Riverside Hotel to Kyanjin Gompa

November 18, 2010

Today, we walked to Langshisha Kharka. From Kyanjin Gompa, the round trip takes a little less than 8 hours, and by our best rough estimate, covers roughly 25 kilometers. It would be the makings of a killer hike, but fortunately, the trail only ascends 500 meters, and it feels comparatively level. Normally, this hike would give you all the benefits of high alpine scenery without all the strain.

I say normally, because it snowed today. It's tempting to conclude that we have terrible luck when it comes to our most scenic stretches of trail - Thorung La was in a white out when we reached the top and in Britain, it seemed like every time we came to an overlook, a thick fog would descend - but we have had wonderful luck as well. The day of our Ice Lake side trek was fabulously clear and gorgeous, with full views of the Annapurna range, and when we arrived in Annapurna Base Camp, we could see the whole amphitheater, crowned in blue skies.
So we could say we're unlucky to be in such a scenic place - and to have hiked to far to get here - and have thick clouds and snow obstruct our views of famous peaks and blue skies, but we also happen to love snow. A lot.

We woke up a little bit before 6:30 and padded downstairs to eat breakfast. Our lovely guest house keeper was cooking our porridge on his wood-burning, clay oven, and we warmed our toes next to the fire. In the corner, his wife was sleeping under a pile of blankets, and when he served us our steaming bowls, he whispered 'good morning' so as not to wake her.

After breakfast, we went upstairs to pack a small day bag. Although we had intended to hike up to a high overlook, Tsergo Ri, the sky was overcast and grey. We decided to walk to Langshisha Kharka instead and save Tsergo Ri for tomorrow, hoping it will clear up.

Before we left, we stepped back into the kitchen and asked for some bread to supplement our lunch of yak cheese. Whipping up a small batch of dough, the guest house keeper (must ask his name again) efficiently rolled out three patties and then cooked them over a dry griddle. To finish, he took each disc and set them on the coals until they puffed up and turned golden-brown. Tibetan Bread in less than 10 minutes.

From Kyanjin Gompa, we headed east, higher into the valley. Although the sky was overcast, the clouds hadn't yet descended. On either side of us, we could see tall, snowy peaks brushing a watery, pale sky. In the valley, a wide river bed sent stones sprawling for yards on either side, and the ice-blue water tumbled past, cutting slow arcs on its way down. Whether it's the wind or the sound of rushing water, the sound of silence in the Himalaya really sounds like a slow roar.

We crossed a number of streams, skipping and hopping to avoid wetting our toes. On the other side of the stream beds, the vegetation stays low to the ground. Thorny bushes with bright orange and red berries prickle our pant legs and bestow burrs. Yaks graze in the meadows, and although they are enormous, I see a few of them running and leaping over streams. It's not graceful, but it is a little intimidating to see something so large - with such very large and sharp horns - move with anything resembling speed. In general, they're fairly peaceful creatures, but a few have caught me looking and snorted while pawing the ground. I cower into Joshua and tell him to walk faster. I don't know if anyone has ever been gored by a yak, but I really don't want to wait and find out.

Gradually, the valley becomes more narrow. After a couple hours of hiking, we stop for a little break, and sitting on the ground, looking at a waterfall of ice across the river, we share a piece of still-warm bread and yak cheese. We're talking about our plans for the future again, and the more I talk about getting a Masters in Social Work, the more I like it. As for Joshua, we talk about whether or not having a grandfather who was a police officer has influenced his decision to pursue peace officer training. At first, he thinks maybe not. He arrived at the decision because he wanted to do something in the public service sector, and he was also attracted to working a job that has variety and gets him out of doors.

But then he keeps thinking and talking, and he remembers listening to stories of his grandpa as a police officer. He has bits and pieces of his old uniforms, and it was always something he felt proud about. I point out that he didn't really start thinking about becoming a police officer until after this Christmas, when we asked Papa BJ to tell us some of his old stories.

We start talking about family, and we go through our intricate family trees. We count cousins. We wonder what happens when one generation dies and the young generation begins to have their own families. How do Christmases work? When do you stop going to one in favor of another? Neither of us likes the idea of falling out of touch.

