautiful thing and lights up my life. Next up: the out of town friends!

Being a gym rat at the local climbing gym. Okay, so I only go about twice a week, but still. It's a great way to kill a few hours mid-day and I've never had the chance to experiment with bouldering ceilings!

Enjoying the beautiful Willamette Valley summer weather (until three days ago). My first week and a half brought perfect weather--sunshine, blue skies and NO humidity (a rare treat in my life these days). Bike rides, runs (or, attempts at a run), driving with the windows down and the music up, reading on the back deck in the evenings as the sun sets... Makes me smile just thinking about it.

Picking berries from the yard! Neither Ohio nor Korea could offer this to me--that's 5.5 years out of the last 6.5 years I've been missing out! Strawberries, raspberries and blueberries, oh my!

Talking with people from my second home in Korea. When you call a place home for 2.5 years, no matter how good it feels good to be back in your original home surrounded by all its beauty, you can't help but miss it. And, of course, the people. Thank goodness for facebook! :-P

Being inspired--and proud of my home. It's US Track and Field Olympic Trials time and Eugene is shining as the host city. Watching athletes in their finest moments and feeling the positive energy from those around me also witnessing such greatness is an amazing feeling (and makes me miss sport and competition immensely).

Enjoying the moment. Relishing place. Being present. Loving home.

Money, Money, Money!

In case anybody's curious (because I know I usually am)... I want to write about money. I want to write about the money I spent (and what I spent it on) because I for one was a bit surprised at how little money one could actually spend in India. And, cost of living is always interesting when compared across the globe (I think now about a book that fascinated me when I was a kid, a book that my dad brought home from the library called "Material World" that had families across the world lay out all of their possessions in their yard, or on their roof, or in the street... I'm sure you can imagine what the American family's collection looked like compared to a family from Ethiopia). Anyways, I'm always interested and curious, so...

I don't necessarily like to talk about money specifics (I am, after all, American and we don't ask THOSE kinds of things), but I'm going to here anyway. And because I plan to return to India next year for a longer duration, I kept track of everything I spent during my two months so I could have a better idea of how to budget for my next trip.

Starting with the biggest numbers... My grand total (including all airline tickets) was US$2,136 (that's with the exchange rate of US$1 = 50 Indian Rupees) for a 58 day trip.

Airline tickets: $750
Malaysia total (5.5 days): $114
Malaysia daily average: $20.73 per day
India total (52.5 days; NOT including shopping): $872
India daily average: $16.61
India shopping and shipping: $400
*(I shipped a package to the US and two to Korea, for $35, $17 and $22, respectively)

Not to bad, I'd say!

Food Talk

Let's talk India. Not the interesting story-telling type of India talk, but the run-on sentence, spastic, stream of consciousness type of talk. About everything. Anything. Just, India...

Let's start with my absolute favorite thing: food. People this past week have often asked me about the food in India. My immediate reaction, without fail, has been to first answer non-verbally by throwing my hands up and demonstrating my pure excitement in my face. "AMAZING" is usually the word that comes out of my mouth next.

To describe the food in India (and give it any justice at all) would be like me asking you to describe the most beautiful sunset you've ever seen, or the 360-degree view from the top of a mountain you've just spent all day climbing, or anything else that you've ever experienced that has made you actually--and I mean actually--stop and say "wow." That's what most Indian food did for me. It made me stop and say "wow."

Most memorable meals and favorite dishes:

Chicken korma: A simple dish of a cashew curry gravy and chicken over rice. Korma curries are very thick, and cream-based (with yogurt, coconut or nut paste). But this dish, which I ate at a beach-front restaurant in Patnam (Goa), was heaven in my mouth. I asked somebody one time about the Indian "gravy" as they call it, and apparently the majority of them get their heavy, creamy richness from cashews. Cashews EVERYWHERE. Mmmm.

Coconut Veg Curry: The particular one I'm thinking of was a to-go meal, as a matter of fact, in the hill station of Munnar. It was my last night and I knew I had to return to this little street vendor who sold the most amazing coconut veg curry and parottas (a type of bread, see below). This was one of those classic cheap and delicious meals, which put me back a total of less than US$1. When you get anything take-out, it comes in newspaper. So, my coconut curry came in a little plastic sack and was wrapped inside newspaper with my two parottas. The curry was light colored, sweet from the coconut, but with a little heat, and full of carrots, potatoes and onions. Heaven in my room that night, eating from my newspaper place setting...



Idly: My first idly was my second meal in India (and I continued to order idly until my last day in India). Idly are little spongy, savory white cakes made from fermented lentils and rice. Sounds delicious, right? Well trust me, when you dip them in the coconut chutney and sambar (oftentimes spicy, a vegetable "stew" made from tamarind) that always come with the idly. Idly are generally more for breakfast, but can be eaten as a snack. Sambar is delicious, but OH, COCONUT CHUTNEY, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?! One of the things I enjoyed most was sampling all the different styles of coconut chutneys at different restaurants. They vary so much, but when you get a good one, WHOA.





Speaking of coconut chutney and sambar...

