Pokhara to Jomsom Trek

The Kali Gandaki ("Black River") flows from about 15 kms south of the Tibetan border in northern Nepal to the southern part of the country. It is not literally black, but more a dark taupey-grey which probably doesn't translate into a nice river name in Nepalese. Imagine the run-off from a potter's wheel and you pretty much have it. It is a unique river in that it runs in one direction through the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri mountain ranges. Logic, and indeed physics, would suggest that rivers would originate high in the mountains and flow downwards in several directions. Apparently the Kali Gandaki and the gorge that it formed for itself pre-existed the Himalayas which rose up around it. As it runs through the mountains it is a very fast-moving and rather shallow river - totally unnavigable. In the north, specifically in the Mustang District, the river bed is broad and flat with multiple streams threading their way through it.


Because it cuts a north-south path practically the whole way through Nepal, and more importantly, through the mountains, the river provides a natural route for trade. Salt from the Tibetan plateau finds its way south to be traded for pretty much everything else. It has been working this way for hundreds of years. When I hiked the Annapurna Circuit five years ago, about one third of my trek followed this age-old path along the Kali Gandaki.


Progress and the hands of time have found their way into the Kali Gandaki valley. The Nepalese government is building a road that will connect a town called Beni in central Nepal to the Tibetan border in the north. Work began on this road a few years ago and is expected to be finished in another 3-5 years (I get differing reports). The trek that I just completed followed the old trading route, and the road, almost the whole way (I got within 2.5 hours walk of the Tibetan border). In Jomsom I had occasion to speak to a very savvy business woman who indicated that the locals love the road and the tourists hate it. It is very hard to know where to stand on the issue. It has, of course, changed the feel of the area tremendously. Nothing like trekking in the Himalayan wilderness and having to jump off the track to allow a motorcycle or jeep to pass. On the other hand, we can hardly deny a country progress just because we want a pristine vacation spot. In some places the road deviates from the old trading route, and in these places it will likely have a negative effect on the economy of the villages it bypasses. I would imagine that hard-core trekkers will no longer want to follow this route, but that it will open up the area to people who are more comfortable riding a bus than hiking. As Chris would say, those on the "Marie Antoinette" tour. I'm guessing that a lot of trekking lodges will go under and be replaced by a Hilton or two.


I provided all this information not to bore you, but to give you a backdrop for the trek and so that you'll understand my references to the "damn road". So here I go....this will be split into a few posts, so stay tuned. I will copying a bunch of excerpts from journal to save me rewriting too much.


As I think I previously mentioned, my actual trek was to start in Jomsom but I decided that I wanted to hike up to Jomsom rather than fly from Pokhara. I was assigned a Sherpa named Tashi who was part of the Mustang trek and we hiked together. His English was very rudimentary but he understood "hungry", "water", "rest", "toilet" and a few other words so we did fine. Because I didn't have a porter for this part of the trek, I carried my main pack and Tashi strapped my day pack to his small backpack and carried that for me. We did argue about this for quite some time - he was very insistant about carrying my big pack for me, but I was keen to do it as long as I could. What he didn't know was that I was carrying stuff like my down sleeping bag and fleece jacket and he was carrying my batteries, books and toiletteries. Even though my bag was three times the size of my day pack, he probably had more of the weight than me.

The plan was to start at Beni, a four-hour drive from Pokhara and the start of the infamous new road. When he came to meet me on the first day, Tashi suggested we hike through Ghorepani rather than start at Beni. I'm not sure what his agenda was, although he said it was to get the great views. Ghorepani does indeed offer arguably the best views of the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri ranges, but given it was monsoon season, there was virtually no chance of seeing anything. Taking this route also meant that I would forfeit my "spa" day at Tatopani where the hot springs are. It also meant a much more rigorous first few days of trekking, as Ghorepani sits atop a substantial hill. Despite these obvious arguments against the proposed route, I did agree to the change mostly because it meant that I'd have an extra couple of days away from the "damn road".


From June 11: The trekking itself was great today. Lots of uphill but I'm handling it well since we're at such a low altitude. [We never really got over 4000 metres on the whole trek, so altitude was never a problem.] The Annapurnas really are much more enjoyable for me as the culture is rich here. We passed many villages that don't just cater to the trekkers - Nepali life is being lived along these trails. I even saw some chicken baskets. [Chicken baskets are metal cages full of chickens that porters carry up and down the trading route for sale in the villages. I didn't see any chicken baskets - or in fact any local trade porters - in the Everest region.]


From June 12: There was a wicked thunder storm in the night - I have never seen rain like this. Between the noise and the heat, I didn't sleep well. Today's trek was a 6-hour uphill slog. The first couple of hours were particularly steep and grueling. Add the heat of the sun and I was sweating buckets. About ten minutes into the day my body decided to add some raging hormones and abdominal cramps into the mix. [Too much information, I know, but I want you all to share my pain :-)] Generally not my favourite day of trekking ever. Of course Tashi is a human mountain goat and is ruthless in setting the pace. We are staying in Ghorepani ["Horse Water"] tonight which is exactly the way I remember it. The spot where we camped 5 years ago is right beside my lodge. It is very quiet in town - I am the only trekker in town and I have only seen one or two others on the trails. I am really enjoying having all this time to think.


