From Bangkok it was off to Kathmandu in Nepal (a 4-hour flight) where I met up with the rest of my trekking group.  Nine Aussies (well, sort of – I’m not sure what Malaysian-born Alice considers herself given that she's lived just about everywhere), me, and about 25 Nepalese porters, cooks, guides, sherpas, etc. plus our intrepid leader, Ashok Lama, who was just terrific.  

One thing I know with certainty: never did a more awesome group trek the Annapurnas!

I’m not sure what to say about the group other than that I couldn’t possibly have hoped for more friendly, fun and supportive people with whom to experience Nepal.  Ages of my fellow travellers ranged from twenty-something to a few months older than me, with an average for the group of 39.5472. (And that’s coming from someone who’s lucky if he’s within ± one decade when guessing anyone’s age)! Oh yes: 7 females, 3 males.  I really must buy Helen (my travel agent) a nice thank-you gift!

Kathmandu was my first visit to a third world city.  It is truly fascinating, with more World Heritage Sites than any other city in the world. At the same time, air pollution from vehicles and the lifestyle in general take a little getting used to. Rural Nepal, where we trekked, was truly beautiful and the people amongst the most friendly I’ve ever encountered.

From Kathmandu, it was a 5-hour (200 km.) at-times-treacherous drive west to Pokhara, where our 7-day trek along the less populated routes started.  We were trekking (hiking) with a day-pack (the porters carried our tents and all our heavy equipment on their backs!) on routes that have probably been there for many centuries.  We avoided the more popular routes (as Nov – Dec is peak trekking season) and saw only two (count ‘em, 2) non-local people the whole week (except in Pokhara).  The more popular routes would have been a virtual traffic jam of tourists.

We had good trekking weather – a fair amount of overcast (which eases the higher altitude sunburn problem and makes trekking a lot cooler) but no rain.  The trek, billed as "introductory" (and it was) was nevertheless more difficult in spots than I had expected. Climbing 2000 ft in 2 hours is tough slogging in any 50-something’s vocabulary! (I did notice that the 20-somethings tended to finish the day’s trek a tad before me – but only a tad!).  Descending the same distance over rocks wet with morning dew borders on the suicidal!  Sorry – no photos – I was otherwise engaged in protecting life and limb!

Our maximum altitude was about 8 000 ft. or 2 440 metres (Everest is about 29 000 ft. - 8 840 metres). Temperatures were basically 10 to 12° C at night (but it felt a lot colder with the breeze and dampness) and low to mid 20’s during the day.

Some of the sunsets were spectacular!

Bathing?  Well, we did end up by a stream around noon one sunny day late in the trek (that's the stream in the background and to the left of our orange tents).  I wasted no time in jumping in, along with the locals, to wash my clothes and myself.  Other than that, it was a little bowl of warm water each morning and afternoon!The only real hardship was not being able to get diet coke (despite my offering a reward of $20 per can!) – and hence not being able to enjoy the occasional rum and sugar-free cola (high-test coke was in plentiful supply).