Nepal trekking: Dal bhat power, 24 hour!

So first of all, it’s back into a 4WD for the drive from Kathmandu to Syabru Bensi before our trekking begins – this time it’s an old Mahindra rather than a Toyota; much more basic and fairly clapped out, but it gets the job done. After we turn off the main highway the drive gets more interesting as we start to climb. The mountainsides are beautifully terraced from top to bottom, casting perfectly horizontal shadows across the green mountainside; lower down it’s mainly rice growing; as we climb it changes to millet. But this is all interspersed with vegetables of all sorts growing in neat fields. The road is OK for the most part but there are a couple of sections where there has clearly been a huge rock fall that are incredibly bumpy and slow, the car rocking from side to side over some pretty steep drops.

Syabru Bensi is the main entry point for trekkers coming to the Langtang valley – it is completely dominated by serving trekkers; just a long row of guest houses and shops. I think every single person in the village is making their living out of tourism. Our bed sets the tone for the next couple of weeks: a solid wooden base with thin (but comfortable enough) mattress – a ‘blanket’ (actually a very heavy duvet) and rather solid pillow. The very thin cotton cover on the duvet doesn’t look like it gets washed between every guest, but we’re in sleeping bag liners so it’s fine. Dinner again sets the tone: dal baht, of course (Nepalis eat this twice every day).

We’re somewhat apprehensive about how the children are going to cope with the trekking and the first day starts with a long steep climb to a pass. Thankfully, Karma manages to get a car to drive us up this section – we don’t want a mutiny on day one!  In addition to Karma,  we’ve got two of his brothers acting as porters, carrying our main rucksacks; we’ve also brought Finzo (another relative) along as as additional porter to carry Millie as and when required. After the car drops us off, the walking is very gentle downhill – a perfect start – and as Millie is still a bit intimidated by Finzo, she elects to walk. It’s not long before we reach our first tea house – we decide it would be rude to walk on by so stop for a ‘millik tea’. After 2-3 hours we reach the wonderful village of Gatlang, its stone built, wooden roofed houses camouflaged perfectly against the hillside. This is a truly authentic Nepali village. The path weaves down through the village between houses all of the same style: 3 walls are a dry stone construction, with the front walls made of ornately carved wood. They are two storey, the ground floor open fronted for the animals, with the family living on the upper floor. The roofs are wooden tiled, greyed with the weather. Sweetcorn is hanging on the fronts of the houses to dry; various other vegetables are drying on the ground. Chickens and cockerels are wandering everywhere. Our home stay is right at the bottom of the village, with a wonderful view down over the valley.

It’s clear that life is very hard here, subsistence farming in pretty difficult terrain. Everyone is wearing traditional dress, made of very thick yak wool. When wandering through the village, we see a  gnarled man kneading a pile of dark yak wool with his feet. He’s basically felting it, using a mixture of salt and water – Karma tells us this process takes about 6 hours. The result is an incredibly dense and warm fabric that’s used for an outer coat. I see him later with the finished roll of fabric over his shoulder.

As soon as the sun falls beneath the horizon the temperature plummets. We wrap up in thermals and our new down gilets, enjoy our dal baht and settle down for an early night. The next morning we wake early, just in time to see the first rays of sunshine catching the tops of the mountains behind the mountains. It’s a chilly start, but by the time we’ve had our fried eggs and flat bread for breakfast, packed our rucksacks (we’re still pretty inefficient at this) and are ready to leave, the sun has reached the bottom of the village and it’s probably 25 degrees.

Our walk starts with more gentle downhill, easy walking until lunchtime. We stop at another tea house for lunch – the children play at making magic potions while the owner disappears round the back, picks fresh vegetables and potatoes from the garden and starts to prepare the most delicious noodle soup and chips. Of course Karma and the boys have their dal baht for lunch – as I said, twice a day – with Karma reciting his mantra with a smile: “dal baht power, 24 hour!” After lunch we’ve got a much sterner test of walking – and hour or so up a path of steep hairpin bends, up the other side of the valley. Needless to say, Millie has by now familiarised herself with Finzo’s shoulders. Jemima and Gabriel make it to the top with a few tactical stops for trail mix.

