What goes up must come down!
I left Wally to sleep in this morning as his cold has settled in heavily. Poor guy! He must think I am trying to do him in coming on this trip!
I was out the door at 5:45 am as the sky was changing colour in the dawn light. The Annapurna range was lit up in a fabulous way and I really enjoyed being on the roof by myself for about 45 minutes being serenaded by roosters and the sound of recorded Buddhist chanting floating on the air.
Krishna came to find me and told me that the Jeep was already here & waiting for us! We had been told the night before that the driver had to come from Pokhara in the morning and wouldn’t be there until 9:00am but he came the night before. We threw everything into our bag – easy to do because we were wearing all the clothes we had brought with us, had breakfast – porridge and milk tea for me, the special for Wally which was 2 fried eggs, two pieces of white bread, fried potatoes, a glass of juice and milk coffee. Krishna joined us for breakfast.
We paid our bill, which was about $70.00 for all of our meals and drinks (beer was the most extravagant purchase at about $5.00 a bottle) for the two nights. Staying at the guesthouse was covered in the tour but ordinarily would have cost about $10.00 a night per person.
A quick farewell was said to our hosts and I wish I had had presence of mind to get a photo before we left. The mom and dad ran the place – Kumari and Subash Gurung, I think it was their daughter and son in law who helped with the cooking and cleaning. They had three more kids, Anooj our assistant tour guide and two young girls. And the sweetest little 13 month old grandson Vitesh (I’m not sure of the spelling) tottering around. I made the mistake if thinking he was a girl because he had gold earrings in each ear but I was told that all Nepali babies get earrings. I blew him a kiss as we were leaving and he blew one back to me. Okay, melt my heart just a little more why don’t you?
Krishna picked up our bag, we shouldered our backpacks and “jimjim” we were off again down myriad tiny passageways and dozens of stone steps – we just can’t get away from them!
We came to a reassuringly large parking lot with several Jeeps and a few local buses. We met our driver Sankar and hopped in the Jeep. My seatbelt didn’t have a buckle on it – oh well!
I was reassured by the prayer flags draped inside across the top of the windshield, a tiny gold Buddha statue on the dash and various icons hanging up. Wally was comforted in seeing that the Jeep had only 30,000 km on it and there was a large screen back up camera instead of a rearview mirror!
Wally had commented to me the night before that we should put our quick dry towels over over heads like they do to calm horses down so we wouldn’t be as frightened during the ride down. Alas, the towels were in our bag in the back.
We headed into the first of dozens of switchbacks with lots and lots of honking at each corner as Sankar came to blind spots in the road. I started to relax a little bit feeling confident that he knew what he was doing.
The slope down was fairly gradual to begin with and then the grade got much steeper. We both had a tight grip on the handholds above the doors but a fat lot of good they would have done if we went over the edge.
It was astonishing that there was a road at all, carved into the side of the mountain. All along the way we passed by people squatting on the side of the road waiting for the local bus to Pokhara while we were traveling in luxury. How the buses manage to get up and down this road on a daily basis is beyond me.
The road was remarkably bumpy and we were being tossed around like a ship at sea. At one point I told Wally that being on a sailboat was not looking so bad.
The ride was so bumpy that there was no chance to take photos but here is a link to a very short video that Wally took so you can get the flavour of the experience. The swinging tassel says it all.
Be sure to be sitting down & don’t have any hot drinks or sharp objects in your hands while watching it.
My mom had given us lucky elephant charms to wear and they got a good workout! We took comfort in knowing that both fellows in the front seat were named after Hindu & Buddhist Gods.
I wondered what on earth would happen if we met another vehicle. I didn’t have long to wait for my answer. Sankar spotted another Jeep coming towards us and he pulled over to the side, the side with the drop to the valley below and left just enough room for the other Jeep to go by.
There is a remarkable camaraderie amongst the drivers, a sense of looking after each other and sharing the space. Their lives depend on it. Several times Sankar stopped to roll down his window, greet his buddies and shake hands. Talk about a band of brothers!
At the most harrowing moments Wally and I were staring at each other like a couple of demented hypnotists or just looking away from the drop. It was a huge lesson in surrender! And reminded me of a labyrinth walk in that we thought we were almost back down when we started up again!
After an hour and a half, we were back at the river’s edge. It was great to see just how far up we had been and then we started to come upon familiar places we had walked past on the way up – where we had lunch, the suspension bridge and the stone steps that we started our climb on at the end of the bridge!
The fellows checked us out of the Annapurna Conservation area and gave us the permits back as a souvenir.
On the way up, we were in part on the road and constantly getting out of the way of Jeeps being very annoyed, thinking humph, why aren’t these lazy people walking? Today we were a lot less judgmental and we weren’t as cramped for space as the people in the photo below.
Another hour and a half and we were back in Pokhara. We paid about $80.00 for the Jeep ride – which was a bargain as far as we were concerned. What a way to make a living. Apparently we were lucky to find a driver and car as many people take today off for the last day of Tihar. We also paid an additional $15.00 for Krishna to look after us for two days.
A quiet night in to rest our weary bones. Off to Chitwan National Park tomorrow!