21 October 1996

Nepal - Day 45 - Trekking Day 2 - Bhandar to Sete

Map Bhandar to Sete
Hot & Sunny

I actually wasn't too stiff the next morning which surprised me and had an excellent breakfast of banana porridge again.  The lady who ran the lodge seemed to not want us to go and gave us free cups of tea.  They were a lovely family and had Damien perform on his didgeridoo again so it was 8am before we set off.

We walked just two minutes before having to sign the police register, but soon we were back into the swing of things as we gently descended for a while.

What had been torture the night before was now a pleasant walk with plasters on my blistered toes and rested limbs.  We passed some houses with beautiful flowers all around them and many cute kids who asked for, "photo" of which I was only too willing to oblige.  Many asked for "pen", "sweets", "one rupee", but didn't seem too upset when we said no.

The trail then dropped quite steeply for a while which is much harder than going up hill on the legs if not on the lungs.  Eventually we made it down to a stream which the path then roughly followed before eventually crossing to the other side where we stopped for a rest and some biscuits, meeting some French middle-aged people and some Koreans.

Once we set back off we descended until crossing a suspension bridge at 1,510m over the Likhu Khola River.. The trail followed the river going upstream for quite a away and the path only went up and down slightly, which seemed a nice change, but once across another bridge it was a steeper climb over a spur.  Here we were hindered by a very small woman and a young boy who pestered us for quite a while for pens, water, a play on the didgeridoo, sweets, sun glasses, etc etc... Eventually they fell behind us (not that we were storming along that fast) and we reached the nice little village of Kenja where it was time to take the boots off and have dal-baht at the New Everest Hotel.  The food was excellent and the people very friendly.

After lunch we had a very steep climb up the next hill.  It was very hot and I sweated like a pig.  It seemed to take us for ages.  The guide book said it would level off slightly as we ascended, but that was hardly noticeable.  Hard as the climb was it was still enjoyable.

Eventually we entered the clouds and when you stopped it became much cooler.  Just after 5pm we finally got to Sete and chose the first lodge, which was run by two young lads from Jiri.  When we later got talking to them, we learnt that they stayed up here year round and paid Rs3500 per month rent to their landlord.

They were friendly chaps and excellent cooks.  Along with Damien, Gump, Robin and me, there was another English guy at the lodge from South London.;  I stayed up for a while talking to him, but it wasn't long before I needed my bed too.

Damian who I was sharing the small room with was already fast asleep.

No comments:

Post a Comment