For the first time, the trail climbs up. Puffing from the altitude, we make our way over a hill, and on the other side, we can see Langshisha Kharka. It's just a little cluster of stone-stables and prayer flags, but there's also a rock. The story is that a lama lost his yak. In search of his yak, he walked all the way up Langtang Valley, and when he arrived at the end - Lashisha Kharka - he found his yak. Whether it was punishment or just time, he decided to kill the yak, and then he layed out the pelt on a large stone to dry. The pelt stained the stone red, and that's why this valley is named Langtang, lost yak. It's also why there's a big red stone in Lashisha Kharka.

Passing a few not-so lost yaks, we walked up past a curve in the river and climbed up on our very own big red stone (not THE big red stone - there's more than one). We finished the last of our bread and yak cheese, and it began to snow. I braved taking my fingers out of my gloves and snapped a few photos of glaciers and mountain tops peaking out of the clouds.

When we weren't moving, we got cold pretty quickly, so we started to head back. Along the way, I stopped to take a few photos, but with the snow blowing thicker by the minute, it was too cold to have bare hands for long. We started to sing Christmas songs. I know three or four lines of a bunch of carols, but unfortunately, I don't seem to know all the lines to any of them. We turned it into a medley of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Come All Ye Faithful, and Santa's Comin' on a Whirlybird. It devolved into a poorly remembered rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas, and by the tenth day, we just started making things up. Has anyone ever noticed how many birds my true love gave to me?

It snowed hard. We took photos for evidence, and then quickly hunched into our jackets and kept moving. The time passed quickly, and before we knew it, we were less than an hour from Kyanjin Gompa. Looking at the watch, we realized that we had been walking for almost 7 hours, and that whoever said this side trip was 6 hours (Lonely Planet) was full of you know what. We were hungry and getting a bit cold, so we stopped talking and began walking even faster.

Finally, we saw the prayer flags and then the lodges of Kyanjin Gompa. Before we retreated into the lodge, we investigated the village bakery. It was overpriced. We decided to order an early dinner instead. Back in the lodge kitchen, a couple of porters and guides were helping the guest house keepers peel and chop potatoes for curry. The lentils were simmering on the stove, and they were laughing as they cooked. We ordered two dal bhaat for 5 o'clock, and then we went into our room to read and write and pass the time.

After a bit, we ventured out of our quilts and sleeping bags to wait downstairs. The Germans were all huddled around the heater, and I experienced a moments hesitation that they had crowded us out from the heat source. Fortunately, the food came quickly, and it was piled high and steaming hot. After a couple cups of rice, a cup of lentils, and another cup of curried potatoes with cabbage and peas, I was feeling much warmer. After a day in the wind, my cheeks were hot to the touch, and I finally agreed to take my hands out of their pockets for a round of Rummy.
Joshua beat me in Rummy, as usual, but then we played a round of speed. Miraculously, I won. I say miraculously because I'm a hot mess when it comes to speed. Cards are flying all over the place, I'm squealing and squeeking, and I'm incredibly slow. The only explanation I can think of is that Joshua's brains dribbled out on the trail while we were hiking today. Don't worry; he's still as sweet and reliable as ever, he's just a bit more manageable when it comes to playing games. You might even win once in a while.

November 17, 2010

I felt like I had finally managed to get warm when the alarm went off. Actually, the entire bottom half of my body was still feeling a bit refrigerated, but at least my torso was warm. Judging by the lack of feeling in my nose (which the only exposed part of my body - god bless mummy bags), things weren't about to get much warmer.

The alarm went off again, and Joshua gracefully slapped his arm over my face, informing me that it was time to get up. Then he poked me and said, 'you're like a huge stay puff marshmallow! You must be boiling in there!'

Outside, the sun was up but the valley walls were so steep, there were no direct rays. Instead, the light fits through the peaks and hills, spreading visible rays. I think I've talked about this before, and at the risk of repeating myself, I shall just call them blessed-virgin-mary rays.

Anyway, we decided to sit outside. Joshua firmly believes in 'hardening yourself up.' It's a strange logic, but basically, he thinks it's very important to always be a little bit cold and never use all of your layers. The theory being, what happens once you've used all your layers and it gets colder? I've told him that he's an imbecile, but it's no use. He unzipped his jacket. I cinched in my hood.

