Hills again

After contemplating the options, I've decided to head back into the hills for a while - this time to what is called the "Annapurna Sanctuary". This is a walk into the heart of the Annapurna range - up to Annapurna Base Camp (or ABC as they call it here). This is the base for serious climbs of the Annapurna south face, and it is clear that it gives a whole new perspective on all the mountains around it. I'll also be calling in at Machapuchhre Base Camp.
I've decided to do this with a porter/guide on a 1:1 basis. i.e. I'm just hiring my own guide, and I seem to have found a decent fella thanks to the Irish rafters - who did the ABC trek with him very recently. His name is Tika. Having done the Annapurna circuit twice now, it seems that it would be a shame for me to leave here without seeing what else the range has to offer.
This trek will take from 7 - 10 days. I understand that internet options will be very limited there; so it will likely be a while before I can post here again.

After that my thoughts are that I will return to Kathmandu and investigate a couple of volunteering opportunities which have arisen, and generally reconsider the plans for the rest of my trip. I'm beginning to think that it is pretty much the wrong time of year to be heading further south into India and Sri Lanka. It is hot enough here!

Back to Pokhara

Well I'm back safely from the rafting trip - apart from a minor graze on the knee that is. The trip was genuinely excellent all round. Conditions were good, and the Nepali organisers did a great job. In the end we had about 16 rafters, on two rafts (plus some kayakers), with a third "cargo" raft - carrying cooking and camping materials etc. We covered about 60 km of the Kali Gandaki, and each crew managed to tip the raft a couple of times. I have to say that I didn't manage to take any action photos - because I don't have a waterproof camera, but I hope I'll be able to file a few from others in due course. In the meantime here's a pic of the rafts being prepared for launch at the start of the trip, and another of our first campsite - complete with upturned rafts (propped up with paddles) as makeshift tents. The other is of the load being transferred from one (broken down) bus to another shortly after we left Pokhara. The buses might be a bit ropey, but this was an object lesson in efficient substituting! The rest of the crew turned out to be a lot more mixed than expected. Majority reprentation this time from Ireland, USA, Canada. I still haven't met anyone else from Scotland on the entire trip by the way. Why is that?

Although we were all quite shattered when we got back to Pokhara last night, an end of trip visit to the Busy Bee turned out to be the way to finish. I'm due to meet some of them there again shortly! On a more mundane level I visited a dentist today - to have a small lump investigated. She thinks I have a "torus", which is apparently nothing to worry about. While I was there I took advantage of a bargain offer to have my teeth spring-cleaned. It seemed a fair way to celebrate 3 months without a cigar!

Rafting tomorrow

Just a quick note here to say that I'm off rafting on the Kali Gandaki for the next 3 days - leaving at 7:30 in the morning. I've enrolled on an organised trip and just met the others about an hour ago. They seem like a decent bunch - this time mostly English and Canadian I think.
I'm off now for a meal with those of the Annapurna team who are still here. Björn left this morning, and Jan and Latetitia a couple of days ago. I need to try hard not to end up in the "Busy Bee" like last night!

The team

This is the enlarged team - picture courtesy of Emilie, and taken as we departed from Kagbeni. The lodge owner (New Annapurna) gave us the "good luck" scarves two minutes earlier.

Back row: Amit (Canada), Juhani (Finland), Charles (Canada), Björn (Sweden), Me.

Front: Jan (Netherlands), Gyan (Nepal), Emilie (Canada), Laetitia (Netherlands).

Garlic soup

Well here goes, with the fulfillment of one of the aims of my trip. The garlic soup recipe. This is available everywhere in the mountain regions, and I certainly had one each day of the trek, some days more than one! Sometimes it comes as a variation such as "potato garlic soup" - or vegetable garlic or tomato garlic. These are great too. Sometimes it uses more cornflour to be thicker, but it is usually just a very simple clear soup with a good taste. It may be especially suitable for consumption in an environment where you already don't really care what you smell like.

The big variable is the amount of garlic. The suggestions range from 6 to 20 cloves per person. Let's take 8 or 9 as about right. Bash the garlic cloves and chop finely. Heat some oil (corn or soya) in a pan and chuck in the garlic, then a small handfull of cornflour. Heat this over a hot flame for a short time (a minute or less), stirring. Then pour in boiling water and continue to stir. Add pinches of red masala and white masala and a half teaspoonful of salt. and some colouring. Continue to heat for a short time and serve.

I haven't had the chance to try this myself yet, but have written the above on the basis of watching the process.

Chilling in Pokhara

The enlarged group of 8 are all now in Pokhara. Charles and Emilie arrived yesterday evening, having done more walking than any of the rest of us. They are both French Canadian and I think they enjoyed the prolonged opportunity to talk in their own language!

I'm still taking it fairly easy here. Björn and I rented a couple of kayaks this morning for an outing on the lake - but the truth is that I found the kayak a bit difficult to control and we came in after less than a couple of hours. Yesterday I had an overdue shave and a haircut. Before that some of us rented a different kind of boat (and easier to control) and went across the lake to climb up to the temple. All in all, this is a fine place to take it relatively easy for a while, with plenty good food and good weather. It does have something of a tendency to rain in the late afternoon, but I can live with that. I'm working up to a rafting trip for a few days, probably on the Kali Gandaki river.

I'll include a picture of Pokhara from the temple. Pity about the clouds in the distance: when the weather is clear there is a wonderful backdrop of Himalayan mountains there.

Others are me in the boat to the temple, and some celebrating Maoists.

Thanks to Björn for the Maoists.

Happy New Year

Today is the first day of the Nepali year 2065; which means that last night was new year's eve.

This in turn means that there were some sore heads this morning - but the main victim was Gyan, who I think was rather led astray by bad influences.

The travel update is that some of us arrived late yesterday in Pokhara (myself + Björn, Juhani from Finland and Amit from Canada). The enlarged group of 8 + Gyan left Kagbeni a few days ago for Jomsom where we had agreed to split into two groups. Our 4 +G wanted to get a jeep to speed us through some parts where there is some road-building going on. We ended up in Tatopani (and in the hot springs there) for a night before walking on to Beni and catching a local bus for the 4.5 hour ride to Pokhara (the kind with half of the passengers sitting on the roof!).

We expect to stay in Pokhara for some time and to be reuinited with the others in the next day or two before splitting again. Pokhara is a great place in my humble opinion, with a lakeside location and a fine backdrop of Himalayan peaks. I'm contemplating where to head for next but will be happy to be here for several days. Today we said our farewells to Gyan (who has done an excellent job). Tomorrow we plan to walk up to a local Hindu temple in the morning. The weather has been a bit unusual for the time of year, with lots of rain in the late afternoon (or snow in the high mountains). The locals tell us that this is either late winter rain or early monsoon rain. I guess that climate change is reaching here as much as anywhere else! The other big news here is that the election of last Thursday seems to be resulting in a real victory for the Maoists. So far we haven't seen any trouble resulting from this - only some small celabratory victory parades. The general feeling seems to be that this was a fair enough election and that it is time for some significant changes. Before I go I'll try to post a couple of pictures. One is the view from Kagbeni looking down the Kali Gandaki valley. The other a small avalanche on the Gungapurna glacier from Manang.

And some people we met on the way up. A mother who cooked for us in a lodge in Tal, and some nice kids in the same area.