Mardi Expedition: Adventure with Peace

Mardi Himal Expedition

Words are not enough to share the adventure and the ecstasy I had felt from my last trek to Mardi. For a job holder, it is always hard to arrange the holidays but since I am making the trend since last 7 years to go somewhere out on my birthday and easy to get holidays for the birthdays, I managed to get the holidays and this year it had been Mardi.

To be honest, it was not so-so good in a sense that I was accompanied by a couple. So next time, I am planning to go solo if I find no friends. Anyway, headed to Pokhara @ 7 AM hoping if we could reach Pokhara early in order to make it to Dhampus the same day. The luck was taken away by the highway jam. It took us more than 8 hours to reach Pokhara that day leading us to miss the last sumo to Dhampus. Therefore, we headed to Damside to my favorite hotel at Pokhara: Hotel KC. I like this hotel as it is economical and very nice.

way to Pothana

Next day, we headed to Harichowk to get a sumo to Dhampus but the Sumo was going only at 11 AM. Wandering around Hari Chowk, having some breakfast was worthy to kill the waiting time. It took us nearly one and half hours to reach Dhampus and from there the real adventure started.

Note: if your tank gets full, be ready to go behind the bushes! Not applicable to the Foreigners: D

Traveling through the small tiny stone paved way amidst the woods with the fog was absolutely amazing. Staying behind for snapping the pics was not a good idea to me as the sound of something walking in the woods totally freaked me. I literally got pale and frightened and started yelling at my friends and ran in fright. A little further, my friends were waiting and found it was just a dog. However, even so, how would I know the dog would not bite me? That was scary.

Pitam Deurali

SunaKhari

Walked past Pothana. It was already 2 PM and about to rain when we reached Pitam Deurali. But we wanted to reach to Forest Camp that day. Since the team was good at walking, we were motivated that we could reach in about 4 hours. Dreaming to reach Forest Camp sooner, we tighten our shoelaces and started walking. We walked and walked. Up and Down, hill and valley.

This is just to say. It was all the way straight UP! It was getting darker and also started raining. I was about to cry for the reason that I never had walked after evening ANYWHERE. And imagine, it was dark, raining and no distant lights as well to say we are near to forest camp. At 7:20 PM, we finally made it. We reached Forest Camp, 2550M, and all the panic turned into happiness. It was a super tiring day. So, after having the hot daal bhaat, I slept a sound sleep, keeping in mind that there are more uphill to walk.

Forest Camp

Next day, we were determined to go to High camp. We left forest camp at 8 AM and the journey started uphill. I wanted to see the Rhododendrons blooming but the Climate Change has changed the patterns and seasons for the native species. Anyway, so the walk continued. It is good that ACAP has kept the blue and white sign all the way long and the direction signs so that no one gets lost. All the signs were horizontal but at one place the sign was vertical, indicating it is 90 degree up the way that you need to walk.

Low Camp

Finally, the trail led us to Low camp, 2970M where we stayed for a tea break. Badal Dada was about 2 hours walk from there. I was frustrated along the way for the reason that weather was not nice and I thought I will not be able to see the mountains. However, one of the trespassers told me the weather had been blissful in the morning and the mountains are at least visible in the morning. Better to have something than nothing kept my willingness alive and we reached Badal Dada around noon. I did not see the beautiful scenery of the mountains from far as it was snapped in the pictures by others where Badal Dada seems to be sitting happily in the lap of the mountain. We rested at Badal Dada for a while and then started walking towards High Camp, our destination for the day.

High Camp: Poor Visibility

The weather got chilly and foggy. Visibility was very poor. Maybe of 5m distance. At about 1:45 PM, we reached at High Camp and sheltered in. Minutes after we got the room, a blizzard approached. Mardi Base Camp was a NO NO thought. The blizzard continued for more than one and half hours and stayed put, taking the scarf of clouds away and bestowing the best view of Mount Fishtail, Mardi, HimChuli and Annapurna Ranges. My heart started racing. I love mountains so much that even after dying I want to be buried near mountains. I have told my family about this as well so they let me trek for my happiness.

It was freezing but I did not miss any opportunity to see the horses grazing, hot tea, hailstones, cold breeze, the crows flying, clouds going away, people having fun and taking pictures. I am thankful that I got to pee very late at night. It was around 2AM and I saw the stars twinkling so bright and moon shining so brightly and so close. The mountains were white and it was the definition of purity and serenity to me. I wanted to stay there for a bit but it was freezing cold. It was very amazing. I really was at peace. This is why I go trekking. Mountains keep me at peace. When I’m loaded, when I feel burdened, when I am low, mountains are the sources to revitalize me. This is the reason why I trek.

