Day 4 - The queen of Plutonians

Chamje to Bagarchlap

Plutonians are famous for their supidity. I am the queen of Plutonians.

Last night I ended up staying late to read from the book I got from Jo before my departure. It's very well written and captivating. I read a the headlamp in my sleeping bag to not disturb Pipi.

In the morning I got up early and was ready by 7 am. Getting breakfast took longer but I enjoyed the tasty ginger tea and the Tibetan bread - a traditional fast fried flat bread.
It is past 8 am when we finally leave the guest house over a suspension bridge to the other side of the river.
Our trail climbs steadily over slab steps. Endless stairs. The trail is very wet and sometimes coincides with a little creek bed. Water is dripping from the side wall and there are more and more waterfalls splashing us.
We are following the gorge which becomes continuously deeper and narrower.Then, afer a steep section up to a col in the scorching sun we are back on a flat trailand we can soon see the village of Tal down at the river. The trail is now blasted into the rock and after a short overhanging section descends to the village.
Here the valley has widened and flattened and the river meanders among huge sandbanks. Tal is supposed to be the most beautiful village on this side of the Thorong Pass but it doesn't impress me too much. There are many guesthouses with nice gardens and it's certainly very pretty.
We stop to enjoy a ginger tea before continuig our way.The trail is following the valley bottom amidst vegetable gardens. We encounter the first mani wall - a stone built construction on which Tibetan prayer stones (mani stones) are laid out. The mani stones are painted in bright colors and the multicoloured strings of prayer flags are fluttering in the wind high above them.
Here in Tal the district of Lamjung ends and the district of Manang begins. We will see more and more Tibetan mani stones and the Tibetan buddhism influences along the way.
Afer another stretch and another suspension bridge the trail starts gaining some elevation again. I notice many white flowers and countless butterflies.
We stop in Korte for lunch after yet another suspension bridge and enjoy a daalbhat in a garden under the watchful eyes of a bunch of kids. I "steal" some pictures of the children, but it's not an easy task.

After lunch we continue our way to Dharapani. We reach the village in about half an hour. Pipi wants to stop here. Josh and Scott, whom we caught up with again, have convinced their guide to keep going. In the end, it was a very short day and it is still early.

The village of Dharapani looks very nice with its slab-paved lane and the stoe houses which remind me of the old traditional houses in the Northern part of Portugal. For the past 2 days I had those images in mind - the cold grey stone houses and slab-paved lanes in Portugal. Even the corn storage structures remind me of those from Soaje, Portugal, though not of stone. Nevertheless, the idea behind is the same: to protect the corn from humidity and pests by raising the storage about a meter or so above the ground. Here, on a wooden frame the corncobs are nicely piled into a rectangular structure. They glow orange in the sunset light.

In Dharapani we stop at the checkpost and begin arguing with Pipi.
I'm trying to convince Pipi to continue to the next vilage only one hour away from here, but he's stubborn. I'm starting to get upset and I'm thinking that if things are going to continue like this, I might as well fire him. It might be an unusual thing, but I don't see why I need to pay and get frustrated. Plutonians can get mad sometimes.

"How about this? We switch packs. I take the big one, you take the small one and we go to the next village?" Reluctantly and visibly unhappy Pipi agrees. He gets grumpy.

It's funny. The big pack feels better than the small one, although it's heavier. It has better padding and is more comfortable anyway. The small pack is much too heavy for its size and structure. Pipi now walks behind me. Pipi are watching us in disbelief. I am the queen :-)

The trail is flat and wide but prone to slides. One section is gone and a bunch of men are working on repairing the road. They are doing all the tasks manually, hammering and making holes for the dynamite used for blasting. We also notice cracks in the road, early sign of future slides. The trails goes gently up and in little less than one hour since leaving Dharapani we reach Bagarchlap (2160 m).
By now the vegetation has changed. The flowers have disappeared, and the conifer trees start making their appearance.
We stop at the Manaslu Guest House and I ask for a separate room. Josh and Scott, which we hike along with from Dharapani, are going to the place where the 2 young and very pretty Dutch girls have stopped for the night. We have first met them in Tal and then a couple of times again on the trail. Well, that's only natural. They're all young and for me it's delightful to observe the moves.

Here I bump into a Swiss guy who has been travelling for 3 months now on land all the way from Switzerland to Nepal, through Russia, Mongolia, China and Tibet(well, also part of China). His style is very "swiss". Obviously he's got money. He's drinking beer in the evening and never eats daalbhat, just maccaroni.
I found useful information from him. You can reach Lhasa by train from Peking and it works nicely. That's good news!

I've learned a whole bunch of Nepli words these days and Pipi has a lot of fun teaching me. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to be interested in improving his English.

I just realized - today it's been 2 weeks since I left Vancouver. Incredible! They went so fast and yet it feels as if I've been away for months already.

I learn from my guidebook that the village of Bagarchlap has been destroyed 80% by a landslide in 1995. I learn from the lodge owners that most of the people have left since. The ones that stayed are just the ones keeping the guesthouses for the trekkers.
After enjoying my daalbhat, a very tasty fresh tomato soup and a lemon tea I go to my room. It is dark already and I ejoy very much the evening hours when I can write in my diary, read or just look at the maps again.