Yep, it sure was UP again but more painfully so as our tolerance level for 'up' was dropping fast. Finally rolled into Ghorepani and following Rames suggestion took a look at Sunny Hotel -fantastic.
The owner is the "The Captain" as he is know by everyone due to him being a retired ex army captain in the India Army (He's Nepalese but can server in the India army for better pay - the ultimate being in the British army where they still take about 200 Nepalese a year into the British Gurkha regiment on UK pay! - thousands apply every year)... anyway.... The Captain is also an ex gold medal spring diving champion and supposedly sports mad. At the hotel there were also little huts and instead of room numbers they had sports names like Pela the Brazilian soccer player. We took the Tenzing Norgay room hee hee It was lovely. The main dining room was great. It had a huge fire in the middle of the room that was made from a 44 gallon drum which had been mud bricked with a flue attached and 2 holes to let the heat our. It had 2inch galvanized pipes running thru it to heat the water... ingenious.. and great hot water 24/7. The fire had a wooden frame around it for everyone to put any damp clothes or towels to dry and everyone pulled up chairs with their books and sat around it while the sound system threw out all the great 70's music that we love... JJ Cale and the Beatles etc... fantastic atmosphere and everyone had heard of the place it was busy.
We met 3 Irish guys who were about our age and sooo funny. Paddy, Shamus and Andy and they were sooooo Irish. Shamus who calls himself Jim was full of stories in his wonderful Irish brogue and even went into poetry at the drop of a hat. We exchanged email address so I hope to hear from him again one day. They were walking up to Jomsom - the reverse direction of our trek.
Poon Hill is why 'everyone' goes to Ghorepani. People going to Nepal know of the sunrise and views of Poon Hill and that it is the must see spot if you only have a few days to trek. So many of the people there had only spent 2 days trekking up from Pokhara, will get up for the sunrise and then return to Pokhara. That is the Nepal trek if you are short on time or energy (although the route up is a killer but they don't know that until they start..hee hee)
The hitch to this experience is that everyone has to get up at 5am to walk the hour (45 mins if you're fit) UP - straight up to the top of Poon Hill above Ghorepani. This combined with a further 5 or 6 hours walk to the next nights stop seemed a bit rough to me and Rob so we decided on an 'easy' option... get up at 5am for sunrise and view, returning to the GHouse at about 8am for breaky and then coasting in that toasty dining room for the rest of the day with a good book (the book was in my case - Rob just sat around with a bit of a nana nap thrown in the afternoon - as he does...I'm jealous .hee) The the following day off again heading towards Tadapani and into the Base Camp! I hope we can get in to ABC cos some guides we've met are still saying there is a problem with avalanches due to the high snow fall and they keep closing it.
anyway... as per the plan we woke at 5am, got dressed, donned the head torches and off to meet Rame (lovely boy - told him to sleep in but he said "It's my duty mam" (yep - we're sir and mam.. heee - so every time he calls Rob 'sir' then Rob calls him Sir Rame which freaks him out... haa
Rob was struggling with his breathing as we started out (the morning air was icey) and went into coughing spasms... (someone really should put him out of his misery!!???..haa - he knows I wrote that..haa) anyway...He was having real problems so told Rame and I to leave him and go up without him. Rame and I continued up and I don't know whether it was cos I had too many layers on (I had expected a -100 chill factor but there was no wind) and I overheated really quickly or whether I tried to go up too fast so as not to miss the first rays, but by 1/2 way I was really struggling too! These early starts aren't good for us geriatrics - we like to start off slow and preferably in sun and on a flat environment! Anyway - result was I had to keep stopping and was even getting really nauseous. Ten minutes from the top I felt so sick I said to Rame 'that's it I surrender' He said ok, give him the camera and hell get up there for the sunrise shots - sounded good to me and I plonked myself on a rock. It was very frustrating as people kept coming up the track passing me so after 10 minutes rest I started to feel better - bugger it - I'm going up..slowly slowly with stops as I still felt 'off' and pretty quick I was up there. I just missed the sun topping the mounts but the view from up there is amazing. Sunrise or anytime of day (if it's clear) it's spectacular. 360 degree snowcapped mountains and today it was perfect crystal clear skies. (the next day was cloudy - so really lucked out)
I took photos but my lens only fits a fraction of the panoramas so I didn't know myself out trying. That is pretty much with all the photos here. The Himalayans can't be captured in a photo so I haven't really tried. They'll just have to be our memories.
Returned back down to Sunny to find Rob unwell. Sounds like bronchitis or asthma as his breathing is the main problem with this cold air. We had a rest day tomorrow so hopefully all will be ok then... finished my book as the new lot of trekkers filtered in during the day. We missed the Irish men and wished they'd stayed the 2nd day. Rame was lovely (again) he keeps pulling 'remedies' out of his backpack. In the evening he insisted (despite Rob's protests) that Rob put his head over a bowl of hot water with some 'drops' added to it. I sneaked a photo just so the kids could enjoy it..hahahaha
The problem is that at night time it became freezing again and cold air really played up on poor Rob. - so in the morning decision made...we'd start heading down back to warm Pokhara instead of up to Tadapani It would have been impossible for Rob to do another 'up' day as he couldn't catch his breathe when hitting a hill. This means we've finished the Jomsom Trek ok but will now not cut across to do the Annapurna Base Camp Trek. A bit disappointing but we're happy that we had the experience of 12 days trekking and loved EVERY minute of it. I think its a little like childbirth - you forget the "ups" once you get past them..hahahaha
Tomorrow we start 'downhill' to Ulleri.
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