Piyush’s Foreword:
On 27th of March 2017 I, with my two cousins Divesh and Nirmit, embarked upon the Ghorepani–Poon Hill trek. The four day trek, supposed to be the first leg of the famous Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) Trek, goes through valley jungles & the Nepali backcountry and scales a humongous height of some 2300 odd metres and also happens to be my first ever trek. This is a fond retelling of the same. The readers should note that this post in no way serves the purpose of being a guide to the trek in any shape or form. And since there are so many wonderful guides already on the internet explaining this trek in ample detail, I will not even write a guide. I will, however, annotate important links at the end of the blog that will provide enough information to the ones willing to go on the Ghorepani–Poon Hill Trek.
When I first threw the idea, of me going on a trek, around; there were mixed (to negative) reactions. People who know me personally, especially my family, had their doubts about whether I will return on the first day or the second one from the trek. They were, however, very sure of the fact that I will not complete it. Or complete it on a pony. You ask why?
Well, you see, I am not exactly a shining specimen of human physique; far from it actually, I am the personified antithesis of the idea. Add to that the fact that I have a recovering knee that I merrily took to trek, because who in the world gives a shit about bad knees right?!
My work, as is evident dear reader, was cut out for me! And hence the doubts that rose. But for all the naysayers of the world out there, I did believe in myself to complete the trek. Return from it half dead maybe, but complete it nonetheless. And so the plan was finalised, payments went through and reservations were made. We were going to do the ‘thing’!
But the plot goes deeper. It wasn’t only my first trek that was special on this trip. My cousins, Divesh and Nirmit, and I are thicker than thieves and the three of us have never gone on a trip together. Separately in pairs, but never together. So this was also our first “bachelors’ trip” together, a dream we were wanting to realise for long. So all in all, the trip was very special, so special that if I were a cheesy India novelist (you know you have read a few books by them, no need act like a fancy gentleman), I would have made this post so cheesy that Itialians would have raided this blog post. We don’t do that her thankfully!
Day 0 & 1:
The Trek starts from Pokhara, Nepal, which is at 900 mts above sea level and takes one up to 3200 mts above sea level, Poon Hill, and back. All on foot. We decided to do this trek because one, it’s short and we were on a time crunch and second, it is easy and can be done by novice trekkers or people not fit enough.
We arrived Pokhara a night before we were to start our Trek. And after a night of drunken debauchery, the following morning we left, in a taxi, for Nayapul, one and a half hour away from Pokhara, from where the Trek actually starts.
Now, if you have never been on a trek before, you must have a very beautiful imagination of what walking alongside rivers, jungles and mountains, feels like – given it’s the new travel fad in India and everybody these days fantasizes about going on a trek. And guaranteed, it is beautiful, but what is often forgotten is that there’s actual walking involved. Like, you have to move and shit. And if you are not an athlete or Forrest Gump, I have a news flash for you – walking is not easy! So, don’t be surprised if you find the proverbial glasses of presumptions shattering, while you try to catch a breath first 10 minutes into the trek, your shirt soaked in sweat.
I had never been to a trek before this one, so needless to say, after the initial moments of excitement, realisation set in. A few minutes into the trek and I knew what I have gotten myself into. You see, I am not really fond of walking; no doubt very soon I was huffing like a dog and sweating like a pig. But with courage in my (dumb) head, I marched along, albeit falling behind the rest of the crew every once a while, but marching along nonetheless.
I am making it all sound really awful but it’s not that bad. It’s worse. I am kidding! It’s okay as long as you don’t have a severe medical condition or walking is an unknown phenomenon to you. It’s tough, but it’s doable. It is supposed to be an easy to moderate trek after all.
All along the trek, we would take a stop, reunite and then I would eventually fall a little behind from the rest. I anyhow managed to catch up with them and we finally decided to have lunch at a lodge. One can find lodges all along this trek. These lodges serve basic amenities to the trekkers such as food, water and rooms to rest. The lodges are regulated by a cooperative society, operating in the Annapurna region, that regulates the prices of services provided by the lodges you will find along the trek, so you can expect to find almost similar prices for different services in all the lodges. I have been informed that homestays don’t get fully covered in the regulations, but don’t quote me on that.
