bahundanda

Besisahar to Bahundanda 1311m

Tuesday 2nd April

Day 2

I didn't really sleep well, even with ear plugs. The dogs barked all night and terrible thunder claps shook the lodge. After getting dressed I looked down into the street, it was very different from the bustle of the day before. No traffic, no noise and groups of people talking quietly. I noticed five men standing together in the centre of the road and everyone was looking at them with interest.Suddenly an army truck drove up the road and stopped next to them, and they quickly jumped into the back and lay down. Soldiers quickly surrounded them, guns pointing out at the street, and the lorry tore away out of sight. I guess they must have been essential workers getting a safe ride to work on Day 1 of the Maoist Bandh. As we continued to watch, soldiers made their way up the street from shop to shop, making the frightened shopkeepers open up at gunpoint. They obviously had orders to break the Bandh.

We went down for breakfast. I had porridge, it was a bit cold but ok. We collected our day bags and moved into the street to find Pasang and Mila waiting for us. Our porters had left early, so we walked down the main street in Besisahar and out of town, passed the staring groups and feeling like characters from The Wild Bunch. We were glad to get out of town, if had felt threatening this morning, and anyway, we were looking forward to the trail.

It was quite a long walk today, and taken at an easy pace, but even so David and Dianne, the academics were soon left behind. Mila led and Sukman the sidar followed, and they made sure that no-one got ahead or left behind. We passed through Khudi the first Gurung village of the trek, (the Ghurkas are Gurung) and continued up the Marsyandgdi Valley where could see Himalchuli and Peak 29 dominating the horizon. We crossed our first suspension bridge to Bhulbule, where we stopped for lunch at a tea house. Sue and I chose vegetable omelettes which were very tasty, and as we relaxed with a thermos of coffee it started to rain. In minutes thunder was crashing and the rain was torrential. We quickly broke out waterproofs and an entrepreneur in a little shop nearbye approached our group with sheets of plastic which he was selling for 25 roupees each. We didn't haggle, and we used them to cover everything in our day bags. Our porters had packed our kit bags with zips facing each other, and they were waterproof, so no worries about our main luggage. We soon caught up with our porters on the trail and felt guilty to see them carrying our bags, as the porters looked so small and the bags so big. However the four of us had made sure that our kit bags were well under the recommended limit of 15 kilos but I still wouldn't like to think I was carrying them on my back. The porters had been given old army boots for the trek, but didn't seem to like them very much. A couple continued to wear them, but without laces, and the others reverted to flip flops.

We climbed slowly through the rice terraces along the river bank, past a beautiful waterfall, through a couple of small villages and then through Lampatta, a Manangi village with our first Tibetan style prayer flags. A short ascent brough us to Bahundandra and our lodge, the Hotel Superb View, although there was to be no view for us today in this rain!

We all enjoyed a fine meal of chicken fried rice, followed by apple pie and custard.We laughed when we saw the pies, each of us was presented with a full pie, enough to feed six people. They tasted a bit strange, but nice enough, and we had a couple of beers and a chat and then retired to our rooms. Obviously this hotel had provided dormitory accomodation until recently, and the large room had been partitioned with thin boxwood, to make a row of small rooms. The wood was unpainted and unseasoned, and very thin. There was no privacy and everyone speaks in whispers, but still audible to everyone else. I'm sitting in my sleeping bag writing this in my journal, with my head torch switched on. There isn't enough light in the single 20w bulb to read by. A few minutes ago Sue and Clive got the giggles and everyone shushed them, which made them laugh all the more. I've enjoyed my day but my stomach is making gurgling noises. Must be the beer!