Map Numtala to Khari Khola
Cloudy
The Pesky Czechs were making a right old racket early in the morning, but they set off before we'd even finished breakfast. We aimed for 8am and actually got out of town by 8:30am - not too bad for our group.
Robin and I witnessed the town stud get his lady - cattle that is. The female's neck had been put in a Y-shaped bit of wood and held there while the bull was led up behind. It was all over in five seconds and she didn't seem too impressed...
The first half of the day was downhill and the going wasn't too bad most of the way with just a few very steep bit, but we were slowed by Damian's knee which was still bad. Many of the houses were pretty with marigolds all around.
Gump, Paul & I had a good conversation about computers which looking back seems a strange conversation, considering our surroundings.
Near the lower part of our day's trek, we had a quick cup of tea, but there were lots of flies around so we quickly continued on crossing the Dudh Kosi (Milk River) at our lowest point on the walk at 1,500m, 350m below our starting point at Jiri, making our earlier climb up to 3,530m seem a bit of a waste.
[You will see we were a bit obsessed with the altitude we were at. Of course it was important to know for safety's sake, but also it was very exciting and would get scary later]
This was the end of the eastwards part of the trek, which now turned north and into the Dudh Kosi Valley. We'd seen some peaks further up the valley all day and now really felt we were getting close to the big mountains.
You crossed the river on a suspension bridge and below you could see the old bridge which had been washed away in a flood. It must have been quite a flood at the moorings were well above the river's current level and we could sense we were entering Mother Nature's realm with all her awesome power now.
It was about half an hour trip up to a beautiful tea-house for lunch in the village of Jubling at 1,680m and the five of us and Michael enjoyed veg-fried-rice although it took a while to come.
Damian hired a young guy to porter his back-pack to ease the stain on his knee, while I was getting used to carry the didgeridoo by now, and we continued up the hill which was pretty steep and hard work in the humid weather.
Eventually we rounded a corner and the village of Khari Khola lay before us. We decided to stop at this view point and use Paul's camping burner he'd been carrying and not had chance to use to make a cup of tea and eat chocolate cake we had bought a bit lower down.
It was a lovely spot and I reflected how lucky I had been to meet up with a great bunch of people to share this adventure. We were joing by two excellent little lads who seemed fascinated by us preparing tea as we were. It was still early as this was an easy day's hike, so we sat around for quite a while, enjoying where we were and drinking our tea which we'd made was a bit rubbish being far too strong, but was too minor a thing to ruin the good mood.
As Paul, Robin & I who were in the lead walked the last stretch into town we were confronted by a group of eight young kids singing and dancing in Nepali. They were super and Robin taped them on his Dictaphone and we danced along with them. One lad, the boldest, was really an excellent dancer and another girl had a powerful voice - you could tell she would be a firey character when she grows up.
We stayed the night in the Tashi Delek Lodge in Khari Khola at 2,070m. We thought we had lost the Pesky Czechs and the Crazy Koreans as they had gone on ahead. Instead we shared the lodge with a couple who live in Devon, but who had met in Hong Kong. She is Hong Kong Chinese and they were both very pleasant if slightly mad. They provided an entertaining evening.
The first half of the day was downhill and the going wasn't too bad most of the way with just a few very steep bit, but we were slowed by Damian's knee which was still bad. Many of the houses were pretty with marigolds all around.
Gump, Paul & I had a good conversation about computers which looking back seems a strange conversation, considering our surroundings.
Near the lower part of our day's trek, we had a quick cup of tea, but there were lots of flies around so we quickly continued on crossing the Dudh Kosi (Milk River) at our lowest point on the walk at 1,500m, 350m below our starting point at Jiri, making our earlier climb up to 3,530m seem a bit of a waste.
[You will see we were a bit obsessed with the altitude we were at. Of course it was important to know for safety's sake, but also it was very exciting and would get scary later]
This was the end of the eastwards part of the trek, which now turned north and into the Dudh Kosi Valley. We'd seen some peaks further up the valley all day and now really felt we were getting close to the big mountains.
You crossed the river on a suspension bridge and below you could see the old bridge which had been washed away in a flood. It must have been quite a flood at the moorings were well above the river's current level and we could sense we were entering Mother Nature's realm with all her awesome power now.
It was about half an hour trip up to a beautiful tea-house for lunch in the village of Jubling at 1,680m and the five of us and Michael enjoyed veg-fried-rice although it took a while to come.
Damian hired a young guy to porter his back-pack to ease the stain on his knee, while I was getting used to carry the didgeridoo by now, and we continued up the hill which was pretty steep and hard work in the humid weather.
Eventually we rounded a corner and the village of Khari Khola lay before us. We decided to stop at this view point and use Paul's camping burner he'd been carrying and not had chance to use to make a cup of tea and eat chocolate cake we had bought a bit lower down.
It was a lovely spot and I reflected how lucky I had been to meet up with a great bunch of people to share this adventure. We were joing by two excellent little lads who seemed fascinated by us preparing tea as we were. It was still early as this was an easy day's hike, so we sat around for quite a while, enjoying where we were and drinking our tea which we'd made was a bit rubbish being far too strong, but was too minor a thing to ruin the good mood.
As Paul, Robin & I who were in the lead walked the last stretch into town we were confronted by a group of eight young kids singing and dancing in Nepali. They were super and Robin taped them on his Dictaphone and we danced along with them. One lad, the boldest, was really an excellent dancer and another girl had a powerful voice - you could tell she would be a firey character when she grows up.
We stayed the night in the Tashi Delek Lodge in Khari Khola at 2,070m. We thought we had lost the Pesky Czechs and the Crazy Koreans as they had gone on ahead. Instead we shared the lodge with a couple who live in Devon, but who had met in Hong Kong. She is Hong Kong Chinese and they were both very pleasant if slightly mad. They provided an entertaining evening.
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