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| Crazy roads...(yes..thats a goat on the roof of that bus!) |
We headed out on our trek on December 17th from Kathmandu to Bessihar on a local bus. The ride was 13 hours due to a nation wide protest regarding some political figure who was killed in prison... We sat forlornly looking out our local bus wind watching the 'tourist' buses pass by on their merry way through the road blocks while our Nepali bus driver tried to reassure us that this is 'just the way of Nepal' (as we were soon to find out was all too true, protests, road closures, power outages...day-in-the-life of Nepal)
Our positive bus driver helped us find a hotel for the night where we found two other travelers who had also been stranded on a local bus...
December 18th we headed out from Besisahar to Bahundanda trekking along a dirt road frequented by jeeps piled high with people, cows, chickens, and locals. Friendly greetings of Namaste met us along the way until we met two rather persistent children who were trained in one English word; 'sweets'. They wanted their picture taken and then they wanted 'sweets'. Naturally we declined because giving to begging children only perpetuates their life of begging, however they were not satisfied with such frugal foreigners, particularly because they could see a bag of cookies in the side pocket of Ben's pack, and they therefore decided to take matters into their own hands ans proceeded to snatch the cookies out of Ben's pack...we got them back of course.
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| 'Sweets!' |
We were then greeted with our first case of the local people taking tourism into their own hands...a friendly sign had been place to direct uncertain tourist on the path to 'Manang' however this trail lead straight to a guest house that was less than adequate and they knew it, that is why they offered it to us for free (food cost is where they make their money)...we declined and hiked up a long set of steps (thanks to the detour) and found our selves in Bahundanda for sunset. We stayed at the Swiss Alpine lodge, with Chitra and his wife, our most gracious hosts the entire trek. We played cards and talked of California while eating fried maccoronie (a common dish). All in all a good first day of a long trek.
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| Chitra and his wife |
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| The trail |
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| The first of hundreds of falls along the Marsyangdi river canyon |