Nepali flat

After being turned back from our initial destination of the A.B.C. (Annapurna Base Camp) due to five feet of snow, I was feeling a little disappointment, but perhaps bit more frustration; it was a little hard to believe that snow was the reason, given we hadn't seen so much as a snowflake in our four days of trekking and during the day we were sweating and walking along in short-sleeves. But I suppose that means I was asking for it, because during our stay in Gandruk, we were plastered by a mighty hailstorm. So mighty, in fact, that the cold front blanketed most of the country, and for the first time in 63 years, a thin layer of snow covered the streets of Kathmandu.

We didn't see that, of course, as we were dozens of kilometres away in the northern mountains, but word spread like wildfire about the freak weather in the city. Conversations abounded and the weather was on everyone's tongues. In fact, it was so extraordinary that people stopped talking about politics for at least a day.

I'm certainly no expert about the political situation in Nepal, but in the days to follow we would come to learn much about the current state of affairs in the country, and just how frustrating it must be for the people that live in Nepal. By way of setting the stage, Nepal is home to some sixty-three separate ethnic groups, each with their own language, culture, and specific interests. The government in Nepal is viewed with unified distrust and contempt, owing to the high level of corruption and scandal. There is a royal family in Nepal, but a couple of years ago the prince took a machine-gun and slaughtered them, in a Hamlet-style bloodbath that rocked the country to its core. The line of succession was maintained, with a relative of the king assuming the throne, but given the high popularity of the former monarch, he's got very big shoes to fill.

Nepal occupies a piece of shaky terrain between two world powers: India and China. The only thing separating these two countries is the Himalaya mountain range. It's very difficult to ship goods in from China over the mountains (there are only a few mountain passes for road traffic, and they're subject to weather) so the majority of trade is done with India, to the south. However, Nepal is on the short end of the trading stick, having to import the large majority of its consumer goods from India, including its main import, petrol. There are no oil wells in Nepal, at least not yet, so if Nepal wants its gas, it has to come calling to India. And when India wants something from Nepal, it only has to hold its export contracts hostage.

And right now, one of the things that India (an officially all-Hindu country) wants, is some autonomy for citizens in the southern Nepal region known as the Tarai. These folks emigrated northwards from India, intermingled with the Nepali locals, and brought much of the local economy with them (ie., buying or building factories to make goods that are shipped back to India, all at a lower cost because the Nepali rupee has a much lower value than the Indian rupee). They have never been considered Nepali citizens, which is obviously a bit disconcerting for them, and they've been tending to riots lately to force the issue. They've also set up roadblocks on the small number of arterial roads leading to Kathmandu, blocking the flow of petrol from India. This tends to get their voices heard. Citizenship has now been made available to a wide variety of traditionally non-Nepali ethnic groups, in addition to the Tarai (one of the interesting things we would see during our trek was large picnics organized by small communities to help people fill out the paperwork). Even with this major concession by the government, riots, rotating strikes and roadblocks still continued while we were there, not just by one group but by many. People have figured out that the government is pretty much powerless to do anything but give in, and so many different groups are vying for local power, or at least, the appearance of doing something for their communities so they can gain support for the upcoming election.

The government is caught in a very difficult position; while it seems they'd love to send in the troops to restore law and order, dozens of human rights groups, and more importantly, international donors, are looking over their shoulder to make sure they treat everyone in a humane fashion. In a previous riot, force was used, and some Tarai citizens were injured and killed; the government was forced to pay large sums to their families.

So, the election, then. This is another hot-button issue that was on everyone's lips while we were there. If you read or watched anything about Nepal in the last couple of years, it was about the civil unrest brought about in the country by a political group inspired by Chairman Mao of China (hence, the Maoists). These folks have figured out that their government isn't really doing much for them, so why not have a revolution, Les Miserables style. Their guerilla fighters essentially hung out in the mountains and made life miserable for the government, gaining local support. They made life a bit miserable for trekking tourists as well, setting up "checkpoints" on popular trekking routes and asking tourists for "donations." The donations even came with a tax receipt, but one might consider a certain level of duress on the donations, as they were being asked for by men carrying assault rifles. So, after a lot of unrest, a truce of sorts has been reached between the Maoists and the government, with the government conceding a place for the Maoists in the political system. In the ensuing national election, the Maoists won a referendum, to the considerable chagrin of the then-ruling government. There were challenges; the king tried to get involved; there was much strife. In the end, the high court has decreed that a new election should be conducted, and everyone is still hammering out the rules for how this will happen.

Thus, it's a bit complicated. And by no mean should you consider the preceding to be an authoritative representation of how things actually came to be in Nepal: I've cobbled this together from many a discussion held in varying levels of English with Bhakta and several other people we met during our trek.

So how does this have anything to do with us, tourist trekkers in Nepal? Well the Maoists do still put up checkpoints, but they're more rare these days; they've officially stated that they now welcome tourists to Nepal, recognizing that tourism is a major source of cash for the country. But perhaps the biggest change for tourism in Nepal is the development of the road.

