Annapurna Area Escapades Day 3, Part 1: "Change of Plans"
October 25th, 2018
After a disorderly night, at exactly 6 am I woke up, partly because of the cold, partly because of the excitement of waking up so near the mountains and partly because I had to pee. I tried to see the mountains from the window of my room but the whole glass was frosted so I was compelled to go out in the cold. And since my phone wasn't working in terms of network and the Internet, I couldn't tell what the temperature was. The day seemed clear enough in the morning.
Only a few of us managed to get up to witness the golden morning light that slowly seeped into the mountains so beautifully spread out in front of us. But I'm glad I could be alone to breathe the crisp mountain air by myself.
My friends started stirring out of their sleep (just as uncomfortable) slowly and we decided to walk about 20 minutes to a view point called Muldai View Point that was located right behind our hotel (Hotel Dobato View Point). We left our bags at the hotel and started off. The tired legs protested a bit for the first few minutes, especially when they had to climb uphill. But as cliched as it might sound, the moment we got to a clearing where we could see (get this) the mountains clearer, all the weariness left us. As Kunda Dixit aptly put it, "this is Poon Hill minus the crowds, higher and closer to the Annapurnas." And for the first time in my life I saw a herd of yak, grazing lazily on the steep hillside.
The mountains we could see from up there were : Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, Himchuli and Machhapuchhre, Nilgiri etc (there are a lot of Annapurnas like Annapurna I all the way to Annapurna IV and there's Annapurna South - 7219 m, which was the closest to us; also many Dhaulagiris, I don't know why they got lazy with naming the mountains). My phone which had stayed mum for more than a day started buzzing and I could connect with my family and let them know of my whereabouts. We still had a lot more to walk for the day so we went back to the hotel and had our breakfast.
Now, to talk something about the food, the higher up you climb the less picky you get to be regarding what you eat. The rooms aren't as expensive as I was expecting, it was the food. And everything is standard for everyone, especially in the peak season.
While we were having our breakfast, we started talking to our host from the hotel. (One thing about travelling in Nepal is that Internet is hardly helpful on the road, everything is done via telephone and word of mouth. That's the reason why a lot of plans don't get to get executed and we were about to find out that our plan wasn't going to work either) The hotel at our planned destination for the day (which there was only one) was booked out for the night and we didn't have another day to lose. So as per his recommendation, we decided to go check out the Hidden Lake, which we had seen being mentioned in a lot of maps on our way up. On the map lingo, Khopra was on the left side and the Hidden Lake was on the right. We had a plan to go to Khayer Lake the next day after reaching Khopra but it looked like we had another lake in our destiny after all. And according to the Hotel dai, Hidden Lake had been described as a piece of heaven on Earth.
So, after much discussion, we finally left for our destination at ten o'clock. Big mistake. Little did we know we were up for a great new adventure.
After a disorderly night, at exactly 6 am I woke up, partly because of the cold, partly because of the excitement of waking up so near the mountains and partly because I had to pee. I tried to see the mountains from the window of my room but the whole glass was frosted so I was compelled to go out in the cold. And since my phone wasn't working in terms of network and the Internet, I couldn't tell what the temperature was. The day seemed clear enough in the morning.
Only a few of us managed to get up to witness the golden morning light that slowly seeped into the mountains so beautifully spread out in front of us. But I'm glad I could be alone to breathe the crisp mountain air by myself.
My friends started stirring out of their sleep (just as uncomfortable) slowly and we decided to walk about 20 minutes to a view point called Muldai View Point that was located right behind our hotel (Hotel Dobato View Point). We left our bags at the hotel and started off. The tired legs protested a bit for the first few minutes, especially when they had to climb uphill. But as cliched as it might sound, the moment we got to a clearing where we could see (get this) the mountains clearer, all the weariness left us. As Kunda Dixit aptly put it, "this is Poon Hill minus the crowds, higher and closer to the Annapurnas." And for the first time in my life I saw a herd of yak, grazing lazily on the steep hillside.
The mountains we could see from up there were : Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, Himchuli and Machhapuchhre, Nilgiri etc (there are a lot of Annapurnas like Annapurna I all the way to Annapurna IV and there's Annapurna South - 7219 m, which was the closest to us; also many Dhaulagiris, I don't know why they got lazy with naming the mountains). My phone which had stayed mum for more than a day started buzzing and I could connect with my family and let them know of my whereabouts. We still had a lot more to walk for the day so we went back to the hotel and had our breakfast.
Now, to talk something about the food, the higher up you climb the less picky you get to be regarding what you eat. The rooms aren't as expensive as I was expecting, it was the food. And everything is standard for everyone, especially in the peak season.
While we were having our breakfast, we started talking to our host from the hotel. (One thing about travelling in Nepal is that Internet is hardly helpful on the road, everything is done via telephone and word of mouth. That's the reason why a lot of plans don't get to get executed and we were about to find out that our plan wasn't going to work either) The hotel at our planned destination for the day (which there was only one) was booked out for the night and we didn't have another day to lose. So as per his recommendation, we decided to go check out the Hidden Lake, which we had seen being mentioned in a lot of maps on our way up. On the map lingo, Khopra was on the left side and the Hidden Lake was on the right. We had a plan to go to Khayer Lake the next day after reaching Khopra but it looked like we had another lake in our destiny after all. And according to the Hotel dai, Hidden Lake had been described as a piece of heaven on Earth.
So, after much discussion, we finally left for our destination at ten o'clock. Big mistake. Little did we know we were up for a great new adventure.
Comments
Post a Comment