Trekking the Singalila Ridge

Trip Start Oct 01, 2005
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8
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Trip End Sep 20, 2006


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Where I stayed
Sherpa Tinzeng
(Darjeeling hotels)

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Friday, October 14, 2005

In a nutshell: We are back in Darjeeling after our 7-day trek in the foothills of the Himalaya. We followed the Singalila Ridge trek with New Yorker Amanda, our guide Nabin and two porters (they did tell us their names but we failed to remember them...). At the beginning of the trek we were absorbed into a wonderful Israeli family, the Mor's: Uri & Dorit (Dad & Mum), Omer, Carmel and Atay (whose barmitzvah they were celebrating). We tekked in parallel with them until Sandakphu. There was another Israeli, Oded, who came and went, spoke fluent Hindi and 'borrowed' our guide from time to time! He was with us until Samaden. We were so lucky to have found a 'trek-mate' in Amanda, she was the perfect person to have been matched up with, same fitness level, same age and we were able to share a lot of jokes along the way.

The trek was fantastic - we are spoilt to have had such highlight so early in our trip!
We would recommend this trek to anyone (& the guys who organised it - Trek Mates in Darjeeling), it's easy to moderate and goes through some fantastically varied terrain. We had three very early starts (we're talking 5am here!) but were rewarded with some incredible views of the Kanchenjunga range AND Everest! Wait 'till you see the pictures!

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In more detail:

DAY ONE: Darjeeling - Tonglu
Our guide, Naven, met us early with Amanda and we took a jeep from Darjeeling (altitude 2134m) to Maneybhanjyang (alt. 2134m), the start of the trail. 01 - the edge of India and Nepal
01 - the edge of India and Nepal
 Naven got 2 porters who would be with us for the whole trek carrying our packs (don't feel sorry for them, they ran virtually the whole way, flagged down jeeps to give them lifts and hardly broke into a sweat the entire time!). We started walking the 11km to Tonglu (alt. 3070m) where we arrived in time for a late lunch with some other trekkers. We stayed in the lovely trekkers hut that night and really enjoyed the food served up - Tibetan.

DAY TWO: Tonglu - Kali Pokhari
An early start at Tonglu (5am) to see sunrise and a great view of Kanchenjunga - these views are always better in the morning as the cloud hasn't developed. By midday the views are quite restricted. We trekked 13km to Kali Pokhari (alt 3108m). It was quite an easy day and we arrived in good time. This trekker's hut wasn't as nice, and it was getting colder...

DAY THREE: Kali Pokhari - Sandakphu
We had a late (7.30am) start as there was no view from the Kali Pokhari trekker's hut. We had a hard day's trek ahead of us to get to Sandakphu (alt. 3636m) - it was only 8km but it was pretty much ALL at a 45-degree gradient! Very hard work and we were very sweaty when we arrived at the trekker's hut, again not a very nice one (did I mention that NONE of the huts have either showers or hot water...?!) and it was really very cold!

DAY FOUR: Sandakphu - Phalut
This was a long day's trekking rather than a hard day's trek, it was fairly level all the way. We were up at 5am again to see the sunrise - Naven picked a spot just down the road from the hut which gave us a vantastic view of the Kanchenjunga range and our first really good sight of Everest! We were very impressed but Naven said that the view the next morning from Phalut would be even better. 02 - early one morning, us and the mountains
02 - early one morning, us and the mountains
 We walked for 21km to get to Phalut (alt. 3600) and as it was all in the Singalila National Park there were no tea stops along the route, we had a picnic lunch. It was chilly during the day but getting pretty cold on our arrival at the Phalut trekker's hut (the worst one so far!). It was absolutely FREEZING that night, there was no heating whatsoever (or electricity) and we were actually quite glad to get up at 5am for the sunrise.

DAY FIVE: Phalut - Samaden
This was the most amazing of all the views we'd seen - we were a lot closer to Kanchenjunga and the entire panorama was unobstructed, right round to Everest. It was such a privilage to see the sun rise that morning, picking out the tips of the mountains first and then spreading the glow until the whole range was vivid white against the blue sky. We just hope our fancy digital camera has managed to capture it!

We trekked for about 13km through mostly forest and mostly in a downwards direction which made a change! We were in farmland now, lots of maize growing on terraces in the hillside. We stayed in a trekker's hut in a small village that night. We arrived on the day of an important Hindu festival and all the locals were in party mood - they all got hammered during the evening and made a racket dancing to, of all things, the Vegaboys!
Naven had raised our hopes by promising us chicken for our dinner, but unfortunately this was a bit of a disaster (a bowlful each of chicken bones and not alot else!) - we put it down to the party spirit prevailing...!

DAY SIX: Samaden - Rimbik
We had another late start (down in the valley, no views to get up for) and made our way to Rimbik (alt. 03 - fantastic view of Kanchenjunga
03 - fantastic view of Kanchenjunga
 2286m) along a really beautiful track. We were still heading downwards in and around the most beautiful and spectacular valleys. The hills (they are hills to the locals, they would be mountains to us!) are dotted with houses and farms, terraces growing maize and bamboo. There were waterfalls punctuating the landscape and rickety suspension bridges to cross - it was wonderful! We all agreed that next to the view from Phalut, this was our favourite part of the trek.
Rimbik was a pretty little village and we stayed in the Sherpa Tenzing Hotel and were, at last, able to have a HOT SHOWER! We had to say goodbye to our porters who got the bus back to Maneybhanjyang.

DAY SEVEN: Rimbik - Darjeeling
We left Rimbik after breakfast, picked up by a jeep to take us back to Darjeeling - a four hour drive. It was a very bad road, parts of it had been destroyed by this year's monsoon, but again the scenery was stunning. We drove through a huge tea estate - tea as far as the eye could see!

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It was quite nice arriving back in 'Darj' as it is pretty familiar to us now! We are here for 3 nights before taking a 22-hour train journey to Delhi on the 17th.

Thanks for all of you who emailed us concerned about the earthquake in the Himalayas, we are actually right at the other end of the mountain range so didn't feel a thing!
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