Recognizing the trade imbalance with India, Nepal has stretched its international relations as far as they will go and taken their development dollars to invest in a road that will link Kathmandu with China. The road, unfortunately, will be built over existing trekking routes, which makes sense as the trekking routes are pretty much the most direct points between A and B. So in five years, the trek we're currently doing will be gone, replaced by a road. Local economies - the trekking lodges - will fold up.

But, I digress. Hail in Gandruk, that's where I was starting this dispatch.

There wasn't a sunrise for our first morning in Gandruk; it was overcast. Since we'd scheduled in a rest day, we went back to bed. Luxury! When we did finally get up and have some breakfast, Bhakta took us for a walk through the town of 270 inhabitants. Gandruk, the original home of the Gurung peoples, is a Buddhist town; Bhakta as well, is Buddhist. However, people have moved away to the east of Kathmandu to practice a different, less-expensive religion. As religions go, Buddhism (at least, the type practised in Gandruk) is apparently quite expensive: by way of example, Bhakta mentioned that if a family member dies, the family is expected to hold a large ceremony complete with meals for the entire community. And I'll bet it's the same with weddings and births, as well.

The actual town of Gandruk has no real structure or organization to it: there are no street signs. The majority of the buildings are single-family, single-level dwellings, made from stone and mud with thatched rooves. When you're looking at a building with multiple levels, you're looking at a trekking lodge. You have this constant feeling of walking through someone's back yard as you ascend small stone staircases, head down back alleys, and walk alongside farming paddocks. Without a guide, we would have been lost.

When we came back, we had enough time to do some laundry before the heavens opened up and nickel-sized ice pellets started landing. It lasted for quite some time. Not quite conducive for laundry drying. It was very much an indoors day. For dinner, we discovered momos - kind of a dumpling-styled steamed spring roll - and why these haven't caught on internationally, I don't know. They're heavenly.

The next day, the hail has melted away and the weather has returned to normal; we head a little bit back the way we came to go towards Ghorepani, where we will link up with the most popular trek in Nepal, the Jomsom trek, so-named because it links Pokhara with Jomsom. It's actually the western circuit of the larger "Annapurna circuit" trek, which carves a circle around the entire Annapurna Sanctuary range and takes between sixteen and twenty-one days to complete, depending on how you do it. It's hallmarked by the legendary Throng La Pass, the highest walking pass in the world, routinely covered by snow drifts and usually quite difficult to cross. We wouldn't be going that way, owing to our less-than-winter proof clothing and gear.

As we walk towards Ghorepani, we do a fair amount of uralo-janni and ucalo-janni - climbing down, and climbing up. I'm struck by the farming terraces cut into the mountains. Essentially, if it's arable land, the Nepali people have cut terraces into it and cultivated it. They don't grow it all at once, rather, they use quite a smart system of rotating crops, allowing some terraces to go fallow while other bear produce. As the climate changes dramatically the further you ascend, one mountain side can produce an incredible variety of produce.

One of many Nepali children we passed on the route.

The trekking routes themselves range from stone pathways, created from huge eight-foot by two-foot blocks of stone, to muddy paths. The more impressive examples of road, we learn, are built and maintained by local community groups. In some places, you have to do some careful sidestepping, between waterlogged muck and animal droppings. There are some places you really want to have good balance, because a slip would be either dangerous or particularly disgusting.

As we progress along the trail, we encounter another small trekking party, Willem and Jolanda from the Netherlands, and their guide. We find ourselves walking the same direction, so we take turns passing each other during breaks, walking alongside having conversations, and dining and sleeping at the same lodges. We teach each other some card games and have a generally great time. We break up our trek to Ghorepani at Bhantanti, a very small (ie., five or six houses) trekking junction set in the base of a gorge, but tomorrow, it's a lot of climbing to the peak of a tall hill, then some downhill to Ghorepani.

The big attraction at Ghorepani is Poon Hill, where a five-o'clock ascent up the hill brings you to the highest point in the area, at 3210m and you are (hopefully) treated to a spectacular panoramic sunrise vista. If you didn't start the trek from Phedi, but Naya Pul, then this is the destination after two days of trekking, and you don't even see the mountains until Ghorepani. We met some other trekkers for whom this was the case: in addition, they had terrible weather (they trekked through the hail). So by the time they got to Ghorepani, they were very much looking forward to something to make all their travails worthwhile.

The trekking route to Ghorepani takes us through a fair amount of very packy snow, the kind that's perfect for building snow men. To provide some humour to our small band of trekkers I elect to slip no less than three times on the packed snow, as if to prove the point that my shoes aren't going to be taking me over the Throng La Pass. But we do arrive at Ghorepani, where the small (thirty buildings) town is in the midst of nice sunny thaw, and there is a fair amount of dancing as we have to jump from stone to stone to avoid the pools of water and slushy snow.

