By the time Del brought me bed tea at 6:30, I was up, dressed, packed, and ready for my first morning view of the mountains. Being mid-March, the air is really only clear early in the day. By midday clouds and haze can obscure the mountain peaks.
Annapurna South and Hiunchuli from Pothana at sunrise
Now on the usual trekking route, I found that huge portions of the trail were “paved” with flagstones, and many steep sections had stone steps. Note the hazy background in the afternoon photo versus the clear sky in the morning one.
Path just outside of Pothana in the afternoon
View of Annapurna South from path leaving Pothana in the morning at 7:40
We climbed gradually and then after a short steep section reached a pass at 7,085′, a little over an hour after leaving Pothana.
Machhapuchhre or Fishtail (22,943')
Hiunchuli, 21,132'
On the other side of the pass we reached the village of Deurali (6890′) where we stopped for tea.
Annapurna South as we head into Deurali
Soon we came to a serious downhill section on crude stone steps.
- Looking up some of the steps
- Looking down from the same position
We reached a stream in a side valley which we crossed on a suspension bridge.
- Crossing a deep valley on a suspension bridge
As we followed the contours of the next hill up to the village of Tolka, I got my first glimpse of the Modi Khola valley. I think the path in the picture is a section on the other side of the river that I never set foot on.
- Villages above the Modi Khola
- Tolka
In Tolka (5,938′) we stopped for lunch at the Ram Lodge. The menu had basically the same items as the Fishtail the day before. I soon discovered that all the guesthouses had the same basic menu, although the organization varied and the end result varied even more. One time spaghetti with tomato sauce was just that–cooked spaghetti with some heated tomato sauce (not spaghetti sauce) on it. Another time it had almost no sauce and so much cheese, it was closer to macaroni and cheese with a little tomato flavoring. The vegetable curry was never very spicey. Rosti bore little resemblance to the original Swiss version; usually it was fried boxed mashed potatoes with some cheese on it, although sometimes it was doctored with onions and garlic. Even so, it was one of my favorites. An omelette with french fries was always good. The pizza varied a lot, and sometimes the cook was pretty skimpy on the tomato sauce or sliced tomatoes and cheese. If you wanted to go native, there was always Dal Bhat (I think the guides and porters ate this for every meal) or momos (little dumplings), which sometimes were good and other times very chewy.
- Pizza
- Momos
Leaving Tolka, there were more flagstone steps down to another side valley and another bridge. You can see the stone abutments at the far end of the bridge.
- Flagstone steps leaving Tolka
- Down, down we go
Here’s a view from below back up towards Tolka.
Looking up to Tolka
From here we curved around the hill, not down, towards Landruk, passing a scattering of Gurung farmsteads.
That's the Modi Khola down there
Landruk sits just above the river on the eastern bank at 5,314′, 1200′ lower than where I’d started in the morning. We arrived around 2p, so I got had plenty of time to get a shower before the sun disappeared behind the mountains and the temperature plummeted.
Hotel Sherpa, Landruk
My guesthouse in Landruk
The rooms on the second floor on the left side, the ones with the small windows have bathrooms. Having a private bathroom was a real luxury; few guesthouses had any. On the other hand, they weren’t quite what you’d expect.
My private "bathroom"
The sink pipe is not connected to anything; the water just goes onto the floor in hopes that it will get to the floor drain. The shower consisted of a shower head on the wall in front of the toilet. Be sure to close the lid to avoid a wet seat. And there’s no way to avoid a very wet floor since there’s only the one drain. See the beige and black on the lower left of the toilet tank? That’s tape covering various cracks and perhaps holding a piece in place, so you need to fill the tank just before flushing & hope it holds until all the water’s out.
Do you remember the outdoor kitchen at the hotel where I started trekking? That sink was quite luxurious compared to most.
The only source of running water
Most guesthouses had only one source of running water–an outdoor spigot. People washed themselves, their clothes, and their dishes at these spigots which were usually fed by a hose from a free-flowing water source far, far away. I never saw something I recognized as being a sunken well.