The food you get, apart from usual Nepali fare like MoMos and Indo-Chinese food, is the Nepali staple: Dal Bhat. The Dal Bhat (Rice and tempered Lentil soup) is served alongside an optional serving of chicken curry and a subzi (often consisting of potatoes), a chutney, salad, boiled and lightly sautéed spinach and pickle. When served hot, it is a wonderful plate of food and has all the nutritions you need for Trekking. The Dal Bhat is loved so much amongst the Nepali trekking community that slogans like ‘Dal Bhat Power, Twenty Four Hours’ have been made and are frequently exchanged when different trekkers chance a meet.
We started trekking again after a long stop for lunch and It was getting more and more gruesome to walk for me. Especially then when the elevation had begun. I realised there’s something wrong in what I was doing and there must be some way to do it right or at least do it better.
See, the thing is, when you realise what you are doing is not a cake ‘walk’ (he he), your mind starts to find ways to tackle the task ahead. A non-survivalist will quit sooner or later and (in this case) hire a pony back home (pony services are easily found on this trek; talk about demotivating your guests ). And you bet your ass a dime a dozen non-survivalists come along, going by multiple failure stories told by my guide. A survivalist’s instincts kicks up on the other hand and he or she finds ways to finish the job presented before them. And as you must have gauged by now, dear reader, your’s truly is not a pussy, he is a true blue survivalist (all hail the lord Bear Grylls!) if not anything else in the world.
What I, in my short-spanning experience of trekking, found out, apart from your usual breathe from the nose advice, was that finding a rhythm when you walk on a trek is very important. What’s also important is walking continuously without stopping, even if it’s so slow that one may declare it crawling. All the porters, that are supposed to be the mountain tribe’s only supply chain, do that. Slow or fast doesn’t matter, consistency is important. All the health of the world will prove to be zilch if you lack persistence. The more you stop, the harder it is to start walking again especially if your stamina, like myself, resembles that of an eight-year-old girl. And following these two things helped manifolds.
You may be thinking how much difference those small alterations could have made? A very big one indeed. I realised that doing aforementioned makes walking a lot easier on the legs and I was also able to walk longer. It’s not about how fast or slowly you walk, it’s about how consistently you do it. Remember that!
While the first day was supposed to be the easiest, I still found it harder than anything I had ever done before. We anyhow hustled along and finally reached our first destination, Tikhedunga, by late evening. There were a bridge and a waterfall near our lodge and we clicked photographs posing as if the water from the fall was entering into our mouths. Phoney little fucks that we are!
We changed into comfortable and dry clothes. The decline in temperature was evident and we soon had to light up a bonfire and layer ourselves with warm clothes. After a simple and wholesome meal, we retired as the next day was supposed to be quiet tough and long so we were to leave early.
Day 2:
The next morning, we started at around 8 and that day, we were to climb the mammoth 3500 steps, or so the urban legends claim. I found them to be ten thousand (10,000) or so. But I wasn’t counting and was also starting to see things in two from exhaustion, so take it with a grain of salt.
I usually put up a tough exterior, dear reader, but believe me, that day I didn’t give a damn if it was evident from my face that I was voluntarily paying to die from walking too much. Although we walked through a scenic path, for the most part, one cannot deny that it was indeed the toughest day of the trek. I handed over my backpack to my guide cum porter on the second day because the climb was too much strain on the knee. It will be fair to assume that without handing him over my luggage, the climb would have been very difficult for me.
Surprisingly though, after getting a little warmed up, I put up a great show. For the majority of the trek, I walked very well. Yes, it was an effort to climb 60 degrees of incline, but the sound of the numerous small and big waterfalls and the greenery kept me charged up. And boy was it green! Walking through a valley jungle is a beautiful experience. Apart from the chirping of birds and nature doing its thing, there was a deep silence, the kind of silence that speaks.
The difference between passing by a scenic place on a car and the same on feet is remarkably stark. Former is instant noodles, latter is a simmer cooked Biriyani. There’s absolutely no comparison; or rather a comparison in which walking wins over driving-by with flying colours.
A curious little detail that I found out about though. Whenever trekkers pass along an accessible waterfall in Annapurna treks, they form a structure from rocks that is decreasing in size incrementally from bottom to top. That is, they place the biggest rock they can find on the bottom most position, then over that the second biggest rock and so on and so forth until they can balance out the smallest of rock on the top(If you have played Pittho in your childhood, you will know what I am saying). Structures of all kinds of heights were there and Divesh tried to build one for ourselves. Why the other trekkers do it, I have no fucking clue. Maybe to leave a mark or something. We just went with the flow!
