We woke up at 6am this morning, got ourselves fully packed up and had our morning chia before leaving for trishuli. We had an opened packet of biscuits that we folded up and put in a bag but the ants had got to it somehow so we had to leave them behind, nightmare :(
We set off 15 minutes later than planned so we tried to rush down the 'hill' as the Nepalese would call it. We cut off about 20 minutes from our time partly from trying harder to be faster and partly because we set off before 7am so it was nice and cool. We left our big rucksacks at the house to pick up in a few days and packed essentials....still heavy though! We accidentally ran out of money so rather than just walk the 45 mins or so it would normally take to the bus stop we had to go past trishuli and further to the next village. I decided to stop at a cafe and sit with chia whilst Liam and bibas did the extra 20 minute walk to the ATM and back.
We met our guide, gorkana, at about 9.15am after waiting around a while and had breakfast of dal baht before heading to the bus. The bus was absolutely packed. Like nothing we've ever experienced before. I didn't mind so much really...Liam wanted to get off straight away because we knew we had at least 3 hours and he was at the back of the bus standing up and crammed in like a sardine. I was at the front, perched by the driver in a space that should probably sit 2 people sitting 4. It was the most uncomfortable few hours we've ever experienced. It was so hot and so crammed, not to mention the extremely poor roads and the amount of people in the bus and on top weighing the whole thing down.
There were woollen decorative things dangling down all over the place where I was, patter on my head, patter on my face, a shove in my stomach from the gear stick being moved, a foot in my leg, then a foot on my lap, a mans head in the small of my back, a woman's head on my shoulder, the metal of the chair digging in to my knees, my legs cramping, my arm hurting from holding onto the back of the drivers seat for dear life, the weird old woman holding a bird next to me, the man behind me snorting his snot down his throat, the girls to the right munching loudly on all sorts of food the whole way, the drivers very odd very long pointy red fake nail on his left little finger threatening to catch me every time he changed gear. It was a bloody nightmare...but I thought it was great all the same! Even when I was actually scared because of how close we were to the edge of massive drops knowing that one more inch to the left or one skid on the path of rocks they call a road would mean certain explosion crush and death for every body on the bus.
We never went over 15 mph and after going through several police and army checkpoints where they come on and check bags etc every single time we arrived at the langtang national park entrance. We stopped there for about 45 minutes to an hour, everybody getting their passes sorted and maybe having a bit of food. We walked about 10 minutes to get some chia and some samosas which were really nice.The people were starting to look a lot more Chinese...we mentioned this and apparently we were only 15km from Tibet.
Liam said that he had been terrified during the journey because he knew we were really high but was sat on the floor so couldn't see, and people were all over him the whole way. Luckily when we got back onto the bus we managed to pinch a couple of seats at the back. They were far from comfortable but they were seats and I was by the window so could try and get some shots. The views were lovely, we were so high and in the proper Himalayas. We could see the snow capped tops of langtang, the people who live up here are all wearing their woollen stuff and living in proper farming areas on the edge of massive peaks with their animals.
After a while most of the other people got off at the main tourist place so we were left with maybe half the amount of people for the remaining hour or so. It was good as we had room to move, they played music and it was just nice watching the Himalayan scenery pass us by. It was so dusty but it was really fun and I loved it. Once there was more space Liam enjoyed himself too.
We finally arrived at the hotel at about 6pm....8 hours after setting off. Such a hard day!! It's a lot colder here, the air has a real chill. We're at something like 1800m at the moment. We had a really warm welcome and were shown to our room which is really basic but like heaven compared to the lumber mill. No nooks and crannies for creepy crawlers and drafts to get through, cold enough for their not to be any real threat if Mosquitos so no need for nets. The room is bare with 2 little single beds and big thick blankets, it has 4 solid walls not made of wood and is a little piece of heaven. The toilet is still just a hole in the floor across the hall but is clean...the 'shower' is a tap but we're slumming so won't the using it anyway. I wiped my chest and my face with a wet wipe and it was black from the dust...used the rest if it for the rest of me and put a warmer top on and good to go.
We went down, ordered food ( so excited as there was a good varied menu of food other than dal baht) and talked through our route with gorkana. I had Tibetan something or other that was basically a stew. It had nice bit chunky bits of potato, homemade pasta, onions etc in it. Liam had vegetable chow mein, and we shared a spring role. I also ordered some Tibetan bread with honey that was kind of like a dee fried pancake...so good! I ate all of mine, plus a bit of seconds plus some of Liam's noodles because he couldn't finish it. We then ordered tea, I had ginger lemon tea and Liam had lemon tea, they came in big proper mugs. Oh how excited we were! Especially me I think. When we were told we could take them up to our rooms as well Liam was just as excited. We went up and got comfy with our big hot mugs of tea. I wrote this blog and Liam kind of pottered about and lay on his bed. Anyway it's 9.15pm now and we have breakfast at 6.15 ready to set off at 7am so lights out.