They days continue along similar lines: early nights, early mornings, 3-4 hours walking each day, up and down across 3 valleys. Totally fresh noodle or vegetable soup with some sort of potatoes for lunch; dal baht for supper. Often even the rice is fresh from the garden. We’re loving the food and feeling like it’s all incredibly healthy. Karma is absolutely brilliant – there seems to be no end to his talents. After our dal baht one evening, he offers the children ‘potato momos’ as a treat – this turns out to be deep fried apple and chocolate pie that he’s knocked up in our host’s kitchen, absolutely scrummy!  He judges perfectly how much to push the children in terms of walking and comes up with treats at just the right moment (never under-estimate the restorative power of a Snickers bar). Her offers ‘jumping games’ to get them up the steep bits when they’re flagging; he carves everyone a walking stick (Gabriel’s has a tiger’s head for a handle); makes bows and arrows for all the children and a couple of wonderful dolls for Millie out of bamboo, cardboard and a bit of stray fabric he manages to find.

We settle into a rhythm: I’m always the first up, eager to see the views at sunrise but also to get a precious 30 minutes or so completely to myself with my book. After breakfast it’s packing our things again before leaving between 9.30 and 10.00am. Depending on the distances between villages, we walk for 2-3 hours, stop for a leisurely lunch and then do another hour or so in the afternoon, or keep going for longer in the morning before stopping for lunch and then just relaxing / playing in the afternoon. Dinner is railroad early and we’re all tucked up for bed (including Fi & me) by about 8pm.

It’s fabulous to stay in people’s homes in villages and see how they live their lives. There is always a communal tap & washing area in the centre of the village. This is for washing clothes, dishes and serves as the communal bathroom / shower. The water from the tap runs constantly – there’s no shortage of water here as it’s all snow melt from the mountains – this also helps to rinse everything down the (open) drains and out of the village. We quickly realise there’s no queuing system – the locals think nothing of you reaching in over their washing up to rinse your socks, toothbrush or feet! Equally, it can take ages to wash clothes as someone will quite likely come in an grab a quick shower (actually, a very thorough shower) under the tap while you’re wringing out your undies.

On various occasions we heard or saw the preparations for or remnants of ceremonies to cast out evil spirits from people’s houses; maybe because anger, arguments or bad events had occurred.

As we climb, the temperature drops, particularly at night. At our highest point (about 3,200m) we get fabulous views of snow-capped mountains – it’s not called Mountain View guesthouse for nothing! From here, there’s a walk up to Taruche view point – there’s talk of Fi & I setting off at 5am and getting up there for sun-rise; in the end, Fi stays down with the children and I go off with Karma after breakfast. It’s a tough climb for nearly two hours, though rhododendron forest, then pine forest (stark burned-out trees silhouetted against the mountains – there has clearly been a major forest fire here), then dense, twisted green forest covered in moss, straight out of The Lord of the Rings, and eventually the top, with views over into Tibet. Unfortunately it has typically clouded over through the morning so we don’t get the full 360 degree view, but it is certainly well worth the effort.

After 10 days of trekking around the beautiful Tamang Heritage Trail, we eventually hit the bottom of the Langtang trail. Suddenly, the trail is a major thoroughfare; we’re forever passing large groups of trekkers and porters carrying ludicrously large loads, coming the other way. The hostels we’re staying in are much larger and purpose built for trekkers, rather than simply peoples’s homes – they’re fine but lacking the character. We’re so glad we’ve taken the less trodden route – maybe somewhat less dramatic scenery but so rich in terms of local charm and culture.

The end point for our trek is Karma’s home village, Syafru, where we will spend a few days in his parents’ house. This trek has been an absolute joy; I’m so proud of our children for coping so well with the trekking and moving on to different places every day. There have been no electrical gadgets and it’s been more than fine – no arguments over who’s using which device and wonderful imaginative games being created. Millie has ended up walking more than 50% of the way, including all the way on our. Final day, steeply down the valley and then equally steeply up the other side to Karma’s village. Hooray, we have trekking children!!!