People collect souviniers from the places they travel too. And while that is an admirable habit to have, for me, the souvenirs that count are all the little details one picks up while traveling. And since trekking is such a slow and steady travel experience, you pick up so many little details that stay with you that you don’t even realise you are picking up while in the act.
Sound of a distant waterfall, the ground literally floored with wilting, decolouring and dying leaves, and the reminent smell that ground has after a splash of rain from last night; the details are almost cemented in my mind.
It took us almost 10 hours to reach Ghorepani, including many brief and a few lengthy stops that we took. Ghorepani is the village base from where one takes a 200 mt. climb to Poonhill and return back. We met many foreigners on the way, some of them cute enough to claim I will not be able to make the climb (whose laughing now eh?!).
We met a German lady whose name was Charlotte and I gave her an unnecessary long lesson in Hindu theology, which clearly went over her head. I almost asked her if she were related to Hitler. I didn’t, I didn’t! I am kidding! Please excuse my weird sense of humour and my blatant racism (Does that classify as racism? comment down and tell me!).
After getting clicked on the village’s entry gate, we proceeded towards our lodge. By the time we checked into our lodge and settled into our room, my energy was effectively exhausted. It was a cosy little room and if the weather was nice, we could have satisfied our eyes with some amazing views of the annapurna range. Sadly, the weather acted like a bitch all the while we were on the trek and there were no improvements in the evening either. And since there was no sun, the hot water wasn’t available as well, as the guys in village warm up water using solar energy.
Unfortunately, I had to take a bath since we were drenched in sweat. What made the matters worse in the body odour department was that in the need for us to rush start our day as soon as possible with the trek, we didn’t take bath in the morning either. Suffice to say dead mouse may smell like a valley of flowers compared to the condition I was in.
And I swear upon you dear reader, I took the most painful bath in all my lifetime (as if they aren’t already so much painful). The water was so cold it felt like it was rotting my skin off. For the lack of visuals of me taking the bath, I will post a GIF that almost captures my agony.
We had a few pegs of rum before dinner and decided to call the night off since we were tired and the next day we were to see the sunrise and to do that we were supposed to wake up by 4 in the morning. You might have notice that shifting bed time earlier and earlier was now becoming a trend by the end of the second day, so if you want to become an early riser, you might want to jolt your body with a hard hitting trek.
Day 3 Early Morning:
What happened the following morning was nothing short of a life-altering event. It is a 200m climb from Ghorepani to Poonhill and the point at the top allows one to have the full panoramic view of the Annapurna range of the Himalayas. If trekking were intercourse, you can call the top most point of the trek the climax of it all. And the feeling is nothing short of orgasmic.
When I was climbing the final steps towards the viewpoint, my mind was confused whether to feel cold by the growling winds at the top or feel hot by the short yet gruesome climb I had been making for the past hour or so. Yet I felt nothing, except the humility that an ant feels in front of an elephant; for the mountains were so close, although blocked from the view every now and then by intermittent clouds, that one wishes to reach out and grab them.
It’s a humbling experience, knowing you have climbed up all this distance on your own while many thought you couldn’t. There’s a new found confidence in the ability of your legs, abilities you never knew existed because you probably never tested the water too far.
If you want to take away one thing from this post, take away this dear reader: the well of the human spirit is endless. If you have enough persistence and deference to keep pulling, you can pull the energy out to achieve anything you can wish for. The best motivation one can get is from oneself. Once I reached the top, I knew my life had changed. You cannot climb all the way to the top and not be philosophical about your life and reflect on it. There was new found determination in me to take on life, and unlike other travel experiences where you promise yourself things (I know you do that) and forget after the holiday blues get over, this one has stayed with me so far.
We took a million fucking photographs or so (because duh! why else one travels?). We had some tea, enjoyed the view, tried to capture it all in our memory cards and in our minds. The guide asked us to move along back to the lodge and get ready for another day of the trek, descending that day onwards.
Day 4 Late Morning:
The trek on the third day got me. We had to climb down a lot of steps. Climbing down steps, as you may or may not be aware of, is very good for the heart but very bad on the knees, and to do that with a single leg (bad knee on another one remember?) is not an easy thing to do and also not advisable if you have similar conditions. I am a mad bastard, do not do as I do! Since we took our own sweet time at the viewpoint, we already ran late as compared to other trekkers that were doing the same trek. And since declining was taking a lot of time for me, we kept getting left behind. Not that it’s a race or anything, but it’s worth mentioning.