Since the blizzard took away all the doubts for the next day, we started walking towards the Mardi View Point, 4300M at 5 AM in the morning. It was cold and dark. Obvious scenario. I did not have the head torch but the mobile torch was also worthy. No gloves and holding the mobile had turned my hands blue and numb. The way up was steep up and narrow. I literally crawled at many places to make sure I was walking safely. If you miss your step, your life is at stake. One of the guides, the last night of that morning, was telling stories to people that one girl had died while taking a selfie as she missteps on the way. 

Fishtail and Mardi

It took us approximately 3 and half hours to reach the Viewpoint, 4300M. It was freezing there. A lot of people had already reached there; mostly couples and the group of friends. Watching them, seeing them having fun was another fun. I was very close to the mountains. And just the down route was the route to ABC. A lot of Heli were coming and going and were very close. Heli is the only way of food transport to these places. The same day, we headed back to Sidhing Village, 1900M to make our journey back to Kathmandu.

It never is cozy walking down. We left High Camp 3700M at 10:30 AM and reached Low camp at around 12:00PM where we stopped to have the noodle soup. One bowl of noodle soup was NRs 250 and I even could not finish the bowl for my appetite was gone due to too much of walk. It was a hard walk as we needed to come down from 4300M to 1900 M on the same day. Legs were freaking shaky and there is no sign of human but the woods and birds chirping. I did not enjoy that bit because of the tiredness. I was concerned about reaching Sidhing Village and rest. Well at 2PM, we reached Sidhing village and stayed at a nice hotel. I drank wild in order to have a good sleep. The next day, I was fresh and my legs were not hurting as well. Bestowed the blessings :D.

View Point

Sidhing Village has the facility of transport in a Pick Up Van. If you are lucky, you will get a cabin or else you ought to travel riding on the hood. I think the hotel owner liked me for I was funny the other night saying “M O M O momo. मोमो माने भैँसिको मासु”! I even commented on his about to drop jeans. Well, the good thing about alcohol is, you do not hide what you want to say. So, the story connects here as the hotel owner called me and offered to go in the cabin in another vehicle and introduced me to the driver of that vehicle. Lucky thing.

It took NRs 500 each to reach to Hari Chowk from Sidhing and about 2 hours. We departed from Pokhara at 12 PM and luckily it was 5:30 PM when we arrived in Kathmandu. Getting a micro to go home after 6 is a very difficult thing for the residents of Godawari and I happened to be one of them. I called my brother and got a lift to go home and the journey ended.

Trek Itinerary

Day 1: KTM to Pokhara

Day 2: Dam Side to Hari Chowk to Dhampus to Forest Camp

Day 3: Forest Camp to Low Camp to Badal Dada to High Camp

Day 4: High Camp to View Point to Low Camp to Sidhing

Day 5: Sidhing to HariChowk to Pokhara to Kathmandu

Ghandruk Trekking: My Experience

Ghandruk-Dhampus trekking map

Ghandruk is one of the famous tourist’s destinations of Nepal. It lies at the altitude of 2600 m. The circuit gives the splendid view of Mt Fishtail, Annapurna 1, 2, 3 and South, Lamjung Himal and Mt. Manaslu along the coast of Modi River. 
Ghandruk had been my dream since two years back that I made it a reality this year in December. Ghandruk trekking is believed to be the best from Sept-May. We were two making the circuit of Ghandruk-Landrung-Pothana-Dhampus. Initially, we were traumatized by how we will be making it as we never had trekked before. And maybe the reason why, the trek became we had an awesome, unforgetful and exciting one. I had been googling the information on the web since months early as I do not have the habit of walking long. It was written favorable for all types of people so I got the motivation that I can do it and so applies to my friend. The unfamiliar trails never became unfamiliar as we walked because of the warmth and affection of the locals showing us the right way all along. 

Because of having no experience of trekking or even out of Valley alone, I first had thought of arrangements from a travel agent but later we accumulated our "Explore Yourself" nature and headed to Pokhara buying only the bus tickets of Tourist Coach from the agent and nothing else. Searching for the cheap hotel, Hotel KC seemed to be very economical and decided to go there and ask for the room, not the advance booking which we generally did.

