Climbing

Today was a tough day. After a Nepal breakfast of noodle soup, we headed up a steep climb in the hot sun. I was soon covered with sweat. I figured the trail was so steep and rocky that we wouldn't have to worry about pony caravans, which force us off to the side. I was wrong, and we were passed by several.

After lunch of delicious cheese and potato momos, a Tibetan dish, we had a couple more hours of climbing up rocky steps blasted from the cliffs. Again, leaning on my stick and waling slowly I was able to minimize exertion. The stick is key! It was still very hard, though. Later, Tak Pun said today was the second hardest day, after Thorang La. All told, we climbed 600 m. The weather has cooled considerably.

We were climbing far up one of the sides of a dramatic, rocky canyon, with the aqua-colored river racing below. Not too many snow peaks, but still beautiful.

The "town" of Tal is in a dramatic setting. You cross a ridge, and before you is a valley, with a clear river running through it, and high, rocky cliffs on all sides. On the far side is a waterfall, and under it lies Tal, like a town out of the Old West. Unfortunately, the only things here are hotels. I hope we'll go through some more authentic villages, especially now that we're in the Tibetan district of Manang.

Girl in hut

The guesthouses have been very basic, but this one is even more so. It's constructed entirely out of plywood. I wonder if the building inspector saw it? For dinner they served us the worst dal bhat I've had. The bhat component consisted of boiled spinach. Yuck! But, this was the first place to have "apple fritters" (all places use an ACAP approved menu with the same items). As usual, they weren't what I expected, but they were delicious.

That night there was some kind of dance show. About 100 villagers were excitedly watching what appeared to be a dance contest. I have no idea where all the people came from. I was too tired to watch for long.