The climb down on the third day consists of similar environment and landscape as the other two days, but the steps are quite big, many a time a foot in height. And to climb down such huge steps, I required the assistance of our guide every now and then. By the time it was afternoon, my good knee was paining like hell, and we decided to stop somewhere and have lunch. The food in our belly was a much need boost, and with the added energy, we started trekking again.
After what seemed liked eons, we reached Tadapani. We were supposed to reach Ghandruk, 2 hour hike away from Tadapani, but since we were tired, the weather was getting bad and it got late, we settled down for Tadapani itself. It was cold, and the weather worsened the chill. After retiring to our lodges, we stretched out a bit and then unanimously shifted into the dining area.
Inside the dining rooms of most of the lodges you will find in the Annapurna treks, there’s one of the many things that will be common: a metal water heater which is fueled by wood splints and leaves gathered around the lodge. The heater is a long metal column spanning the entire height of the room and leaving out into a chimney upwards. It is around a foot and a half in diameter and the fuel is fed via an opening wide enough to feed splints and manoeuvre burnt ones aside. On the column, the pipes to feed cold water and supply hot water are built in. The heater serves two purposes; one is obviously heating the water and another is heating the room it’s built in since it is made of metal and exudes heat.
Now, why am I telling you about an age old water heating system that you have no use of knowing baout? Well, the dining room where the heater is built into is a small space with minimal decorations and limited furniture. It is a fairly barebones place and is simplistic to the core. I adore such places! Such dimly lit hill-station cottages made of wood and stones. In that cosy little dining area, of a small little backcountry lodge, existing in some remote little corner of the world, I left a pece of my heart. The three of us, my cousins and I, had the most heartfelt conversations ever. The details of them are trivial, and frankly, doesn’t even qualify to be posted on a public forum, given their non-understandable nature to a stranger and the private contents of it. But the quality of those conversations was precious, to say the least!
An exhausted person is the most vulnerable one since it has been scientifically proven that one is much more likely to speak the truth when one is exhausted compared to when one is not. While that vulnerability can be exploited, and is exploited in fact, in torture rooms; the same vulnerability manifests itself into trust in the moments of camaraderie. I long for such moments of camaraderie!
Add to the tiresome bodies of ours, the cosy little environment of that dining area and the much-needed warmth that water heater provided, you get the perfect setting for opening hearts. No cell networks, no televisions and computer screens, no worldly luxuries, no inhibitions; just tired people willing to speak their hearts out. Such settings are rare! Memories of that evening still flash my mind every once a while.
That night, I slept like a baby!
Day 4:
The last morning, we woke up to a pleasant surprise, the weather started clearing off and we got to view the very special Machapuchare peak of the Annapurna range. Machapuchare is made up of two Nepalese words, Macha, meaning fish, and Puchare meaning tail; so fish-tail. The peak derives its name from the fact that it resembles the tail end of a fish and is easily one the of the most unique peaks in the Himalayas, if not the tallest.
Apart from the feast for the eyes that we got in the morning, the last day went away just like a blur. When the destination is on the eyesight, one can hardly think of anything else. We walked like maniacs the last day and to cover the lost distance, we started very early, by 6 in the morning. We finally reached the civilisation as you and I have come to know; buses honking, cars speeding by, jet black roads – organisation; and all we had in mind was to get back to our resort and get a spa treatment.
But before that, being the phoney little fucks that we are, we had to get photographed as three wise monkeys.
The details of everything after that is unnecessary since nothing much happened apart from our return. And so the four-day extravaganza (‘Chaar Din ki Chandni‘ if you may) came to an end. But every end is a start of something new, isn’t it? Well, I am hooked on the idea of hiking. I am already in the process of being capable enough to trek through difficult terrains and until then, I will take on easier treks. One thing’s for sure though, there’s no stopping this man now, oh no!
I will bid adieu now but before that hear me out! I implore you, dear reader, to leave home and experience a trek in the mountains. Not for the sake of it, not to check out an item out from your things-to-do-before-I-die list, not because it is the trend, not because you will get photographs to post on social media, but to realise the power that your legs hold and your mind holds. To not just see nature, feel it, existing around us and exist around it yourself. Trek not because you can boast about it to your friends, but because you can boast about it to the mirror. Trek because, if you may not, you will miss on one of the ultimate joys of life. Just do remember to wear a trekking shoe!
If you liked reading this blog, you must definitely comment below and tell. Contrarily, if you didn’t like it, you can use choicest of slurs. Do respond though, because it’s good for your heart (I totally made it up)!
Until next time, Namaste!