Despite the fact that everyone that has settled into the Mountain View Lodge knows that they're going to be getting up at five o'clock the next morning, the night actually goes quite late. We met a large group of Norwegians, who let their hair down and dance with the Nepalis; an Israeli girl named Tamar (whose name is surprisingly difficult to pronounce) who's just out of her military service and travelling on her own; and several Brits. Some have already seen Poon Hill and are on their way out, but for most of us, we're here for the sunrise, and it's not until quite late that everyone turns in. I should note that Padam is one hell of a musician, singer and dancer; his skills as a porter are clearly secondary to his other abilities. In short, he's fun at parties and I really wish I could speak more Nepali. He's generally just fun to have around, too; while we walk, he often sings some Nepali dirges (at least, that's what they sound like to me), and is able to make loud, high-pitched notes by blow a leaf held tightly in-between his thumbs, where he plays the same song.

The next morning, we're up by five-thirty for the walk up the hill: it's tricky in the darkness but there are no injuries, and we arrive to a dusty grey pre-dawn sky. There's an observation tower on top of the hill, giving one a spectacular vista view, and it is pretty good, except there is some cloud cover. In forty-five minutes the show is over as the sun makes its appearance over the mountain range, and eventually everyone trickles away. It's back down the hill for breakfast, and afterwards everyone goes their separate ways.

We head north towards the Jomsom trek and stop in Shike, on the way to the hot springs of Tatopani. The sky has been threatening rain all day and it does rain just after we arrive, fortunately for us. Germans at the hotel have been ruminating whether to go on to Tatopani, but as the rains come and go intermittently they decide to stick around and drink instead. Thirteen bottles later and I'm not sure what effect has been had on them. Amy and I play cards with Bhakta and Padam, losing fantastically at Dal Mara, but I think we're getting the hang of it.

We head on to Tatopani the next morning: it's a big descent almost all the way and there are some big suspension bridges to cross. Today we're not lucky enough to escape the rain, so we pull out the rain covers. As if to prove my theory about wards, it doesn't get any more rainy than a constant spitting. After a descent down knee-jarring stone steps that feels like a thousand metres, we come to the next suspension bridge only to find out it's been put off limits due to the road construction. This is why having a guide is so handy, as Bhakta just turns around and takes us down to the river to walk beside it for some time. It's a different kind of trekking, as there's little to no difference in elevation, and I find it's actually a bit more tiring as you can keep a constant pace that's perhaps faster than normal. As we walk, we pass fantastic vegetation: contrary to what our guidebooks have mentioned, Rhododendrums are still in bloom, a brilliant scarlet red flower that puffs over deep green foliage. They're definitely hitting the end of their season, but they're still pretty impressive. Bamboo trees the size of small office buildings loom on either side of the trekking paths, their shoots careening into the sky and bending in graceful rainbow arcs. Bhakta tells us that these plants grow extremely quickly, benefiting from annual harvesting.

We pass an odd stream on the way to Tatopani: there's a silvery sludge on the sides that I hope is sand, but it's really sludge. Ick. However there's a girl nearby selling oranges for a ridiculously low price, and they're absolutely fantastic. The recent snows have felled some orange trees, so there's a glut on the market. Good for the consumer.

A hedge plant in Tatopani. Prickly.

We finally arrive in Tatopani, a larger village than we're used to and it's clearly a bit more well-off due to the tourist influx for the hot springs. These are volcanic hot springs that are naturally quite hot and they don't stink of sulfur. Our lodge, the Namaste lodge, is well-run and the staff are friendly, and it turns out to be a nice place to have a rest day. We take to the hot springs the next morning and they're lovely; we meet an Australian living in Zurich and a five-person group containing two Quebeckers that have taken the long way around, over the Throng La pass, en route to Pokhara. We hang out a bit more at the hotel, take a walk to see an archery practice in preparation for an upcoming festival, as well as a cremation funeral held at the side of the river. We manage to get back before it rains, again.

By the time we're ready to move on from Tatopani, we've met a half-dozen new friends. We meet several women travelling on their own, who have decided to travel together: Beranice, a young woman from Toulouse, France; Monica, from Poland, and Josie from Morocco. While hanging around on our second day, we also meet Fred and Jasmin, two more lovely French Swiss that we seem to instantly get along with. I'm not sure what it is exactly about French Switzerland that produces such warm and charming people, but I'm all for it; my suspicions are that once removed from a somewhat conservative environment, they're partially starved for meeting new people. Anyway, they're on their way to Vietnam and southeast Asia and also don't speak much English. I marvel on how difficult this is going to be for them (I marvelled previously about this for Julien and Stépanie), but really, I guess we had the same problem in Portugal. It is indeed an adventure and when it works, quite rewarding.

I almost moved on from writing about Tatopani without writing about the feature which gives the town its name (Tatopani means "hot water") - the hot springs. The pool itself is quite large (at least thirty feet square, or less than ten metres) and has hot water poured into it. The water is then drained out with three small openings, with which you can take a hot shower. When we arrived in the morning, a massive layer of steam was being produced from the water, giving quite an other-worldly feel as we sunk our aching joints into the hot water. It was definitely worth the forty cents' admission.

After being thoroughly relaxed in Tatopani, it's onward, heading northwards, towards Ghasa. It's a fairly leisurely stroll and from what I recall, unnoteworthy. Ghasa itself is a pit stop and the hotel we stay at is one of two so-so ones. They don't have much of what they promote on the menu - we have french fries as a snack instead of one of the Jomsom trail's famous apple pies - but in the evening, the entertainment was supplied by the Canadians. We managed to track down some extra decks of cards, and finally are able to teach Bhakta and Padam a game I hope will sweep the nation; Racing Demon comes to Nepal.