From June 13: As expected we didn't get any views from Ghorepani during daylight hours. However, when I awoke at about midnight last night and there were a million stars out. The milky way was cutting a swath across the sky. Behind me somewhere there was an incredible thunder storm. The thunder claps were distant rumblings but the sheet lightening was flashing every few seconds. When it lit up the sky it also lit up Machupachare and Annapurna South which were both right outside my window. A spectacular show and worth the walk up here.


We left Ghorepani for our six-hour downhill trek. After about two hours my knees politely indicated that they weren't having a good time. After four hours this became a full-on, complete-with-pipe-bomb protest. At this point we stopped for a break and had a coke. Shortly thereafter, about two hours out of Tatopani ["Hot Water"] we could hear the blasting from the roadworks. An hour or so later we came to a junction in the road and it started raining. We had reached the riverbed of the Kali Gandaki so I knew that it would be flat from here to Tatopani which is on the shore of the river. At the little shop there, we were informed that it was still another 1.5 hours to Tatopani so we stopped for a snack. [If anyone is doing the math here, you'll notice that we did not really get any closer in the last hour!] We piled on the Gortex and set out again. Anyone who still maintains that Gortex breathes is welcome to go clamber about the Himalayas on a hot summer day in it. You might as well wrap yourself in saran wrap and do jumping jacks in a sauna.


It turns out that they are building the road along the trekking path on the river shore, so they've built a temporary path around the roadworks. This involved hiking half way up Everest and back down again just to gain about 300 metres of distance. [Yes, that was sarcasm - we were actually nowhere near Everest.] On top of it, it was a little billy goat trail that required real concentration to stay on top of. I was not impressed. I don't mind the trekking but this was totally unexpected and also all because of the #$%&ing road.


We finally made it to Tatopani (which is also unchanged from my last visit), had some lunch and headed down to the hot springs by the river. We were the only ones there which was very different from last time when I was trekking in peak season. I kind of missed the party atmosphere at first but ended up really enjoying the solitude. I had a very cold beer as I soaked in the tub which was wonderful. After we dressed we hung around for a while chatting with a couple of locals, one of whom is a hermit who lives in a lean-to by the springs. At one point a dozen military guys came down to bathe in the adjacent public baths and I thought I better leave before somebody got arrested for indecent exposure (and it wasn't going to be the soldiers!).


From June 14: Had a horrible sleep last night due to noise, heat and mosquitoes and woke to rain this morning. The hike today was generally great - a couple of hours of flat and one significant uphill. We were in Ghasa by about 1:45 and had lunch here. I'm splurging on a room with an attached bathroom. It looks great but is largely malfunctional. Unfortunately there's no hot water either so no opportunity to shower.


We saw roadworks the whole way today. It looks like they did the easy bits along the river bed first and now they're stuck having to blast through the cliff walls to connect all these discrete stretches. As we came into Ghasa I saw my first motorbikes and jeeps. The road is complete from here to Muktinath on the other side of Jomsom. There is also electricity here and the TV is on incessantly in the lodge dining room. It's really sad to see the road and TV. At least I only heard three vehicles all afternoon, so it hasn't exactly turned into Kathmandu.


At one point during the trek, we passed a group of particularly small men (even by Nepali standards) coming off the road works. They were all older with lined and weathered faces. All were carrying shovels or pick axes over their shoulders and I could almost hear "Hi-ho, hi-ho" in the background. It took all my willpower not to pull out my camera and line up the cutest seven of them for a photo.


From June 15: Last night as I was leaving the dining room for bed, Tashi told me that there was an "ool bard" outside. By the time I figured out what he was talking about, someone walked in with a huge owl in his hands and unceremoniously dumped it on the dining room table. It sat there with its eyes closed against the light while they poked it and laughed. I went to bed before I found out if this story had a happy ending for the ool. [Interestingly, Tashi can read English about as well as I can, but 97% of the time he has no idea what the words mean.]

Today we walked in the damp but had no real rain. As suspected, we followed the road for much of the way. Whenever it was faster to take the old path we did - usually to get to a closer pedestrian bridge or to go straight up a steep hill through the middle of the wide switch-backs of the road.

At one point today a jeep passed us on the road and Tashi was delighted that it was full of our kitchen staff and sherpas for the Mustang trek. I guess they were taking the easy way up the valley to Jomsom.

We had to run by another blast site today. I say run because we were the last ones they allowed through before closing it off and they made it clear we had limited time to get through to the other side before the blasting started. Unlike the last time, the guards on either side of the blast zone did not have walkie-talkies, so the guy on the far side did not know we were coming through and to hold off on the blasting. This was the only time that I willingly ran with all that weight on my back. We got through in time but it was really something to see. When we were safely on the other side of the "danger zone" we stopped to watch the action. First you see a bunch of Nepali workers hurriedly vacating the area. Then you see a huge puff of dust, followed by a spew of rocks and finally you hear the boom from the blast. They obviously don't use any kind of blast mats here as the debris seems to fly pretty far.