Day 1: From Kathmandu to Pokhara

View from Hotel KC

It was 6 in the morning, I left home and met my friend at Kantipath, Jamal, from where the tourist coaches depart to Pokhara @7. There are varieties of choices of tourist coaches to Pokhara with deluxe and standard class of facilities. We opted for the standard which is comparatively cheaper than the deluxe one. The tourist coaches fare normally is $6 but varies accordingly to the coach companies. Besides, there are microbuses and local buses that leave for Pokhara from Kalanki Bus Park at every 30 minutes. It took us about 8 hours drive to reach to Pokhara Tourist Bus Park stopping at 2 places for our breakfast and lunch on the way. It was about 3 in the noon when we finally arrived the tourist bus park. 

From there, Lakeside is about 10 minutes walk and Damside is about 5 minutes walk. If we take a taxi, it costs around NRs 150 to reach the lakeside. Lakeside Pokhara was preparing to host the annual street festival when we arrived there so the price of the room was comparatively higher for the time being. It is just a turn from Damside to reach lakeside so nothing is seemed to be missed. I found Damside area quieter than lakeside which I enjoyed most as I love calmness at night. We did not dine in the hotel instead we dined outside. The dinner was very delicious with reasonable price so for the second day, we decided to have our breakfast there. The restaurant special recipe was the fishtail soup which I wanted to have but since my friend is a vegetarian I missed it. After dining at 7 in the eve, we decided to be back to our room. It was very cold outside. As soon as we reached our room, we dived in our beds and started dreaming for the second day.

Day 2: From Pokhara to Ghandruk

It was cold and foggy morning so we decided to start the voyage little late. At about 8:30 in the morning, we left the hotel and went to the same restaurant where we had dined last night. We enjoyed our breakfast with the view of the lake where the fogs from the surrounding were being disappeared and were going up cleaning up the area like we broom. We asked them about the vehicle to reach to the Nayapul from where the trekking to Ghandruk starts. They told us to take the micro to Hari Chowk or Baglung Bus Park and from there we get the jeeps or buses to Nayapul. 

We did the same and by the grace of God, the bus goes beyond Nayapul,i.e. until the “Qlu” which is the last stop of Ghandruk. From there the Ghandruk village is about 2 hours. It cost us NRs 230 each to reach to Qlu from Baglung Bus park. The drive was bouncy but the view of the majestic Himalayas was breathtaking. We were just staring at the view forgetting everything. We did not realize how fast 3 hours passed and we reached “Qlu” Although the way from Nayapul to Qlu was very bouncy and like snake trail, we watched the local lives along the drive. We saw a herd of Donkeys jumping on the way and groups of trekkers walking with the tired face. I was imagining if I had to walk that long, I would not have made to Ghandruk village within a day. It was around 2:30 in the noon when we reached the Qlu.

Mt fishtail from the way to Ghandruk village

We started walking from Qlu. The way was somewhere plain and most of the place it was steep up. But the spectacular view of Mt. Fishtail, and Annapurna South and Annapurna I made us forget our tiredness. We were more excited to reach the Ghandruk Village. There were lots of national and international flocks of people walking down and up to Ghandruk Village. We, ourselves were competing with the people who were going up to Ghandruk. We wanted to go up first. We rested, we walked, and we had lots of fun. Finally at around 4:30 we reached the gate of Ghandruk village which welcomed us into the village.

Mt fishtail from the hotel room

 The weather was clear and the view was just amazing. Since we don’t know where to reside; we needed to search for the hotel to stay that night. Ghandruk has a variety of hotel option so I figured we don’t need to worry about where to stay. Within a minute walk from the Ghandruk gate, the options for the hotels and the lodges start. We decided to go on further ahead. After 15 minutes of steep up walk, we became too tired and we did not want to move an inch so we decided to ask for the availability of the room in the nearby hotel. Luckily, the hotel had rooms available. The hotel was reasonable and comfy. The noodle soup with the mixture of local ingredients was soul-pleasing as we were craving for food with hunger. The view of the sunset was marvelous that lured us to stay outside even during such cold weather. The mountains turned golden from white and were spectacular. It was my first time to see the mountains so close as such. I was so excited and my heart was jumping with happiness. The dinner was ready by 7. We had our dinner with the guides of the tourists. The vegetables were from their farm-grown so I enjoyed the fresh and delicious Nepali dish. Afterward, we went to have our good night sleep and set for the next days walk.