Racing Demon is something of a family tradition on my mother's side and the source of many a raucously fun moment during my childhood. When we stayed with Mary Gordon-Cumming in the French Alps, a call had to be placed back to Canada for some rules clarifications from my mum. For those who haven't played: if you've played Solitaire (a.k.a. Patience), you'd understand Racing Demon. Imagine playing it competitively, and the more players, the better: the level of chaos increases exponentially. It's slow going at first (poor Bhakta and Padam would be absolutely smashed by Mary Gordon-Cumming, who shows no mercy), but as our trek progressed, these two card sharks would prove to catch on fast.

The next early morning we're on the road again, leaving Ghasa for Tukche. This time we have a recommendation for a place to stay: the Tukche Guest House. The trek between these two settlements is relatively uneventful, except for two exceptions. The first has to do with the road, and the second has to do with coffee.

The trekking route outside of Tatopani.

Where a year ago, we would have been walking on a path no wider than required for two donkeys to pass each other, now we found ourselves walking on newly-finished road sections, wide enough for two buses. These aren't finished roads; they're little more than earth and gravel, but they're buttressed on the sides with stone. More accurately, "boxes" of stone where the box is made out of heavy-gauge wire. The construction of the road is managed by the Army, and the actual work has been tendered out to local construction teams. Some teams are more efficient, or the work is more easy, in some places than in others; thus, we find ourselves walking on road here, and in other places, they're still chopping away at the mountainside.

I bring all this up because for the first time in the trek, we're sharing the road with motorcycles, which are a very new phenomenon in this area, and unlike Kathmandu and India, these drivers don't tend to use their horn every chance they get. Rather, you barely have time to bounce out of the way before it comes screaming past. The motorcyclists have started a good business in ferrying trekkers from Jomsom to Ghasa (or vice versa) either because they've been stranded, injured, or are just tired of walking.

And the second, to do with coffee: we have a tea break in a very small town called Dana, where I have perhaps the best coffee I have had since leaving Europe. On being presented with a tall glass of frothy coffee, I imagined for a moment that I was in a Spanish café; it looked very out of place, and I had to wonder if the Nepali who owned this lodge-slash-tea house had a very expensive Lily espresso machine in there. It was marvellous coffee - so marvellous I had to find out how the heck he made it. His presentation to me provided a wonderful example of how Nepalis can do so much with very little. In fact, rather than shelling out what would have been a small fortune for an expensive coffee machine, his method was to pour boiling water over instant coffee and a little sugar, seal it with another container and shake it like a martini until it was nice and frothy. Some café owners in France could learn a lot from this guy.

Arriving at the Tukche Guest House, the place indeed lives up to the recommendation, with a particularly fantastic view from the roof. The owner, Saumer and his wife are lovely and take very good care of us. We arrive a little later than we're used to, and as a result are hungrier than usual, but we're lucky that lunch was already well-started. Lunch is pretty much always Dal Bhat, the national dish of Nepal: steamed rice, and a lentil curry. Usually it's accompanied by one or two other curries, and just as you think you'd start to get sick of the same old thing again and again, you find that it's different from town to town. The dal bhat in Tukche is very nice - but then, the thing that usually makes dal bhat very popular, is that it's customary to get as much rice and dal as you like.

With regular power cuts from the grid, the people of Nepal have come to learn a lot about alternate forms of energy cultivation, and the Guest House is a good example, with a firm investment in solar panels meeting most of the energy needs of the house, as well as heating the water. As the sun sets we set ourselves up in the rooftop solarium for dinner and Racing Demon. Dinner consists of some very good momos.

Our destination the next day is Jomsom, where we'll confirm our flight back to Pokhara before heading onwards (and upwards) towards Muktinath. The walk is much more level than we've experienced so far, mostly because the path has been transformed into the road. We encounter on more than one occasion several work gangs, hacking away at the side of the road with pick axes and shovels, and work would sometimes come to a halt as the workers watched us pass.

While we've heard lovely things about Marpha, a settlement renowned for its apples, apple pies, apple cider, apple brandy (basically, all things apple), unfortunately we pass through at about seven-thirty in the morning, and only the cows and chickens are awake. We decide against hanging around for an hour and a half to have a brandy tasting at nine o'clock in the morning and choose instead to push on.

As the day winds on, we find people playing cards and generally having more fun than usual; turns out today is "Holi," a Hindu religious holiday. The highlight of this holiday is for people to walk around with bags of brightly coloured chalk and paste each other with the stuff. Apparently, in Kathmandu it's a heck of a street party, that very usually gets out of control as all forms of social barriers are removed. We meet some kids that very kindly offer to smear holi on us, which we graciously allow. We're celebrities. Bhakta isn't too keen on the idea (he's Buddhist, so he doesn't really follow the celebration) but I give him a good pasting.

