Day 3 - It's delicious! It's delightful!

Bahundanda to Chamje

It's delicious!It's delightful!

I can't get this refrain out of my mind for the whole day...

At 6 am, after it rained all night, the clouds and mist are covering the valley. They only start rising slowly and dissipating shrouding the valley in mystery. How much more beautiful can it get, I keep wondering.
Of course I have to run and take pictures.

Pipi is lazy and I actually have to wake him up around 7 am. Of course we're only getting to leave after 8 am after a tasty breakfast.
I also help Pipi with the backpack. Basically I take my sleeping bag and a fw other things out of my big backpack to allow him to stuff his pack inside it. Now he looks decent whereas I have lots of things hanging and dangling on my pack. I've been compared to a walking coathanger before, so I don't bother. As long as it doesn't rain, at least.

The trail descends on the other side of the col amids ricefields. The terraces are beautiful with their vibrant green patterns. I stop and take picture after picture. I know it's the last day we walk in the ricefields so I don't want to miss the opportunity.
Switching lenses is not much fun - I'm thinking that I should have brought a lens pouch. If I attach the lens bag to the pack-belt it only dangles dangerously.
After descending for about 30 minutes the trail becomes flat and it's a most pleasant walk through fabulous scenery.
We are passing and catching up with each other, me and Scott and Josh as we stop for pictures all the time. Our guides are way ahead by now unimpressed by their surroundings.
Again we encounter many porters loaded with heavy boxes or bags or packages with clothes and blankets and you name it. We also encounter several mule caravans returning from the villages higher upstream along the Marsyangdi river.
On the last section through the ricefields we pass through a small village with nice guest houses and a big school. Children from all the villages around come all the way to this school.
A man is sewing clothes in a small workshop along the trail. A woman is washing dishes while her little baby hangs in a bamboo basket from the ceiling of the small dark house.

Soon afer the village there's a huge waterfall on the other side of the river and a suspesion bridge is taking us across to the left riverbank and into the hamlet of Syange with its little stone-built houses.
The trail starts ascending steeply as we leave the hamlet. The valley becomes narrower and narrower and, eventually, turns into a deep gorge. It is extremely hot and humid. The sun is burning through my skin.

I stop again and again to take pictures of butterflies. I've been chasing butterflies all day long. Beautiful, big butterflies like I've never seen live before. Some are black with an orange patern, others black with a sky-blue spot on the upper side of their wings. Others are lightblue and black, or just yellow, or yellow and orange, or brown and the patterns and colour combinations vary wonderfully. I could chase butterflies for the rest of the day...

The trail up to Jagat is strenious. If it weren't this hot!
We reach the village of Jagat after 1 pm and stop for lunch at Hotel and restaurant Mont Blanc. Each hotel owner tries to come up with an appealing name, so you find the weirdest names along the route. The village is small, mainly a few houses and guesthouses along a stone paved lane. The houses are all stone-built, the guesthouses oly are bigger, with 2-3 storeys and painted in vivid colours.
There is a strong sense of beauty everywhere, which I noticed in other villages and Kathmandu as well. Many flower pots adorn the houses and gardens. A lot of them I know: geraniums, roses, impatiens, dhalias, camelias, cannas and more. Marigolds are the most frquent though.

On the patio facing the vegetable garden and the other side of the valley we enjoy our daalbhat. Josh and Scott are here too and we engage in a conversation about photography. It's fun and the food is delicious!

After lunch we continue our way to Chamje which we reach in about 1.5 hours at around 4:30 pm.

Pipi and I are the only guests in the Tibetan hotel. This is a place where he always stops so there's no negotiation there. A strong smell of burning wood is telling me that this place is not environmentally friendly. We shouldn't encourage it. However, I m to discover over the next few days that from here on kerosene is not used any more for cooking or heating.
The hotel has some 12 rooms, each with 2 beds. Again Pipi is sharing the room with me. And I don't quite understand why. I hope it's not going to turn into a habit.
When I look at the menu downstairs after a nice warm shower (solar shower) and doing my laundry I notice the price: 100 Rs single room and 150Rs double. I know that I paid for a single room but shared with Pipi. Something's wrong here.

How to deal with this? How to tell Pipi that I'd really appreciate some more privacy. I doubt that other trekkers ever share their rooms with their guide/porter. I need to find the solution. Worst case I'm willing to pay him a room, although his expenses are supposed to be covered by the fee I'm paying...

There are a few things like these bugging me. Me and my Plutonian brain! I am not the boss, I can't be a boss ...
Whatever, I'll find a solution...

I forgot to mention but Chamje is located at the feet of a huge rockwall. It is similar to Squamish's Chief, a huge sheer slab face, overgrown by moss due to the humidity and climate. But huge and impressive.

After dinner I start writing in my diary and by 8:30 pm I'm already sound asleep. Good night!