Breakfast consisted of porridge and boiled eggs with cups of black tea. Ukchi, our guest house keeper, seemed to agree with Joshua's theory: he was just wearing a sweater and flip flops. God bless Nepalis.

Later, with our packs on our backs, we began to warm up. The first two or three hours took us through lovely mossy forests with low-lying, gnarly trees. Red berry bushes sprouted in the undergrowth, and yellowed leaves crunched beneath our feet. We crossed a number of waterfalls and a few more small guest houses with chimneys smoking. At a permit checkpoint, we eyed an officer with an enormous gun. He grinned and pointed at the sign in book with the point of his riffle. Nice.

More suddenly than gradually, the vegetation opened up. Up above, mountains stood over dry, mud- and yellow-brown fields. Yaks grazed and wild horses traveled in twos. It's the high alpine scenery that we love, and we walked on, looking up and smiling. Eventually, the sun rose high enough to light the valley, and with the sun on our backs, we stopped to shed our jackets.

About the same time, a old, toothless Nepali man with a sharpened scythe approached us on the trail. Gesturing with his blade, he asked us for a smoke. We apologized. 'No smoke,' we said. Then he pointed at my shoes with his scythe, and was it just me, or did it look like there was blood in the corners of his mouth? We shrugged our shoulders, not knowing exactly what he wanted (but suspecting it was either my shoes or our blood) and walked off quickly.

We climbed up a ways, feeling the altitude. We've climbed over 2000 meters in two days, and now we're at about 3400 meters - about the same elevation as Manang and Ladakh. At the top of the ridge, we could see Langtang in the distance. It looked closer than it really was, though. The trail took us up ridges and down to streams. We bobbed up and down, up and down, and along the way, we passed a number of sunlit guest houses. Each one we passed had a woman in Tibetan dress with marked perseverance: where you come from? Where you go? What you need? Stay! Rest! You need guest house? Where are you staying when you get where you're going? Stay at my place? My brother's place? Here, wait, I give you card. Hello? Come back!

After a while, we just said Namaste and plowed on through. We reasoned that they didn't really want to talk to us, they just wanted us to spend our money at their place (or their brother's). In some ways, it's heartbreaking to say no and see the desperation in their eyes, but in others... I don't know. Maybe I'm naive, but I wonder why they need our rupees so much. They have gardens that provide all their food. They have yaks to give them wool and milk and cheese. They build all their own shelter, and their fuel comes from yak dung and trees. Water flows through the valley, and they have family and friends living around them. They used to be subsistence farmers, eeking out a living in the Himalaya. Now, they seem so desperate for our rupees, and

I'm wondering what's changed. The gardens are still there and so are the yaks.
But I don't know the whole story, and I'm sure there's much more. Most of the Nepalis we've talked to have children going to school in Kathmandu or some other far-flung place. There aren't schools everywhere here, so they have to go away to attend. Husbands are gone for most of the trekking season, running lodges, guiding, or portering, and the families are separated. They need money for transportation, for their childrens' schooling, for a better life. I guess I just wonder what a better life is. There was good and bad with what they had, but at least there were self-sufficient and they lived together with their families. Now, they're dependent on tourist rupees and they have to spend most of the year away from the people they love. For what? A cell phone? A bus ride to Kathmandu? I'm even a bit dubious about boarding school. What will a better education do? Draw more people into the city, certainly. What you learn in school is best suited for jobs in offices or classrooms, not your garden or the Himalaya.

And with that, of course, comes all the problems of rural to urban immigration. People who live in the city begin to forget where their food and water comes from. They devalue the work that goes into the production of these things, and their health suffers. The farmers suffer and so does the environment. Even worse, they get locked into a cycle of working to keep things that they never needed before, a mortgage, a car, boarding school, and all the trappings of a professional job. People starve in the city. People beg. They move away from their families, and some of them are left to die on the streets alone.

But enough of death and doom for today. It was lovely, and once we arrived in Langtang, we followed our noses to the Cheese and Bakery Factory behind the Eco Village Lodge. The factory was set up by a charity, and all of the proceeds go towards funding the hydro-electric plant for the village of Langtang. We ordered a cheese and tomato roll as well as a slice of apple pie, and when it came out, it was all toasted and hot. Sitting in the sun, we looked over the valley and savored our snack. It was beyond delicious, and when a batch of yeasty rolls came out of the oven all hot and smelling gorgeous, we gobbled a couple of those down, too. Before we left, we purchased a ball of yak cheese, dipped in wax and hanging from the window from a bow of twine.

