3 November (Besisahar (790m) – Bahundanda (1310m)
The alarm went off at 6.00am but I was already awake. I threw back our wooden windows to let some light in and lo and behold! There were pink-tinged snowy mountains sparkling in the sunrise. Wow!!! Ordered porridge for breakfast in the belief that it would provide the best rocket fuel for the rigours ahead but found that I still don’t like it much.
It took longer than anticipated to squeeze all our gear back into our backpacks so it was 07.45 before we finally took to the road for our first steps on the Annapurna Circuit. We felt very excited as we walked through the scruffy one-street village of Besisahar. We glimpsed what appeared to be a gambling match, a man selling brilliantly coloured paint powders and a toothless old woman who grinned beatifically at me.
‘Namaste.’
That was a word we were to use a lot. The trail was a real highway. Little kids clung around us trying to sell greenish Mandarin oranges and walking sticks and repeating incessantly their litany of ‘Give me one rupee, give me school pen, give me sweet.’ Many of their elders plodded along weighed down by great bundles of straw which made them look like haystacks on legs. The path climbed upwards away from the village and led through terraces of jewel-green rice. The local women wore bright saris which stood out against the green and gold landscape to create a photographer’s paradise. Those ever-present mountains hovered tantalisingly in the background, in some places hidden by a low spur only to reappear as we rounded a bend.
The first hazard of the trail was suspension bridges. These swung high above rushing turquoise rivers studded with sharp-looking rocks. The planking in many cases appeared none too stable. I figured that if Eugene could get across without it collapsing, then I’d be pretty safe. Not all rivers were provided with a bridge. Rock hopping was mostly fun. However, one wide stream was fiercely guarded by local kids (hazard number two!) With shrieks of glee, they scampered ahead of us three or four of them shouting from different directions, ‘This way’ and pointing to different rocks, usually standing on the rock I intended to jump to. I waltzed along like Lady Muck with one tiny brown hand clinging to each of mine. I ended up with only one foot in the water. Eugene, trying to avoid the bounding brown figures yelling at him fell, splosh, straight in backwards. It would have been funny if it hadn’t looked so painful. Naturally, all our numerous ‘helpers’ demanded a fee for guiding us across the raging torrent. One older boy begged for medicine for his ‘poor leg’. I stooped to take a look and saw a festering sore. ‘Don’t touch it Sara,’ Eugene called in alarm.
We stopped for lunch at a very pretty village named Bhulbhule after the sound of its waterfall. Our restaurant consisted of one long table in a grassy garden rimmed with marigolds. We ordered dahl baht and coke. Narayan took over the kitchen to check that everyone had washed their hands. As we fell thirstily on our cokes other trekkers began to wander in. We soon had quite a group gathered round the table. There were Chris and Claire from Britain, Gerard and Gudrun, the German couple from the roof of the bus, Fiona and Paul from Australia and Beth from Houston, Texas. The latter three immediately pulled off their boots and began to dress their blisters. Other trekkers had the bright idea of doing their washing under a nearby tap and soon the garden wall was festooned with socks hanging to dry in the sun. Lunch was lengthy, relaxing and tasty.
Back on the trail we got talking to an American couple, Eric and Ingrid, and a Canadian called John. Conversations are struck up with ease and are a source of great pleasure. I felt glad we had gone ahead with our trek as soon as possible. We certainly have no shortage of companions. I still feel slightly guilty about sweet and elfin Narayan staggering along with 25 kilos. Other trekkers with porters feel the same way. I guess it’s their job but it makes one feel so colonial. I was relieved to see that porters working with organised groups have just as much if not more in their bundles.
Many locals are on the trail at present. They are walking back to their family villages to vote in the coming election. It was interesting to meet one of them whose conversation extended to far more than ‘Namaste’. We had a lengthy and interesting conversation about Nepali politics, biased towards his party, ‘The Sun Party’. At the village of Ngadi a mini band turned out to greet the returning campaigners, put a red powder tikka on their foreheads and drape garlands of marigolds around their necks.
We had one last drink stop in the village of Lampata before moving on to Bahundanda, our overnight stop. I had really enjoyed every minute of the first day’s walk. I had not found it too tiring and the people and landscapes were proving endlessly fascinating. In fact, I think this is a dream holiday. It certainly beats lying on a boring old beach and getting pissed every night!
In front of the first guest house in Bahundanda were sitting three older trekkers drinking beer in the fading sunlight. It looked very civilised.