Our new colouring has the effect of driving the kids (and to some extent, the adults) we pass on the trekking route, absolutely wild with giddiness. I'm reminded of my sooty christening in Rishikesh. When someone invites you to be a part of the local culture, I've found it's an honour.

On the other side of Marpha the landscape changes dramatically as craggy hills turn into small mountains, and we climb up the side of one to leave the Myagdi district we've been walking through, and enter into the Lower Mustang district. At the border we encounter the home of a family selling music in their shop, and as usual, the kids go nuts that we've been pasted with holi. We have some great fun chasing them around to spread the joy.

Since we've long since run out of things to talk about, Bhakta has been teaching us Nepali, and it's coming along: we can count to twenty, comment on the food, know some very essential words and the difference between up and down. We're still working on telling the time.

We walk alongside a winding trail en route to Jomsom, heading at times up and down, until eventually the path empties into a wide, desolate, empty river basin, flanked on both sides by towering mountains. The basin is filled with stone, and two small creeks of water that meander from side to side. Outside of monsoon season, the channels of water are spartan, and apparently they change their course capriciously. One season the rivers follow the left side of the basin, another year, they follow the right. Donkey trains are quite regular as we walk along, a monotonous, hypnotic trek as we walk along the straight and level, keeping our eyes on the path to avoid stepping on big knobby, ankle-destroying stones. But we look very small in contrast to the mountains that line the sides of the canyon, piercing the ground and heading straight up to vast heights.

Jomsom emerges from around an upward corner as we depart the basin. The flights are done for the day (they're done by nine in the morning as the weather picks up dramatically). The town is essentially built around the airport: an army outpost, an army mountain warfare school, a district police headquarters, and district court. It makes sense as it's a travel depot. We stay at the Anka Marco Polo hotel, which has clearly done quite well for itself as it is actually comprised of two hotels, one behind the other, the better one being out back where we decide to stay (attached bath, but the beds don't move, so we have to sleep a single). We confirm our flight, but unfortunately we have to leave a day early as the day we'd originally booked, the plane isn't available.

Amy and I stroll along the main drag, having conversations with army soldiers anxious to practice their English, and interestingly, French; one of the soldiers had a United Nations peacekeeping placement in Senegal, and learned some of the language there. They're all really friendly, and tell us how they spend their spare time on various projects: the latest one is the building of a small shrine across the road.

The night is filled with Racing Demon, beer, and momos; in short, a pretty great way to wind down after about five hours of walking. Bhakta and Padam are getting better, and as we play, we get a small crowd of people, interested in the game. I'm convinced there's going to be a Racing Demon revolution before long. It's got a lot of things the Nepalis like about card games, including:

• The ability to slap cards down on the table in an aggressive and meaningful way
• A healthy amount of competition
• A fast pace
• Infinitely debatable rules

Jomson as a town isn't much to write home about: the weather and wind pick up a lot in the afternoon, bringing a stinging wind through the main drag. We didn't have long to get used to it, as the next day we were heading further up into the mountains towards our destination: Muktinath.

Notes from Nepal

Kathmandu was covered in a thick blanket of clouds when the plane began its descent into the airport, which obscured the haze of pollution that usually covers the city. After de-planing (which I don't think is a real verb), the first order of business was buying our tourist visas, conveniently available at the airport. The visa is sold for the equivalent of thirty dollars U.S. per person, payable in a variety of different currencies - but, cash only. The purchase of the visa was the first example of old-school bureaucracy I would see in Nepal: three guys were required to process the visa. One took the cash and issued a receipt, the next recorded the details into a book, and the third pasted the visa into the passport. What would seem like a simple process took us nearly twenty minutes of standing in lines, for reasons I couldn't fathom. But once the visa was issued, we were free to travel as we liked through non-restricted areas of Nepal for the next three months.

We picked up our bags from the baggage carousel and made our way to the exit; we were well-advised that there would be a gaggle of taxi drivers, hotel touts and tour operators, waiting to help us find ways to part with our money, but even with this knowledge in mind, I would compare it to a frontal assault when we left the airport doors. Within seconds we were surrounded, people pushing flyers towards us of their remarkable hotels, telling us how they could take us there for just a look. It seemed a well-practised routine, and you could tell who had more experience than others: some guys spoke a little louder and a little more forcefully than the rest. It just became surreal for me and I realized that regardless of how loudly and convincingly they spoke, we were still the ones with the power here, and I started to flex it. While joking with them over the absolute absurdity of their onslaught, I told them they had to step back behind a certain line (which they all did). I think for them, it was a bit of a game, as they would joke with each other in Nepali when one would start reducing his price to try and win us over. In the end we took a chance on a place, agreeing to pay a dollar for the car ride over there, regardless of whether we stayed or not.

The car in question was an older model of Toyota Corolla - one might call it vintage - in surprisingly good shape. Driving in India had prepared us for driving in Nepal - no seat belts, loose traffic rules, et cetera. On our way to the hotel, the Pilgrim's Guest House, we got a few lessons in Nepali, which while similar to Hindi (the prominent language of India) is notably different in the ways that matter. But since Indian television programs are so prominent throughout Nepal, everyone can understand Hindi to some degree.

