Dec 28 first day of trekking

Even though I watched HBO late into the night before, surprisingly I still got up early, and watched the sunrise on roof platforms as many others appearing on neighboring guest houses. Fish tail peak was beautiful when the sun ray lit it up; after that, before joining our friends for a late breakfast, I had a nice stroll around the tranquil Phewa lake, esp. the less traveled south part. Many locals were just opening their stores, and with small whiskers, busy cleaning the dust from the doorsteps; the street being decorated with banners and ribbons for the upcoming new year street celebrations, guards of the palace were removing the iron bars for it.


We checked out and came to the tour agent ' Jomson' before our scheduled departure time of 9:30 am. However, the car was not there yet, as the manager informed us. Besides him, we also saw a young man in early 20s, sitting next to him, emotionless. The manager kept apologizing for the delay, and opened a feedback book to us. From that book, it seemed that his Chinese clients were all satisfied with his tour arrangements and guides' services. In order to kill some more time, he even took a language book out and started to practise the Chinese words he knew with us. We were patient, and kept comforting ourselves and excusing the Nepalese work style,(as we'd learned from its restaurants.)

To the right of this tour agent was a cashmere store, where a teenager boy was cleaning the window. He politely smiled and addressed 'ni-hao' to us. (Wow, a good sign that Chinese customers are really becoming more and more important now). And to its left was a small guest house and a territory of a big dog, who kept barking loudly at me as I was trying to peek inside.It was stopped immediately by a nice couple of Australians walking out, who I got to know,after a brief chat,did the colorful paintings on that wall during their long-month stay. Kindly they welcomed me inside then introduced me to the owner. I liked their garden, clean, green and relaxing, but unluckily all the rooms were fully booked for the eve of New Year, the day when we were coming back from the trek. Although we liked the fancy guest house we stayed, but not happy with their solar heater not heating warm enough water after sunset.

Out of curiosity, we guessed the role of that young man, but concluded he couldn't be our guide-porter, considering that he was almost wordless to us and the manager didn't mention him at all. But almost at the same moment, he was introduced as our guide, named Suk. My original plan was we did this trekking route all on our own,( as we noticed later many Europeans do during it,) we still agreed to hire one, especially the girls insisted having one to help carry their bags and handle emergencies.

Almost 45 minutes late, the car at last arrived. Cramming ourselves into that small car, we first drove to the trek permission headquarter to complete registration and paying the cost of 2000 rs each person before hitting the road to Nayapul, about one and half hours to the north west of Pokara downtown. During the ride, the driver rushed to fix his car, which later broke down once unsurprisingly on the middle way again. But anyway, accompanied by his hit pop songs, we did arrive at Nayapul. We didn't mind a shy and silent guide, even to the driver. OK, it might be better than having a noisy one.

So now we were beginning trekking, after buying walking sticks at 20 rs at the roadside. Through a small village, crossing a bridge, we came to report to the on-the-site office our real and final entry. The scenery was very similar to that of our area at home. After about one and half hours' walk, we had lunch at Birethanti,at a small restaurant by a creek.


We invited our guide to sit with us, and asked questions about our trekking program. He obviously spoke very broken English and explained to our little understanding. At last with our own prepared stretch of a trekking map, we figured out that we were staying that day in Hilte.

We observed more trekkers walk down the hills that people going in our direction. The agent manager assured us that this direction of the trekking circuit was easier that the other way. We told ourselves, due to all delays that we were behind most trekking starting on same day today, and more probably they preferred to rest in Ulleri, 1960 meters above sea level, two hours behind Hilte.

It was about four hours' walk, and even carrying my own bag, now stuffed with my down jacket, I didn't feel the weight at all. On those hill paths, narrow, dusty but flat, we ran into traffic jams with groups of camera-conscious sheep and their shepherds,

past playgrounds where kids were playing the volleyball;

addressed by villagers, female and male, even animals with heavy loads of every commodity we could imagine, including bags, round tables, and gas bottles.



It was a little dim around 5 pm, when we met two French wanderers, who obviously had checked in some guest house already. Trying to follow them after twenty minutes, we came to Hilte, and checked in a very basic guest house, where over dinner time we made acquaintance with four other trekkers, one German couple and one Dutch. Attracted by their dinner, after my first order, I tried this too.
potato cake with fried egg

After the dinner,and some card games, we were so amused by Y.'s funny translation of our story to the guides and our friends, about being an English teacher, old brother and age issues, as the other mad people, staying in the guest house across, were beginning their own entertainment around the bonfire.