Hike Nepal 2024 – 17th May
It’s Hike Nepal 2024 and we are not getting away without drama!!!
We’ve only just met Linda and she’s already ruined everything by getting a BLUE T-Shirt instead of a green one like the rest of the group – except not all of the group had a green one either. Today’s drama started yesterday when Kass found a guy who embroidered touristy T-Shirts, instead of printing them. She had the idea that everyone should get one with the Langtang and Gosainkunda trail maps on them, and 18 out of 20 people liked the idea and ordered them too. Kass then decided she liked the green shirt that everyone else was getting (her original one was a dark red), and ordered a second one. The poor man worked through the night, but couldn’t get them all finished; which meant that everyone except Kass and Linda had green “Nepal” shirts, two of us had no shirts at all, and Kass was in floods of tears because she didn’t get her green one for the group photo.
The upshot is we changed the itinerary slightly – which means the shirts aren’t the trail we’re doing anymore, anyway! Although it was too soon for Kass to appreciate the joke on this particular morning!
We got a bus today, and we’re all still a bit shell shocked! It took over 6hrs to drive 120km – much of which was on unsealed road that was still being built. This road (did i mention it was is still being built?), is two lanes wide, littered with boulders that made you feel like you were on a 4wheel drive track, soft sand in which the bus would slide around, and we were driving on the cliff side of the road. This meant any time another car or bus came, our bus would lurch over to the left, wheels only centimetres from the unprotected edge, bus inhabitants leaning towards the middle of the road as if to push the bus back towards the centre! It was terrifying and exhilarating all at once. Unfortunately, we did pass an accident where a motorbike had collided with another bus. Even though the drivers are going slow it happens frequently, with the unprotected motorcyclists rarely coming out unscathed (or alive).
We had our first Dal Bat for lunch on this day, and I ate it everyday afterwards. About 80% of Nepalese people eat Dal Bat everyday, twice a day. It’s basically a pile of rice with curry, greens, lentil soup, and some kind of chutney or pickle. It’s all you can eat, and they’ll refill your plate until you burst, and it’s different in every town which keeps it interesting. It’s also part of my secret arsenal to avoid gastro – I’ve been to Nepal 3x now without every getting gastro!
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Helen
Helen is also in Nepal for the adventure, but also for a challenge. She needed to get away from the “grind”, return to nature and do something for herself. Helen mum of two, she works full time, manages a goat farm and is president of the local pony club. In other words, like many mums, she’s BUSY, and felt like she needed to remind herself of who she was, who she is on her own. For Helen it’s been a stressful few years. For the first time her family has been worried about money, getting jobs, and paying the bills – this trip was a chance to forget all about it and start over. She4’s always wanted to do a trek in Nepal, and this opportunity came at exactly the right time.
Helen has done adventure trips before, she took herself off to Africa once and did the Okavenko Delta, camping, and all on her own. She wasn’t worried about this trek, per se, although there were a few niggly doubts and thoughts around the unknowns! She didn’t know how she’d handle the altitude (fine – except for one day), how her knees would hold up (fine – she has a good trainer!), whether or not she’d get sick (nope, well maybe just a little bit), etc.
As a self professed “slow burn” introvert, it took Helen a little while to come out of her shell in a group of 20 random individuals, but by the end we all got to see the warm and adventurous person that Helen is! However, being a decent person didn’t save her from her fair share of drama – in a land where sleep can be difficult to come by, this woman would drift off a the drop of a pin, inciting rage in those who spent hours every night battling with their anxieties!! Helen could also be accused of liking animals more than people, as she snuggled with every mangy dog and flea bitten cow that she came across, but would creep past the people like she hoped they wouldn’t see her! Don’t worry Helen, we see you, and we think you’re ok just the way you are.
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