The Pilgrim's Guest House turned out to be acceptable for our needs; we ended up staying there for the duration of our four-day stay in Kathmandu. The hotel is on the northern edge of the city district called Thamel, otherwise known as the tourist district. It's called the tourist district for good reason; the real estate is taken up almost solely by hotels, restaurants, pubs and outdoor shops, and only tourists have the necessary money to be able to afford to stay there. This may seem surprising when you consider that a moderately cushy hotel room can be had for five U.S. dollars per day, and something quite lux can be found for fifteen. It certainly gives you an idea of the relative economies at play here, and how Nepal is very much on the poorer scale.

Meditation on the rooftops of Kathmandu.

The city seems to want so hard to be taken seriously as a modern city, but lacks the infrastructure necessary to see this end. A small shop will have a hand-painted sign declaring itself a supermarket, while their selection of goods will be far from super. Credit cards are taken only in high-end establishments, and then, only when the phones are working; there are established blackouts in the city to reduce strain on the power grid; there are no street signs. They're proud of their city, tolerant of the traffic jams and the pollution, the noise and the bustle. The city sprawls for kilometres, with buildings seemingly constructed on top of one another, and small shack-like huts are built in the cracks in-between. It's the kind of place that's very hard to take in all at once, as there is just so much of it. Buildings are decaying, but despite the cracked facade, the Nepalis that live here are very frugal and efficient with their buildings. Water is all heated by the sun, for example.

Kathmandu has an undeniable charm, if you can see past the grimey exterior. Unlike Delhi, or any of the big cities we've visited for that matter, the people here don't seem to live here solely to make money. There is no doubt that the culture of the west has a huge influence on the culture of the city and its inhabitants: the dress is western, and few people wear obvious Nepali styles, except the older Newari men who wear traditional brimless caps. And it's only in Kathmandu that you'll see women riding scooters by themselves.

We knew that we wanted to go on a trek in Nepal; it's one of the most popular activities in Nepal, and for good reason. With few paved highways to connect the mountain villages, the walking trails have been highly developed to support the foot and animal traffic that transports goods from town to town. We spent the time in Kathmandu preparing for our trek, hiring a guide and porter from the Sherpa Trekking Cooperative, and organizing a tour that would take us from Pokhara, a small city six hours from Kathmandu, and around the Annapurna Sanctuary for seventeen days. At the end of the trek we would fly back to Pokhara from the mountain town of Jomsom.

In preparation, we decided that we needed a few warm clothes: some fleece layers, in particular. We didn't have to look far: about as far as you could sling a cat. Trekking being the number one pastime for foreign tourists visiting Nepal, Kathmandu is busting at the seems with outdoor shops. The prices for boots, sweaters, jackets, tents, sleeping bags, you name it, are ridiculously cheap compared to what you'd pay back home. But the reason for this is that the goods are locally made, and logos are sewn on with a such a high level of quality it's hard to tell a fake from a legitimate product. The most highly copied items are items with The North Face logo: but the quality is almost as good, so for the use of a few weeks, it's definitely worth the price, which you inevitably reduce with some simple bargaining. Every shopowner will profess that his items are the real deal, but something usually gives it away: most often, a tag with a logo that's different than what's emblazoned on the front.

The other big business in Kathmandu (if not all of Asia, it seems) is the sale of pirated DVD movies. They're available by the boxload, for the equivalent of about two dollars per movie. We bought a few to see if they were created by someone taking a videocamera into the movie theatre; but no, the quality was just as good as any regular DVD. The surprising part was the selection: movies that hadn't even hit theatres yet were available, and even movies that were never to see the light of day in North America. The best example was an Al Pacino movie I'd never heard of: the description on the back of the label had obviously been typed up by the DVD pirate, who went on to criticize the movie in such terms I wondered if anyone would ever buy it.

After a few days of acclimatizing to Kathmandu, including a bout of carbon monoxide poisoning from the horrible pollution, the day of our trek finally arrived. We started in the dark hours of the morning with a walk to the bus terminal for six hours of bumpy roads towards Pokhara. We met our guide, Bhakta, and our porter Padam and strolled the dark and hazy city streets towards our bus stop. Even in the early hours there was a visible presence in the city, a simmering of activity as it began to stir itself awake. Reaching our bus, our bags were strapped to the roof and we began a lazy trundling towards Pokhara. It's only about one hundred kilometres to Pokhara, but with the poor condition of the winding, climbing roads, the age of the bus, and the need for rest stops, it takes a long time to get anywhere. There's not much to say about the bus ride other than it was relatively comfortable, the scenery was very impressive with the large, terraced hills and deep river valleys spanned by suspension foot bridges. Our experience was marred only by the passing of one overturned bus, who had probably overturned as a result of trying to overtake on a poor road. The passengers simply waited alongside the bus, drinking tea and waiting for another mode of transportation to come and continue their journey.

We had set up a hotel reservation in Pokhara so that we had a place to stash our extra baggage while we trekked, and a place to sleep when we got back. Arriving in Pokhara, we weren't met by the taxi as promised by the hotel, so we caught another one and swung by the hotel to drop off our stuff, and continue on to Phedi, the trailhead into the Annapurna Sanctuary. We didn't get much of an impression of Pokhara at the time, other than it was small and manageable, and a pleasant lake meandered through it. We were focussed on the trek at hand.