Dosa: This is a fermented 'crepe' of sorts, made from rice and lentils. It usually comes out paper thing and a bit crispy. There are several variations, but I usually stuck with just a plain dosa, or a masala dosa (which is stuffed with spiced potatoes). One of my go-to dishes, when I was feeling indecisive.





Parotta: A layered flat bread, eaten mostly in South India. In fact, it was impossible to find parottas once I left the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu (and wow, was I sad about THAT). Parottas are a different texture from nan, or roti, or chapatti, which are flatter and dryer... They are much softer, more moist and just delicious to eat. The dough is such that the parottas are a bit stretchy when you try to pull a piece off. Parottas were the perfect complement to any kind of gravy--veg curry, palak paneer (cheese and spinach), aloo gobi (potato and cauliflower curry), tomato fry (spicy tomatoes), dal and more.



Sheera: Unfortunately for me, I discovered this dish quite late in my trip, but I am SO glad that I discovered it at all. Sheera is a breakfast food. It comes out as a molded scoop of yellow... Looking similar to cous cous or saffron rice, but it's not exactly a grain texture. Think Cream of Wheat, or corn meal, I guess. It's sweetened with honey and coconut, flavored with cardamom saffron, and mixed in are cashews, almonds and raisins. After discovering this dish, it was almost a daily thing to hunt down a restaurant serving it.



Uttapam: Uttapam is a thick, savory pancake, with things cooked into it. My personal favorite was onion (perhaps mainly because they use red onion, and in Korea it's so hard to find red onions!). They usually come with some herbs sprinkled on top, and that famous coconut chutney and sambar! A great snack OR meal...



Curd: Fresh, unsweetened, thick, creamy, homemade yogurt. Need I say more? It's everywhere. A great thing on its own OR mixed in with curry on rice.

Indian sweets: They use a lot of milk and A LOT of sugar. That's really all I can say... Do me a favor and scroll down the page on this link to Indian Sweets, and then you might understand why I had NO idea what I was eating when I'd point to something in a glass case for all those times I was craving sugar. I had little doughnut balls, the beautifully designed orange things (PURE sugar), sweet rice pudding, little squares of fudge-like sweets (but in pistachio or cashew flavor), milk cake... And more.

A box of sweets I got in Mysore:



Gadbad, the local speciatly dessert in the Dandeli, Karnataka area:



Chai: One of my favorite things in India, because it was everywhere. Chai is a mixed spice tea made from cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and pepper that is cooked over the stove with water, milk and black tea. When I left for India, I planned to drink chai and nix coffee from my life. I did it (with the exception of a few times just for fun--and, naturally, coffee is very much a part of my life again now that I'm back in Korea). Chai ranged from tiny five rupee (US$0.10) cups to larger 25-30 rupee (US$0.50-0.60) cups in more expensive, touristy areas. Chai was in restaurants and all over the streets. You could often find a chai at a little shack on the side of a country road, that looked more like a person's house, but apparently operated ALSO as a mini chai stop. Some chai was deathly sweet, some was brought out without sugar and you could add your own (it's better with at least some sugar). Some of it was quite bland, some quite milky, and some quite spicy. My perfect cup of chai was heavier on the spices and lighter on the sugar and milk. Sometimes your cup or chai hits the spot and all feels right in the world, and sometimes it's not so much a satisfaction as it is just a running through the daily motions of life in India. One time I even had smoke-flavored chai (though, I'm not sure it was intentional), when my friends and I were in Dandeli on our jeep safari tour and had our drivers stop for chai. It was one of those little side of the road shacks and came to us tasting like smoke. Smoky chai. That was one of those going through the motions chais :)

Anise: At most restaurants, when the waiter brings you your check he brings it with a little bowl of anise seeds. Sometimes it's just the seeds, sometimes they're sugar coated in white or pastels. They're used as a digestive in India, but I just loved having the taste of black licorice in my mouth :)

Lassi: The famous Indian lassi. Who doesn't love one of these? Plain, sweet, banana, mango... They're all delectable.

There's so much more I could say (as always) about the food in India, but I'll just go ahead and leave you with this: sweet papaya, fish curry, pickled mango chutney, spicy chicken curry, cucumber yogurt salad, cumin, cardamom, anise, black pepper corns, samosas and other fried street snacks, cloves, masala (spice) flavored chips, savory banana chips with a hint of coconut flavor, coconut, coconut and more coconut, fresh pineapple, bananas galore (of the larger and smaller, mini variety), purple garlic, new fruits, lentils and chickpeas, chapatti, roti, tandoori, mango shakes...

Chikku (a very sweet fruit):


A random edible plant that was given to me one day by a shop keeper:


A typical dish all over the country (but which varies depending on region) called "thali" and generally consists of rice, curd, chapatti or roti, pappadam (crisy bread), sambar, chutney, dal, curry, pickled mango... And other things:



Well apparently food took up a lot more time and space than I'd expected (silly me, I should have known)... More "India Talk" soon!

Between Two

Back in Korea! I have so much to update on this blog about my trip through India, so expect posts and photos to pop up over the next month or so. So, I'll between my two blogs--the "Wandering Edition" and "Korea"!