Day 3: Ghandruk  to Dhampus

Even the will of staying at Ghandruk remained in the heart; we started to march towards Dhampus at 8 in the morning where we were planning to stay for the night. From Ghandruk Gate, there is a landmark showing the way to Landrunk village. We had to pass through small areas of Landrung village, Tolka, Bhedikharka, Deurali, Pothana and finally, we would be reaching Dhampus village. It is the steep downstairs walk, passing through the river and again steep upstairs walk and only then we would be reaching to the Landrung village. It took us about more or less 3 hours to reach Landrung. We became very tired and hungry as we had not had our breakfast except a cup of tea. So we decided to rest and have our petite lunch. We opted for rice and noodle. It was quite expensive but we enjoyed the meal being super hungry. We talked with the owner of the hotel and got much information about them and the village. Then we started walking towards Tolka.
It was the dusty jeep road. Only jeeps go to Landrung and the road had opened just 2 months ago. Walking forth on the way, we reached Tolka, a small village. People got confused thinking us as East Asian tourists. It was funny when we heard them conversing such and we talking aloud in Nepalese. 

Tourists on the way. Most of the way is upstairs

The way till Bhedikharka is plain. There are shortcuts which are like upstairs but we decided to walk on the plain trail. It was about 1 pm when we reached Bhedikharka. Reaching Bhedikharka, we decided to rest for a while and we entered a small shop. I was too thirsty so I enjoyed every drop of water and my friend wanted to have a cup of tea. The owner got impressed by her so she made her cup of tea free of cost. She did not charge her for the tea. She seemed very kind to her. Lucky Girl! Few minutes further,  we had to choose the way to reach Deurali. One was long which was plain, the jeep way and another was a steep upstairs way. The steep upstairs way was the only shortcut taking 1 and half hour walk and other would probably take around 2 and half hour. We opted to take the shortcut. But it took us almost 2 hours of walk. We rested and walked for many times along the way. The way was stone-paved as in stairs in the midst of woods. Finally at 3:20 we reached to Deurali: Pitam Deurali.

The downstairs way to Pothana

Pitam Deurali has a handful of lodges. Not many options to stay and eat. It was quiet relating to the visitors and the owners were staying outside playing the cards. We asked them for noodle soup as we were too hungry. Even the ordinary noodle soup was very tasty then. As soon as we finished our noodles, we started to walk to Pothana.
The way to Pothana was plain and like downstairs somewhere. We did not feel any pain in our feet until then. We enjoyed walking from Deurali to Pothana. There were landmarks from ACAP so there is no chance to get confused or lost in the way. We met a group of people going to Pothana from Lumle down from Deurali.

Pothana Village lodges and environment

 We felt safer as we had to walk between the woods and it was starting to be evening. Within quarter to an hour, we reached Pothana. Pothana has about 13 lodges. The lodges were small and beautiful. It made us feel familiar and very welcomed. It was clean and colorful. I felt it like a happy village from a fairytale story. I enjoyed even passing by there. Dhampus is the next village to Pothana. The way goes down from Pothana to reach to Dhampus. Now my feet are all tired and started to ache. My calves could feel the pain. My friend did not complain at all. I felt envious of her strength to cope with her pain. It did not take us more than 45 minutes to reach to Dhampus. It was not the clear day so the view was blurry. We stopped at the first hotel on our left reaching the Dhampus to ask for the room. We found a room and set for staying there for the night.

Day 4: Dhampus to Pokhara to Kathmandu

We woke up early that day. We had a nice sleep but maybe because of the body ache and feet pain, we could not have a sound sleep. It was good for us though as if we had woken up late, we would have missed such a splendid sunrise. Morning at Dhampus was clear. It was cold but with the sun. The splendid view of mountains from Manaslu in the east to Dhaulagiri in the west is seen from there and in close range that even the camera cannot take the shot of the mountains together. 

Dhampus village during the day

We stayed out of the room and stayed watching the mountains and the local lives in the morning from the garden of the hotel with the Masala tea. This tea which they served was really nice. I never had such tea in my life. I enjoyed the stay at Dhampus most. We left the hotel at 8:30 in the morning. Just a few meters ahead is the bus stop from where jeeps or buses go to Hari Chowk of Pokhara. They have a time schedule of departing and when we reached the bus stop, the jeep was to depart at 9 am. It took us 1 hour exact and NRs 100 each to reach to Hari chowk from Dhampus. We took a microbus from Hari Chowk to Prithvi Chowk paying NRs 15 each. Within half an hour we reached Prithvi Chowk. From there, we took a microbus to Kathmandu.

View of mountains in the morning from Dhampus

The trip was just amazing. I still get the flashback coming in my memory. I enjoyed Dhampus, the most and am planning to make Poonhill-Ghorepani circuit via Dhampus. The more I explored Nepal; I found it more luring. The more I think of Himalayas and mountains, the more I can’t stop my heart to wish to go there. Surely I will be trekking more in the days to come.