Phedi is one of those "blink-or-you'll-miss-it" hamlets whose claim to fame is being one of three starting locations for a trek into the Annapurna sanctuary (so named for the protected wilderness area surrounding the highest peak in the area). When we arrived, we spent a few minutes getting ourselves ready for walking, and in those minutes we were offered walking sticks, bottles of water, extra porters and food for the road. Unfortunately, we came prepared and couldn't drop any money on an area which could probably have used it. We started to trek.

Our first day, or at least, the remains of the first day, were spent just getting to the next town on the route, called Damphus. This involved an ascent up switchback stairs of around four hundred metres. Yes, stairs - made out of rock slabs, but stairs nonetheless. Several dispatches ago, when I first mentioned the phrase "trekking in Nepal," if you had any flights of fancy that our trek would involve machetes, abseiling and zip lines, I'm afraid you're going to be a bit disappointed. Thirty years ago, getting around the Jomsom trail probably was a "real" trek: today, it's evolved for the convenience of the people the trekking route serves. We're only visitors. The trails' true purposes are for trade and transport, and a lot of effort has gone into making it easier to get around. A road through the mountainous area has been historically impractical; it's comparatively easier and cheaper to strap four hundred pounds of goods to human or animal porters and send it around from place to place.

But I digress. Our trip up the Damphus hill was pretty slow, as Bhakta had decreed we would ascend "slowly, slowly" in order to let him gauge our pace, as well as to get used to walking on the trail. We didn't complain, and had our first view of the scenery we would be seeing for the next seventeen days. From midway up the hill, we looked down into the whole lush Pokhara valley, large rolling hills carved into farming terraces, shrouded in mist in the far distance.

We arrived in Damphus a few hours later, to stay at our first lodge. You basically have two options when you trek through Nepal: you can camp along the route in your tent, or you can sleep in lodges. No one camps on the Jomsom trek, as there are so many lodges, and the towns are only a couple of hours' walk apart, so there isn't much free space available to camp in, even if you wanted to. But on other treks, or off the beaten path, it's the only option, and it's fairly complicated: you could do it on your own, but for the money, it's much more viable to hire a fleet of porters and gear. Our trek, however, was not one of these: it was lodges all the way for us, and I can't say I minded that at all.

I can't remember the name of our first lodge, but it was probably "The Damphus Inn" or something to that effect. Staying in lodges is cheap compared to staying in the city, but you're expected to eat dinner there, which is where the real money is - especially if you like to drink. As you trek higher into the mountains, prices ascend proportionally and choice thins out. Our guidebook mentioned that it can be terribly bad form to sleep one place and eat someplace else: this can see your room rate jacked up, or even get turfed out in the middle of the night. The one saving grace was that we were trekking in the low season, so we never had a problem finding a place to stay, or getting a good deal on room and board.

The sun set at around seven o'clock, and the power was out, so dinner was held around candles in a very dark dining hall. One thing that we never got used to was the fact that non-Nepali guests have their orders prepared first, and then the Nepali guides and porters retire to the kitchen to eat. With limit cooking resources, it's just the way it is: there are only so many burners in the kitchen with which to make food. By the time eight o'clock rolled around, it was pitch black and there wasn't much else to do but go to sleep. I found our daily schedule would change completely, and be very much tied to the movements of the sun

Sunrise over Damphus.

We awoke the next morning to a magnificent sunrise at around six o'clock; this is the kind of thing postcards are made from. The sun reflected off the mountains in the distance, the Annapurna range, in a pastel collection of pinks and oranges. It was a sunrise worth getting up early for, and to be honest, it raised the bar pretty high for sunrises. We learned later that this is one of the best reasons for starting a trek in Phedi and spending the night in Damphus, as with other routes, you have to spend a couple of days trekking before you get to a location high enough to see the surrounding mountains. And really, that's what makes trekking so special - the mountains, looming in the distance.

These are some massive peaks we're talking about here: this it the country of Mount Everest (or, Sagarmatha, as its known in Nepali), and Annapurna isn't much smaller. At around eight thousand metres, we weren't going to be climbing it, but just getting to the base camp for mountaineering would require us to get to four thousand, one hundred metres. The Annapurna Base Camp is affectionately referred to as the "ABC" - its acronym.

After breakfast, we settled up our bill and hit the trail for our next destination, Landruk. Bhakta was be careful not to have us walking to far in a single day, and I didn't mind the pace as I managed to stop us every fifteen minutes or so to see something that had to have its photograph taken. However, as the days were to wear on, I would find that we probably could have handled a tougher trek.

As we walk, I find that Bhakta isn't one to chat; I suspect it's because he's not comfortable with his level of English. When we do talk, it's mostly to do with a little local history or what we can expect over the next hill. Padam, while very friendly, doesn't speak any English, which makes any attempt at conversation a bit frustrating and mostly restricted to pantomiming and hand signals.

