Annapurna Base Camp Trek - Part I

I had always wanted to do a long trek in the Himalayas ever since my taste for trekking got developed in the Sahyadris. My first trek there must have been in 1991 when I went for a trek to Bhimashankar during the monsoon with some of my PUCSD friends. It has been 20 years since and recent events gave me a reality check that I am not growing any younger and so I contacted Odati Adventures and joined their trip to Annapurna Base Camp.

April 30^th 2011 – Bangalore to Kathmandu

The Jet Airways flight to Delhi was a surprise. As always I can never figure out if I am flying Jet Airways or Jet Lite. If I eat in the airport I go on a Jet Airways flight and I get food in the flight too or if I don't eat in the airport I have to buy the horrible in-flight food in Jet Lite. Sigh. This flight turned out to be Jet Airways and strangely they had allowed me to web check-in in the business class section. So I actually traveled business class to New Delhi. Since I did not eat in the fabulous New Delhi Terminal 3, the flight to Kathmandu turned out to be Jet Lite, of course. I had been informed that I should take the left window seat on this flight so that I would get my first glimpse of the greater Himalaya. As it turned out the day was cloudy and I could only see the peaks peeking out above the clouds. Still an awesome sight. We had an overnight halt in Kathmandu in Hotel Marsyandi Mandala in Kathmandu, near Thamel. It was an expensive and forgettable place. The rooms were not good, the bathrooms were horrible and generally the service was poor. This applies to Kathmandu in general. It is avoidable. It is dirty, polluted and the services lethargic. This is surprising considering that it is invaded by tourists.

In Kathmandu we got the initial briefing about our trip. Jayesh from Odati was joining us, Mahesh from Culture Treks from Nepal was going to be our guide and I had just one more group companion Zubin Fatakia from Mumbai. I was happy that our group was small and I did not have to deal with a lot of people. I was expecting these 15 days to be quiet and contemplative.

May 1^st 2011 – Kathmandu to Pokhara

We took an early morning bus to Pokhara from Thamel. This was a tourist bus and the seats were comfortable. It was a 4.5 hours ride to Pokhara in terrible roads. There were big traffic jams caused due to vehicles parked arbitrarily in narrow two-lane roads. Nepal reminds me of India 20 years back. Those who keep whining about how things are going bad in India should shift to Nepal. The bus route follows the Trishuli river. There are already pre-monsoon showers and the river is picking up lot of silt and is brown in colour. The building material of the gangetic plains is getting transported from here. We saw some folks in rafts and feel jealous and I think, may be we should be doing rafting too in this trip.

In Pokhara we checked-in into the Lake View Resort and we meet a very scrawny man who was very deferential to us and who picked up our bags. Later we found out that this was Narayan who was going to be our porter for the trip. Pokhara is a stark contrast to Kathmandu. The lake side is very pleasant and Lake View Resort is a good place to hang out. It started raining in the afternoon and this was a constant feature through our entire trip.

We visited the Mountaineering Museum in Pokhara and got full gyan about mountaineering and geology of the Himalayas. The museum is worth a visit. The plaster-of-paris relief maps were interesting. I could see that our trail to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) goes through some narrow gorges in the last 2 days and there was avalanche danger. I was thrilled by that prospect.

There have been expeditions to collect the junk that has accumulated in the mountains and the museum has a display of some of the junk collected. It is sad that in our pursuit for adventure we care so little about these pristine places. Hopefully, modern expeditions are more sensitive and collect their garbage and get it back....

When we came out of the museum the rain had stopped and the skies cleared. We could see the entire Annapurna range and Dhaulagiri range towering in the north. It was a crazy sight. Pokhara is probably lower than Bangalore but we can see the 8000m mountains rising very quickly within few kilometers from Pokhara. The mountains seem to loom way up in the sky and it was like nothing I have ever seen before. Pokhara is a very good tourist destination.

Our actual trek starts the next day and we have any early night. I am a bit apprehensive about the weather. It was rainy and stormy....