‘Come in,’ they called. ‘The rooms are good, the beer is cold and it will be quieter here than up in the main part of the village. There are going to be big celebrations for Diwali tonight.’
So we took a look. Our room is like a cardboard box on its side but the unglazed window looks out onto a vista of darkening hills and a cascading waterfall. It will do.
After a beer, I joined the queue for the shower. This was in a shed up a dirt track. The notice scrawled in red paint on the wrought iron door promised hot water, but alas, all that came forth from the rusty tap was slightly above freezing. Taking a shower with no dry space to hang your clothes is quite a performance. In Indonesia and the like it is straightforward enough. You simply stroll down to said shower in your sarong and flip flops and hang your sarong on a nail hammered conveniently into the wall. The water is cold but the air is warm so it is the refreshing experience a shower should be. However, in the foothills of the Himalayas with the temperature dropping rapidly as darkness falls and a population who are easily offended by semi-nudity, things are more complicated. Firstly, you have to go and queue in all your clothes. You then have to struggle out of your precious Reebok trainers and leave them outside the door with a prayer that no-one will nick them while you are helpless within. All the layers of sweaters and T-shirts fall off the flimsy nail (if there is one!). Your knickers usually fall in a puddle and when you emerge shivering in your bare feet you have to perform Houdini contortions on one leg to try and dry your feet and put your socks on without putting a wet foot down in the mud. My fellow queuers were the two Austrian ladies we had met drinking beer, Claudia and Eva, and we managed by leaving the shed door open and two of us standing in front to act as both barrier and clothes horse while the third was in the shower. Nonetheless, I managed to feel almost dirtier when I came out than when I went in and my towel certainly was.
We were a lively crowd at the tea house. Along with the Austrians Claudia, Eva and Tony, there was a rather odd couple – Paul, a tall Dutch man and Irena, a much older Spanish woman. I was trying to dig out my long rusted Spanish when a familiar bald head hove into view.
‘Hey! Serge, Serge!’ Serge seemed delighted to have met us again. He was with John from the roof of the bus and a blonde English girl called Alison. Now there were three languages to cope with, four if you counted our halting attempts at Nepali.
Today was the main festival of Diwali. Cows, crows and dogs had been honoured over the previous few days and now it was the turn of brothers and sisters – tihar as this day was called in Nepali. During the evening our guest house was visited by a succession of children’s bands. They burst into the garden where we were sitting eating the remains of our meal. One little cutie played a drum shaped like a rugby ball. Another danced while his mates formed a circle around him singing, stamping and clapping. Narayan, our man of many talents, soon took over as drummer and they all sang ‘Resum piriri’ the catchy trekking song that Narayan had laboured to teach us the previous night.
Things were just getting really lively when Kemal, the kitchen boy, arrived to say that he was ready if I wanted a massage. ‘We do very nice massage’ the red painted sign on the tea house door had proclaimed. I was stiff and aching after a long day’s walk and had been in a ‘try anything once’ mood. Right now it seemed a pity to miss the singing but I didn’t want to let Kemal down. He may have been counting on my 20 rupees. He led me up a wooden ladder and into a large room with just a double bed as furnishing. Candles lit our way. He slid the bolt across and said, ‘Now you can take your clothes off.’
‘What?! No I can’t!’ a) I was freezing, b) I was in a locked candlelit room with a strange man, and c) a Nepalese girl certainly wouldn’t!
‘But I have very good medicine. Make you relax. Good for walking muscles. Not work so well with clothes.’
We compromised by me stripping to my T-shirt and putting a towel round my legs. Actually it was a very nice massage. At first Kemal kept trying to reach under my T-shirt to try and find my breasts, but seeing as that is pretty difficult, he soon gave up and concentrated on my legs instead. I don’t think it was intended to be erotic. After all, what is sexy about someone rubbing your smelly feet under someone’s sweaty armpit to try and warm your muscles?
With muscles smoothed, I negotiated the wooden ladder again to catch what remained of the festivities. The local women had arrived by now and had everyone up dancing in turn while they clapped in time to the music and roared with laughter. Of course, I was the only person who had not yet made a fool of myself, so… once a more adept performer had taken over Eugene pointed out that the troops were all waiting for me to give them some cash so I delved into my money belt, pulled out a crumpled five rupee note and danced over to the leader with it. What an amazing night! I feel really privileged to have been a part of it. Tonight was a ‘late’ one. It was ten o’clock by the time we turned in, leaving Narayan and the other porters still partying.
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