From Langtang, it takes about two and a half hours to reach Kyanjin Gompa, the last set of lodges in Langtang Valley. The walk includes a number of long, lovely mani walls, and we stopped to take photos of stupahs framed by mountains. At one point, I hid behind one of the ledges and spooked Joshua. He jumped so high in the air, I couldn't stop laughing for 20 minutes. He rolled his eyes, good-naturedly.

About an hour out of Kyanjin Gompa, we passed a small lodge and saw KB, the guide who had led the group of Canadians from Vancouver Island on the Circuit. Joshua immediately recognized him and remembered his name. He was leading another gentleman who appeared to be no more enchanted with surroundings than the Canadians had been. We stopped and chatted for a bit, and when his charge seemed to grow irritated, we waved good-bye and charged ahead.

The valley grew wider, and we crossed a number of streams as we went. The river bed sprawled out over the plain, and we picked our way over large stones. Eventually, we caught sight of prayer flags, and around the bend, we found the sprawl of guest houses that is Kyanjin Gompa.

Putting our heads down, we plowed through a series of persistent touts and wandered through until we found the cutest lodge - Nurali Kyanjin Gompa Guest House. The guest house keeper leapt up to show us a window-filled room overlooking the glacier, and for 100 rupees a night, we immediately accepted.

Depositing our packs, we ordered a snack of momos and sat on the sunlit porch, enjoying the view and the last rays of the afternoon.

Just when we were revelling in our good luck at finding such a cute, empty lodge with great food, a herd of German trekkers pulled up. They were all built like you think Germans should be built - like Herrs and Fraus - and they clomped over the floorboards in their heavy hiking boots, speaking loudly in Deutsch.

We refused to be disappointed. They were polite enough, and as long as none of them snore, we'll get along just fine.

I plodded my way through The Hobbit while Joshua finished All the Pretty Horses. He's taken to responding to all of my questions with a distinct twang, and he's expressed an interest in drinking black coffee with egg shells (?!) at the bottom. This morning, he said that he was about to 'go pay the man what he's owed.' Needless to say, he's man-lovin' Cormac McCarthy. I'm not man-lovin' Mr. Tolkein, but I am appreciating certain parallels between the Hobbit's adventures and our own. Even the descriptions of walking through the Misty Mountains seem eerily familiar.

For dinner, we wandered down into the dining hall. The Germans had congregated by the heater, and naturally, they were well into their cups. We ate our Dal Bhaat, listening to them break into song at odd and frequent intervals, but in general, it was jovial and warming. It's sort of fitting to have a bunch of Germans singing and drinking, clapping their hands and stomping their feet in a fire-warmed lodge in the Himalaya - right?

After dinner, we pulled out the cards. I trounced Joshua in Rummy, for once, and we gained a little audience. Tashi, a porter for the German group, came to watch, and we invited him to join us in a round. He learned quickly, and he tied with Joshua for 500 in the end. While we played, we asked him a little bit about himself, and he told us that he's from Tamang Valley. Although he doesn't look much older than us, he has a wife and three kids, two of which go to school in Kathmandu. He usually serves as a guide, but he knows the guide for this group well and agreed to serve as a porter. He owns a lodge with his wife in Tamang Valley, and she's there right now, operating it.

Kadar, the guide for the German trekking group, is a little bit like the Energizer bunny. He's constantly on his feet, retrieving Dal Bhaat or seconds or blankets or water. He's laughing and singing and asking if there's anything you need, even to us. He stopped for a bit to chat with us, and he explained that he speaks German and French, he's been guiding for years, and he's even been to visit all of his friends in Europe. He had a wonderful time, but it was so different, and when he came home, he had no idea how to explain it to his mother. In the end, he decided not to explain it to her, kind of like how he doesn't tell her that he climbs mountains. Some things are too hard to explain.

When the Germans were looking particularly pink-cheeked and wasted, they stumbled off to bed, and we turned in, too. Someone did snore, but they were in a room further away from us, and if I tried hard enough, I could imagine that it was a yak breathing or the river running.