The Annapurna Base Camp trek or as it’s more commonly knows as, the ABC, proved to be a 9 day trekking adventure for me. As my first ‘real’ trekking experience, I’m extremely glad I decided to contract the services of a guide and porter each. Yes, I needed both a guide AND porter. This would not come as a surprise to those of you who are familiar with my packing style. Once again, I managed to take everything but the kitchen sink. I had a total for ~15 kgs of ‘stuff’. Approx 10 kgs was kindly ported by a 54 year old Nepali who was old enough to be my dad. The other 5 kgs of camera equipment I carried on my own.
Even with all the help I got, the trek definitely was “as easy as ABC… 123…” (quote unquote Jackson 5). Each day was spent trekking for an average of 6 and a half hours throughout the mountainous regions of the Annapurna Conservation Area. We spent the first 6 days climbing up from 1070m at Naya Pul, to our final destination of the Annapurna Base Camp at 4130m. The next three involved a quick descent down to Khare.
The rest of my days were consumed with the basic activities of eating, sleeping, reading, washing, or just laying in bed willing my aches and pains away. I do have to say, the sleep I got throughout this trek has definitely been the best sleep I’ve had since arriving in Nepal. The cold climate and the absence of pesky mosquitoes was a pleasant chance from my nights at Kathmandu and Pokhara. Most importantly though, I greatly enjoyed my sleep as I felt every minute of it had been well deserved. I had worked hard to earn my rest and it felt oh so good to claim it!
Trekking definitely brings back the simple pleasures in life. It was amazing how happy I felt just after stepping out of the taxi at our starting point at Naya Pul. The cool fresh air and relaxing village atmosphere just brought a huge smile to my face. Imagine sleeping to the sounds of flowing river water, awakening to the calls of birds & crickets chirping, and having the sight of green green mountains to greet me each morning. Life was simple and good.
My mood however rapidly deteriorated with the developing weather. Early on in the trek, we started to encounter ‘off-season’ monsoon rains. The constant showers not only made our treks more difficult and uncomfortable, but also brought out the leeches in full force. I was bitten a total of 12 times over nine days! Those buggers seriously managed to crawl all over me to bite me on my head, neck, under arms, stomach and feet. Irritating buggers!!
The worst thing about the weather definitely had to be the ruined views and its associated photo opportunities. While packing back in KL, I had bought and additional 40GBs of SD card space for my camera specifically for this trek (in addition to the 10GBs I already had). However, due mostly to the weather, I only managed to fill up on3 16 GB card *sob sob*. My trigger happy fingers were severely deprived! My unfit condition also partially lead to this disappointment. I just couldn’t be arsed to take out my camera when I could barely move my feet any further. Additionally, I think my heavy breathing/panting would have led to shaky, blurry and generally unacceptable pictures.
Halfway through the trip, I was seriously starting to doubt that I would ever be able to see the clear mountain views I had been assured off by my travel agent and guide. I even started to mentally calculated how much time and money I’d wasted on my futile Himalayan range viewing attempts. (Please note that this was one of the many ways my mind tried to pre-ocupy itself during the long trek. Was so strange not having any workd related issues to worry about. My brain even resorted to counting the no. of steps I took. I averaged ~4000 per hour. Sad no?) My hazy mountain flight was the 1st strike, the cloudy overnight stay & climb up to Sarangkot was the 2nd… was I going to strike out even after 9 days in the mountains??
THANKFULLY someone up there took some pity on me… On the morning right after we reached ABC, we were greeted with a very welcome view of the Annapurna Range. At first, only Mt Fish Tail’s peak revealed itself. Even this tiny window to the full beauty of the Himalayas was enough to make me and my fellow ABC trekkers jubilant. You can imagine how ecstatic we were when the entire range slowly cleared up over the next half hour. 360 degrees of snow capped mountain views! I was heads over heels! I finally had a reason to bring out the tripod my poor porter had been carrying! Think I may have scared some folks away with my sudden bubble of enthusiasm though. Oh well, no harm done… they’ll just attribute it to me being Malaysian =p
Anyhoo… enough banter for the day. Will upload pics from the trek into the gallery section as soon as I can. Can I just say it feels great to be reconnected to civilization?? All hail the internet!!! =D