We figured out quickly we were going to be getting a lot of exercise in this trek. Because this area of Nepal is so mountainous, there are very few parts of the trek which are flat for a very long time. Consequently, walking involves going up a lot, and then going down a lot. You don't go at a very fast pace, but your legs get a different workout depending on whether you're going up or down. I know this because at the end of each day a different set of muscles would do the complaining.

The road to Landruk, as I recall, wasn't composed of a lot of up or down, but varying bits of both to small degrees. While Nepal is a temperate country it still gets quite cool in the mornings and evenings, so we start off in full fleeces and jackets, and as the day goes on, we strip down layers until we're in our shirtsleeves.

Sunrise over Landruk.

Landruk has only a handful of lodges, so we choose one and hang out there while it rains a bit. We chat with some other trekkers for a while, but it seems as the sun sets and after dinner is eaten, there's little to do but head for bed. The next morning we are again rewarded with a stunning sunrise, which led into breakfast, getting everything packed up again for travel, and then back onto the trekking trail.

Our initial intentions were to head steadily north towards the Annapurna Base Camp, however, reports were trickling in from trekking groups heading south that there was snow in the range, and that we weren't likely to get that far. Hoping for a little luck and a change in weather, we persevered onwards towards our next destination, Chomrong.

Five hours of "Nepali flat" later, and we arrive in Chomrong. "Nepali flat" is a longstanding joke from Nepalis to foreigners - it means a lot of up and down. Chomrong is a small hamlet - more of a collection of houses, really - that exists at a crossroads from three directions. Our lodge was warm and hospitable, and we met another trekking couple from the UK there - Gavin and Jade. Jade was, unfortunately, suffering from what we assume to be giardiaisis, a nasty bug which turns your intestines into knots. You catch it by drinking untreated water, and while it's treatable from widely available medicines, you have to have the foresight to consider that you might get sick, and bring some with you; something which they didn't do, and as it happened, something we didn't do either. We were lucky; Jade wasn't, and the indications were that they would probably be calling their trek to an end shorter than planned.

But for us, it's another morning of a stunning sunrise, breakfast, packing up and setting out. The reports are in, and it's snow to the north - lots of it. Five feet. So much so, that the lodge owners are closing up shop for a few weeks to let the stuff melt out, which means for us, we're not going to make it to the base camp. It's a bit disappointing, but it does mean that we have some extra days to spend, and we don't have to rush anywhere. We elect instead to turn south and head towards Gandruk, the largest settlement in the area and home to the Gurung ethnic group (that is to say, the majority of people that live there are descended from the Gurungs).

I've struggled to find the time to write this dispatch, so I'm going to just post it to ensure that something gets posted rather than thinking we've dropped off the face of the earth. Before signing off, I'll leave you with the rules for a great card game that Bhakta taught us, called "Dal Mara," which in Nepali, means "the Killer."

It's a four-player trick-taking game, with two teams of two; team members sit diagonally opposite from each other. The goal of the game is for one team to win the tricks that contain the "ten" cards. The dealer deals out the entire deck, counter-clockwise (in Nepal, this is the norm) in a slightly irregular fashion; to the first player, you deal three cards, then a fourth face-up, then the fifth. The fourth card determines what suit will be trump for the round. After that, the dealer deals five cards to the remaining three players, then four cards each, then another four cards each (or, whatever number strikes the dealer's fancy; Bhakta would sometimes deal three, then three, then two); it seems the cards just should be dealt in groups.

In this game, the two is the lowest value card, and the ace is the highest value card. The ten, while the key to winning the game, is only more powerful than the nine, and less powerful than the jack.

Two conditions will force a re-dealing: either the dealer has no trump cards, or one person has all the ten cards. If either of these are the case, the cards are re-dealt.

The player to the dealer's right commences play, and cards are laid by the players in a counter-clockwise direction. Players must follow suit, unless they don't have any cards of the suit, in which case they can lay trump or any other card, except a non-trump ten. The only time they can lay a card in this situation is when they have no other choice.

There is also a seemingly optional rule that a player must play a card higher in sequence than the one previously laid. If you don't have a more powerful card

Since the objective of the game is for you and your partner to win the tricks where tens are played, it's not always important to win for the sake of winning. For example, if three cards are played: 6 of spades, 8 of spades, jack of spades, and the fourth player has no spades, he or she doesn't necessarily need to play a trump card to win if they don't want to. Since there isn't a ten in the mix, there won't be an advantage to winning the trick, unless it's to take the opportunity to lead.

It's also a popular strategy to lead an ace so that your partner can put down a ten of the same suit, if they've got it, because nothing but trump can beat an ace. Dangerous to do, of course, if the suit's been played out a bit and it's likely someone has run out and can play trump.

The game ends when one team wins the tricks containing the tens, but this really only happens with luck and good tactics. More often, at least one ten will be won by both teams. If one team wins only one ten, they must deal the next round; if both teams win two tens, the one with the least tricks must deal the next round.

And if you want to play it like the Nepalis play, each trick you have to throw down your card with an oath-like protestation. I can't remember what they actually said, but it translated to "what do you think of that!" and "get out of my hand."