It was worth it

We rose at 4:30 to climb Poon Hill. This was impossible not to do, due to the shouting Germans next door, who were at it at 4. The steep climb of half an hour, then we had a good view of the sunrise over the hazy mountains. The problem with trekking in the spring is the haze, which obscures the peaks. It produced an interesting effect this morning, though, and it looked like the peaks were floating in space. Was it worth a day of hell?

We had six hours of walking before we could make our final escape. The morning was 2000 m down steps. This was rough, and my knees were in great pain. We passed spectacular scenery, starting with jungle, down through villages on hillsides with bright green terraced fields. But we were all too tired to appreciate it.

After lunch (or “dinner,” as the wacky English contingent refers to it, leading to no end of confusion), we had three more endless hours over “level” terrain. In Nepal, level terrain means for every hill you climb, you descend one of equal height.

The gang on Poon Hill

For the last hour we raced a thunderstorm, which finally exploded into furious rain as we entered Naya Pul. So much for completing the while trek without getting wet. Surprisingly, after being away from cars and busses for three weeks, I didn’t find their amazingly loud and annoying Indian horns shocking. What did find shocking was walking through a real Nepali town after three weeks in tourist towns made up of hotels. The dirt streets, the filth, the screaming children, and the crush of people was unsettling.

The five of us piled into a tiny cab for the hour ride to Pokhara. The combination of torrential downpouring hail, lack of defrosters, excessive speed, windy mountain road, huge oncoming busses with no headlights, and random cows made the ride particularly terrifying. Forget terrorism and SARS. The real danger of traveling is the driving.

We celebrated with a big dinner at the Lemon Tree, then I read email (i.e., deleted spam) for two hours.