We hiked farther than expected today and are staying at a place called the Musk Deer Valley Resort in a village called Kobang. I can remember this place as clear as day from my last trek here - looking longingly at the beautiful resort as we walked past to pitch our tents in some one's goat paddock. It's in a totally different place than I remember it, but I guess my grey matter can't always be infallible :-).

We arrived here, had lunch and then I climbed the hill behind the resort to visit the gompa. The Sanctuary was locked but I sat on the steps for quite a while enjoying the solitude, positive energy and views. Unfortunately I could hear the motorbikes and tractors from the road below on the river bed. It's really a drag.

There are virtually no other westerners around and it would be nice to be integrating more with the locals. I'm not sure how to do that as Tashi seems to be doing his best to segregate me from them. I guess with no common language and no interpreter it's difficult. I walked around the village with my iPod for a while today and managed to spend some time with the local kids introducing them to Great Big Sea and Blue Rodeo. I probably would have done much better if I had some Avril Lavigne or Britney Spears on my iPod. The former is on posters throughout the region, usually hanging beside a mural of the Potala Palace, and the latter is on every second t-shirt in Nepal. Despite the abundance of her photo, nobody seems to know who Avril Lavigne is, so my proud crowings of coming from the same home town buys me absolutely nothing around here.

From June 16: Slept fairly well last night but a motorcycle revving had me up at both midnight and 5:00 AM. Not impressed. When we left, I was dismayed to see that the bill for my stay in this beautiful resort came to about $16 (about 3 - 4 times more than most other nights). Then I realized that I had a beautiful wood-panelled room with a double bed, ensuite bathroom, hot shower, three meals and a beer and realized it really wasn't that much of a travesty after all.

The weather wasn't great this morning and we started walking in the rain. We were in Marpha by 10:15 so had all day here. The walk was almost entirely on the road but we did get onto the riverbed for a short while. Marpha is exactly as I remember it but is growing a bit out the south side. Fortunately the road by-passes the town but there are still a few motorbikes in the main "street".

Tashi and I went up to the gompa after lunch. It's nice to visit the Buddhist sites with him, as he is fairly devout and watching him worship is really nice. He just has to see a mani wall or prayer wheel and he begins to chant. Unfortunately we were unable to get into the sanctuary as it was locked and the monk with the key was away for a few hours. We were able to spend some time in the smaller meditation centre, which was lovely.

Later on I wandered down to a settlement south of town that I had noticed on the walk in. It looked like another monastery or something, but I couldn't tell what it was from the path. I got there and felt like I had been dropped into the middle of Tibet - same clothing, lifestyle etc. It turns out that it was a Tibetan refugee camp. I spent quite a bit of time there, watching an archery game and other activities around the village. I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Marpha soaking up the atmosphere. I really it love it here - it feels how Nepal should be. Despite the presence of electricity and now a road, everything is still done the old way. The town is an Umberto Eco-esque maze of stone buildings and passageways. I think I am more enamoured with it this time than last.

Marpha seems to be the turning point for the weather. To the north the sky remains fairly blue and clear, while to the south it is grey and rainy. I believe I am on the cusp of the rain shadow of the Himalayas.

From June 17: We completed the walk to Jomsom in an hour and spent the day just hanging out. I went to the Mustang Eco-Museum at the south end of town. The flora and especially fauna exhibits leave much to be desired but the cultural part was excellent. I learned a lot about the people from the area, as well as their history and how the different villages interact with each other.

I wandered around town, got dragged by my skirt all through the main street by a filthy, snotty-nosed but very cute little girl, ate apple crumble at a "German" bakery, chatted with a few locals, took a shower, got laundry done and actually caught sight of Nilgiri, my first mountain of the trek. I got a bit of an education about the road and the vehicles. The "taxi" from Ghasa to Jomsom costs about $6 and takes 2 1/2 hours. You can continue from Jomsom to Muktinath, but the roads north and south from Jomsom don't actually meet there. You have to get out of one jeep, walk across a pedestrian bridge and get into another jeep to go the rest of the way. Something about different zones. The main clients for the taxis are pilgrims coming to the Hindu temple in Muktinath which is very holy and draws crowds from all over Nepal and India. I was told that the jeeps cost 20,000,000 rupees to buy and have air-lifted into Jomsom. This equates to over $300,000 USD which seems a bit steep to me but I'm sure they're high-end jeeps. The road is little more than a track and the jeeps need to be pretty sturdy to withstand the beating they take. There are currently three jeeps and countless motorbikes on the Ghasa-Jomsom road. The petrol comes into the area on the backs of donkeys from Beni to Ghasa. I'm sure the donkeys are looking forward to the completion of the road.

Tashi got a call from Tshering this afternoon indicating that he and his Japanese client would be on the 7:00 AM flight from Pokhara tomorrow morning. We are hoping all goes well as there hasn't been a flight for the last 6 days due to bad weather. Fingers crossed.