Annapurna Circuit, Nepal – 5: A Life Less Lived?

On April 1, 2018 By Mick CanningIn challenges, holidays, journeys, travel, walking28 Comments

It could have happened.

Everybody needs a challenge.

198a

Sunset on Everest and Nuptse from Tengboche, Nepal.

Well, most do. I guess there are a few people who are so content with their lot they have no wish to stray out of the round of their day to day life, but I think they must make up a tiny minority.

And while it is a great achievement to be satisfied with your life, and not to constantly want a more expensive car, or clothes or jewellery, we all need something to strive for, otherwise we tend to stagnate.

Even the most altruistic, who might strive to eradicate poverty, or bring justice where there is none, need a more personal challenge sometimes.

For some it might be speed – the need to have a go on a fast motor cycle or racing car somewhere. Maybe to try a bungee jump. To feel the adrenaline surge that comes with the mixture of excitement and fear.

shakira

On Lake Dal, Srinagar, Kashmir, India.

For others it might be the very opposite. Many of us need the opportunity to spend time away from the 21st century. Those of us who do not like the noise and speed and intensity of our modern life, need to find respite in places like the mountains, or deserts, or somewhere else remote from modern life. Woodlands at night, perhaps, or a windswept beach on an island. The challenge is frequently to find these places or to access them. Perhaps even to make the time to do so.

Monks on their way to morning Puja, Bodhgaya, India.

Those are the sort of places I need, and where I often feel I can do my best creative work. The only places I feel I can really relax.

And the reason I had to walk the Annapurna Circuit.

Just while putting together this set of posts, at times I have looked around the room at the photographs of the Annapurnas, the maps, then at my rucksack in the corner, and felt an almost irresistible urge to just…go.

This sense of adventure is frequently in conflict with the other strands of my life, though, because (like most people) my lack of money and the demands of work and family, and other commitments, prevent me just scooting off for a week or month away whenever I feel like it.

105

A track through fields and woods a mile or so from where I live.

But I have always tried to take the opportunity to go off to these places when I could, as I reasoned that I couldn’t know how long I would still be able to.

What made me determined to do this was a missed opportunity when I was working temporarily in Peru. I knew that when I finished my six week stint and returned to UK, I might no longer have a job. So when I was offered the chance to stay on for a week to visit Cuzco and Machu Pichu with friends I declined, even though it would only have cost about a hundred dollars for the whole trip. And I regretted it ever afterwards.

179

Little Adam’s Peak, Ella, Sri Lanka.

I have no intention of looking back on my life later and wishing I had done these things when I had the opportunity.

Annapurna Circuit, Nepal – 4

On March 27, 2018 By Mick CanningIn Annapurna, Himalaya, mountains, Nepal, travel40 Comments

Part Four – from 30 years ago.

On the western side of Thorung La, the climate is much drier and in places the scenery is very much that of a desert landscape.

As you descend, though, you soon come across settled areas where meltwater from the snows and glaciers higher up enable vegetation to grow.

Mani stones plus a fine set of argali horns on top of a wall in Kagbeni. The argali are the wild sheep of the Himalaya.

In Tukuche, at 2590m – less than half the altitude of Thorung la, which we had crossed just two days before.

It was in places like this, that we really felt we could be in another century. Buildings of stone and beautifully carved wood, ponies for transport, no wheeled vehicles, and the two fellows to the right of the picture are busy crushing lengths of bamboo to a fibrous pulp, ready to make into paper.

It was in places like these, actually, that I felt I could just leave the world behind and spend the rest of my life. Yes, totally impractical, I know, but…

We came for the high peaks, but the mountains lower down have a breathtaking beauty of their own.

Sunrise on Poon Hill is a treat most trekkers ensure they don’t miss. Unrivalled mountain views, and in the spring the massed flowers of the rhododendron forests.

Ah, yes. Did I just mention the rhododendron forests?

Photos just don’t seem to do them justice.

And then a few days later it was over, and we were back in Kathmandu…

…and that is a different kind of wonderful…

Annapurna Circuit, Nepal – 2

On March 20, 2018 By Mick CanningIn Annapurna, Himalaya, mountains, Nepal, travel46 Comments

We followed the Marsayandi River for most of the first half of the trek, from the second or third day until we left it at Manang to head for the high pass – Thorung La. More about that next time, though. Not much chat on this post, I’ll let the photos do the talking.

On a technical note, I have slightly boosted the yellows on some of these photographs, as this is the main colour that age seems to have leeched out. Unfortunately I can’t do much about those photos that are slightly out of focus (I blame my poor eyesight) or the scratches and other blemishes that show up here and there. It was quite difficult to keep dust and grit out of the camera, and back in those days we used, well, you know, film. Film doesn’t like dust and grit, especially when you wind it on.

school

We passed a school…

And a pony train returning empty from the mountains to pick up more goods…

After leaving Bahundanda…

…we began passing high waterfalls. This one was just outside Sattale.

In Sattale, where we camped on our sixth night.

In Chame, we passed this beautifully carved mani stone. Chame sits at an altitude of 2670 metres, and the following day we were climbing steeply up to Pisang, at 3300 metres, and now we began to see the Big Stuff (this is a technical term, of course).

The Big Stuff, although there was plenty more Much Bigger Stuff to come.

And at Pisang we spent Night Nine of the trek.

Carved and painted window in a house at Pisang.

Large Prayer Wheel at Pisang.

Pisang Village.

Annapurna Circuit, Nepal -1

On March 17, 2018 By Mick CanningIn Annapurna, Himalaya, mountains, Nepal, travel39 Comments

In 1988 – thirty years ago! – I walked the Annapurna Circuit. This has long been regarded as one of the top ten walks in the world, and is certainly the walk I have enjoyed most. I put up a post about the circuit a year and a half ago (here) should you wish to read it, but as a celebration of that anniversary, I thought I would put up some more photographs over several posts.

Today, they are all from our second day’s walk.

We camped the whole way, since there was virtually no accommodation on the route then. It was sometimes possible to sleep on the floor of a tea-house, but that usually meant an uncomfortable night in a very smoky atmosphere, and probably not a great deal warmer than a tent. It meant we were travelling with four guides, a couple of cooks, a couple of ‘kitchen boys’, and an average of fifteen to twenty porters (every so often one or two would leave, and others get hired from a village we were passing through).

We began our walk from Gorkha, walking through the Terai – the sub-tropical forest region that stretches across most of Southern Nepal and much of the Himalayan Foothills of Northern India. This was a land of small rural villages, terraced fields carved painstakingly out of the hillsides, and, naturally, wooded hillsides.

Much of the woodland had already gone, cut both as clearance for fields and for fuel and fodder. It was already leading to much soil erosion and the degradation of the remaining soils. With the passage of thirty years, this can only have got worse.

On day 2 we walked from our campsite beside the Dharandi Khola to the settlement of Chepe Ghat.

Transport in these areas was entirely by foot, usually in the form of porters who carried massive loads upon their backs. Occasionally by pony, or by bullock, but never by yak – they do not survive at these comparatively low altitudes. In 1988, walking the Annapurna Circuit was entirely on tracks and paths, since there were no roads of any description on our route. Today, there are motorable roads along part of it, but back then we did not see or hear a motorised vehicle for the duration of the trek.

Building materials in these areas were, and predominantly still are, wood, thatch, and mud. Stone was used only in larger settlements.

The boy pictured above, incidentally, will now be in his late thirties.

Wooded hillsides, with the terraced fields belonging to a nearby village encroaching.

Rice paddy – terraced fields flooded for the planting of rice, the staple crop of the Nepal Lowlands.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: