Wednesday, 17 December 2014

Edinburgh

After Paris, I stopped off in Edinburgh for a few days before heading back to Canada. It was really nice to be back in Edinburgh! I got to catch up with coworkers, flatmates and friends and even got to attend the office Christmas night out. Plus it snowed!


Snowy Royal Mile
Art Gallery photo














For many reasons, it was really tough getting on the plane to head back to Canada after my short stay in Edinburgh but I'm really glad I had a chance to catch up with some wonderful people.

Plane photo

Paris

Because I didn't made it to Paris while I was working in Scotland, I figured it would make a good stopover on the way home from Nepal - it would break up the journey and the time change and ease me back into colder climates. Plus, it's Paris.
 
I think it lived up to what I was expecting. I did some walking around and visiting art museums. I got sick, which kind of sucked because I had little energy so probably didn't end up seeing as much as I could have, but on the other hand, getting sick was pretty unsurprising and highly overdue. On top of getting sick, I also got bit by some sort of insect near my eye, which swelled up. So I was perhaps not at my best in Paris... but, hey, I was still in Paris!
 
Here's what I managed to see/do in Paris:
  • Eiffel Tower (I didn't go up though)
  • Sacre-Coeur and Notre Dame churches (I figured after all the wats, shrines, temples and stupas I'd visited over the past few months, I might as well see a couple churches as well)
  • Arc de Triomphe
  • Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
  • Centre Georges Pompidou (another modern art museum)
  • Musee D'Orsay
  • Musee de Louvre


Eiffel Tower
Sacre-Coeur
Art at Centre Georges Pompidou














Notre Dame Cathedral
Trying to look at the Mona Lisa


One of the many nice ceilings at the
Louvre


Paris from the top of the Arc de
Triomphe


Paris from the top of the Arc de
Triomphe


Paris
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I tried my best not to think about how expensive things were. I've found that my perspective of how much things should cost has changed over the last few months. It's a bit of a shocker to go from decent meals for $4-$6 to a place where a hot dog with a bottle of water costs you $12. I had to stop thinking about it and decide that 15€ was actually fine for a meal or else I never would have eaten.
 
Money and sicknesses aside, I'm glad I stopped in Paris. I really enjoyed just being in Paris.
 

Monday, 8 December 2014

Nepal - Airplane photos

When I arrived in Kathmandu from Bangkok, our flight had to circle for about half an hour before it could land (apparently very common and I was lucky that my plane did not have to be diverted to India to refuel). Anyhoo, I didn't mind the circling as it allowed me to take these pictures of the Himalayan mountains:























Also, my flight out of Kathmandu was delayed by 4 hours, which is also very common, so maybe keep the delays in mind if you're ever thinking of flying into or out of Kathmandu.

Nepal - Annapurna Circuit Part 2

Here’s what happen on the second half of the Annapurna Circuit:
(I should note that the distances travelled are sort of best guess estimated from different sources… they’re not all likely to be correct).

Day 10:
The day after we got over Thorung-La Pass, we were given the option of taking a jeep to get to our lunch destination or walking there. Surprisingly (or maybe not) we all chose to walk in the morning. So we walked 21km to Jomson. We lost 1040m in elevation so it was a lot of downhill followed by some flat. It was pretty and I was glad we decided to walk. After lunch, we took a bumpy local bus ride to Ghasa where we spent the night. We were all a bit concerned when we got there because our tea house had no stove or heater in the dining room. We were anticipating a very cold evening but then discovered that since we were at roughly 2000m elevation, a heater wasn’t required.


Valley
Cool rock formation


River and mountains




















Day 11:
After spending so many days in desert-like scenery, it was really weird to wake up and see green outside the window this morning. We walked 13km from Ghasa to Tatopani (about a 900m drop in elevation). We got there by lunch and then went to the local hot spring in the afternoon. It was really relaxed and everyone felt like the trip was sort of ending, even though we still had a lot more walking to do. Most people also took advantage of the warmer temperatures to wash some clothes. Unfortunately, nothing dried overnight so we all spent the next couple of days trying to get wet clothes to dry (harder than it sounds!).

Bridge



























Day 12:
We walked from Tatopani to Sikha (8km distance and an elevation gain of 800m). It was a bit of a shocker going uphill again after two and a half days of downhill but it gave my calf muscles a much needed break. Apparently I use them a lot to walk downhill and they were really tight and sore. I actually didn’t take any photos today… I guess I was giving my photo taking muscles a break as well.

Day 13:
We walked from Sikha to Ghorepani, which was another elevation gain of 800m and a distance of 6km. It had been fairly cloudy all day and after we got to Ghorepani, the clouds lowered to the point where we were literally in a fog (some of us probably figuratively as well…). It didn’t bode well for the next morning when we were going to climb Poon Hill to watch the sun rise with a view of the mountains. Something strange happens to your perspective when you’re on the circuit – to the point where someone suggests getting up before 5AM to climb 300m to watch the sunrise and everyone thinks it’s a fine idea.


Hello
Sometimes there were delays due to
local wildlife
Every now and then, my pack
would feel a lot lighter


























Day 14:
At some point during the night the skies cleared to the point where we got to the top of Poon Hill in time to see a cloudless sunrise. It was really pretty and I had a surreal moment where I realized that in the past few months I had seen the sunrise over the Mekong River, the South China Sea, a Thai elephant sanctuary and the Himalyan mountains. Quite an amazing few months!
 
Shhh... the mountain is sleeping.























After returning to Ghorepani and eating breakfast, we walked 10km to Birethanti. It was a challenging walk as most of it was down stone steps – 1835m worth of stone steps, not including the descent from Poon Hill. My legs were pretty shaky by the time we got to Birethanti.


Crappy photo but the only one I have
showing all the terraces














That night was our last night with our porters and our assistant guide so we had a special dinner all together (Dal Bhat… eaten with our hands in Nepali fashion) and then lit a camp fire in the middle of the (pedestrian) street and had a dance party. The porters supplied the music (both by singing and with a stereo) and we all danced to the amused (I hope) horror of the on-looking locals. Man, could some of our porters dance! They had us all try a Nepali squat dance, which my legs really did not appreciate the next day (… or maybe that was just all the downhill).

Day 15:
Today we did our last bit of walking, an easy kilometer to Nayapul where we caught a van to Pokhara. We had the rest of the day in Pokhara. Some of us took a short boat tour on the lake before meeting the whole group for dinner and saying goodbye to a couple members of our group who were staying in Pokhara.



Morning mist
Last view of the mountain


Phewa Tal


Butterfly




















The next day, we took a van to Kathmandu and our tour ended. I was sad that it was over. I had an amazing time with some great people!

Nepal - Thorung-La Pass

Getting myself over the Thorung-La Pass is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The night before, we stayed at Thorung Phedi at an altitude of 4540m. The elevation of the pass is 5416m so we had to ascend 876m and then descend 1600m on the other side to get to Muktinath where we would stay the next night (covering a distance of 21km).

We started out sometime between 3:30 and 4AM (so that we would get over the pass before it got super windy) and all of my enthusiasm from the day before disappeared. I got to High Camp (elev. 4925m) alright and then started fading pretty quickly. It was hard enough climbing steeply at high altitude but it was also dark (the sun wasn’t up yet) and really cold (so cold that my chest ached) and my headlamp kept flickering and dimming (because the cold was sapping the batteries). No one was talking much because of the effort (and breath) it took and even though I was walking in line with everyone else, I felt a bit isolated.

At some point, the trail became really icy and crossed a steep icy slope that seemed to drop off into infinity. I started getting panicky about slipping and falling down to who knows where but then my brain sort of went “yeah, I really can’t handle this right now” and just blocked it out, which made crossing the slope a lot easier.

I should have stopped to eat a snack because I needed the sugar but my stomach had started to hurt and then I felt nauseous and I really didn’t want to have to take my mittens off to rummage through my bag for food. I was feeling pretty tired and miserable and was wondering why I ever thought that this would be fun. After a while some guys in my group stopped ahead for a rest. I stopped when I reached them and sat down. They asked if I was alright and then made me drink some water, helped me fish out some granola bars from my pack and waited for me while I rested. While they were waiting, a man walked by (I think someone else’s guide or porter). He asked if I was alright and then told the guys to go slowly for me. I was mortified! I hate being the weak slow one! I'm very stubbornly independent and it was bad enough (in my head) that I was leaning on my group for help – the thought that I looked in bad enough shape for some random guy to comment on it didn’t do much for my mental state. I felt like crying but that would have been even more embarrassing so I just got up and kept going.

I did eventually start feeling a lot better – the granola bars kicked in, the sun came up and the scenery was incredible – and I made it over the pass, slowly but without any other problems. It felt great to reach the top! We milled around for 10-15 minutes at the top and then started our descent. It was a long, steep, tiring descent but was a piece of cake after the ascent.


View on the way up (I didn't take
many photos on the way up because
it meant taking off my mittens)
Another going up view













Tada! I made it!
Thorung-La Pass


View at the top



The view on the other side of the pass


View on descent



























It was a really draining day – for me, more emotionally than physically. I’ve never really had to rely on other people for moral support like that before. I’m really grateful that my tour-mates were there and that they helped me out without making me feel like an inconvenience.

I also learned that my brain works funny at high altitude. After I was feeling better, my roommate stopped dead in her tracks so I stopped to see if she was alright and helped her get more water out of her pack. She was having trouble carrying the new water bottle because of an empty one that was clipped to the front of her pack. I had the mental wherewithal to realize what the problem was and the dexterity to unclip the empty water bottle but then I couldn’t even begin to think about how to clip it onto another part of her pack. So I just clipped it to my pack (which would have been the exact same as clipping it to her pack) and kept going. It wasn’t until a few hours later on our descent that I realized how weird it was.

Sunday, 7 December 2014

Nepal - Annapurna Circuit - Part 1

The Annapurna Circuit is 210km long. The tour I did included a jeep ride for 30km and a bus ride for another 30km so in total we only walked 150-ish km. We started walking at an elevation of 1100m and worked our way up to an elevation of 5416m at the Thorung-La Pass. It took 15 days and some hard work but I had a fantastic time and got to meet some great people. Here’s how the first half played out:

Day 1:
We took a bus from Kathmandu to Besisahar and then a jeep on a bumpy cliff-top dirt road from Besisahar to Syange where we stayed for the night. So first day, no walking.

Besisahar
One of our jeeps


Room prices are less than dinner prices




















Day 2:
First day of walking! We walked 17km from Syange to Bagarchap and gained 1060m in elevation. It was a long day full of beautiful scenery but I could have done without the last hour.

Huge shopping centre...
Village



























Day 3:
We walked 12km from Bagarchap to Chame and gained 510m. Today we had our first glimpse of Annapurna II (this was also the day I stopped noting which mountains we saw... I lasted one day).

Scenery
Wildlife









Mountains!













Day 4:
We walked 11km from Chame to Lower Pisang. It was only 11km with a gain of 530m. After we got to Lower Pisang, we walked up to a monastery (which I think was in Upper Pisang?), which had great views of the valley and Annapurna II. Lower Pisang is at an elevation of 3200m and it was starting to get noticeably colder at night. We stayed at tea houses each night on the trail and none of the rooms had heating, which was never a problem for me while sleeping because my rented sleeping bag kept me quite warm and there were always extra blankets we could use. There was usually a fire going in the dining room to make it warm enough to sit and eat and play cards but in Lower Pisang, the wood stove really wasn’t up to the task.


Trail
More trail
Scenery














Praying for good weather
Lower Pisang











I feel I should also mention that it was around Lower Pisang that personal hygiene standards got a bit altered. When showers are likely to be cold, water sources freeze, rooms aren't heated and overnight temperatures are nowhere near balmy, one tends to not wash so much. I had hand sanitizer but there came a point where I'm pretty sure I was just sanitizing the layer of dirt coating my hands. I was definitely not alone and there were unwritten pacts to not judge anyone else's bed/hat hair, odour or dirty clothes.

Day 5:
We walked 11km from Lower Pisang to Manang with a gain of 340m. It was a really picturesque day of walking. I was surprised by the desert-like-ness of the mountains (although I shouldn't have been because I had experienced how dry the air was). We were staying in Manang (elev. 3540m) for two nights to help with our acclimatization to high altitude so it was a great chance to wash some stinky clothes and explore the town. Our guide told us that to help reduce our chances of getting (or limit the impacts of) altitude sickness, we should drink lots of water. I think I drank 4L today… and for the rest of the trek, I never got below 2-3L.









Manang


I guess having yaks enter your store
is a risk of living in Manang


























Day 6:
This was our acclimatization “rest day” in Manang. To help with acclimatization we walked 300m up to a lookout next to the Gangapurna glacier and then returned to Manang. We also had an altitude sickness talk from a volunteer doctor and had a chance to have our blood haemoglobin levels checked. Mine was 94% so I was feeling pretty good about my acclimatization (although it also said my pulse rate was 117, which didn’t quite make sense).


Goat stampede!


































Day 7:
On the move again, we walked 9km from Manang to Yak Kharka (which became affectionately known by my group as Yak Carcass). It was an elevation gain of about 500m and once we got there we climbed another 350m up a hill for acclimatization before returning to Yak Kharka.


After passing this hotel, I had
"Hotel California" in my head
 for the rest of the day.

















Day 8:
We walked 6km from Yak Kharka to Thorung Phedi, gaining 400m elevation. It was the shortest distance and least elevation gain so far but it was hard work. It was the highest elevation I had ever been for any sort of extended time and I could definitely feel the altitude. I turned into a very slow walker (as did most of the rest of my group). Any sort of incline was really noticeable and made me out of breath. We got to a part of the trail that had a high risk of landslides and our guide said “try to walk quickly over this part” – I tried but I’m not sure I accomplished it.
























We got to Thorung Phedi (elev. 4450m) and had lunch and a bit of a rest before we did another acclimatization walk up the path that would take us over the Thorung Pass the next day. It was nice to be able to do part of this path in the daylight because I knew we would be hiking it in the dark early the next morning. I was so pumped when we got back to Thorung Phedi! I was so ready to take on the Pass.



The highest I've ever slept while not
in an airplane... or on drugs...
View from hotel














Looking up trail leading to the pass












Sunset