I'm writing this from 3165 meters in a wooden tea house.
Had quite a bad night sleep last night despite the comfortable bed. Had a nosebleed in the night and after that didn't really get back to sleep very much. I think Liam slept mostly ok. We woke up at about 5.30am and dozed for half an hour before getting up, packing up again and going down for breakfast. I had a big banana pancake with lots of honey, Liam had porridge. He enjoyed his I think but I loved mine! Not dal baht! My appetite has come back full force since leaving gherku. I had another ginger Lemon tea and Liam had a coffee.
We set off at about 7.15am, walking through real authentic Himalayan villages full of locals going about their morning business. There was a really lovely feel to the place, and the temperature was around 10-12 degrees which is a lot colder than we've had the last few weeks. We walked for perhaps half an hour over a couple of bridges across the rivers and through various fields of vegetables and rice. It's a stoners paradise, marijuana pants growing everywhere like weeds in England!
Gorkana went at a really good pace ( which to us is slow and plodding), and stopped to tell us about certain places and views. The whole of the langtang area is a Buddhist community so there are lots of shrines dotted around and the coloured flags signalling Buddhist communities. There were slabs of stone around as well inscribed with scriptures from 100+ years ago. The people in the langtang area are all of taman cast and many of them have their very own language different to nepali. It was all very pleasant. Then the hard work started. We climbed for about an hour before stopping at a tea house for a rest. Our backs were soaked with sweat from the bags and we were exhausted already. Liam spent some time cleaning the camera due to me using it on the journey yesterday and getting it all dusty. He was in charge of the camera today and got some shots of the scenery and of the people. After tea we started again. We walked another hour and a half, it was really hard and got really hot, probably close to 30 degrees.
Our half way stop was at the hot springs. We got changed and went to sit in the natural sulphur water, it was really hot! It was uncomfortable really because it was already hot so we alternated soaking and sitting on the side. Liam forgot his trunks so had to wear his boxers but it was alright. After about 45 minutes or so we went over to the tap with hot water and had a wash with some soap. The water was full of sulphur so we weren't particularly clean but it was nice. I had another nose bleed but it stopped after about 5 minutes.There are lots of Nepali people here who have travelled really far to come to the hot springs. They come for the waters healing properties and also as part of dashain. A lot of them camp out near the springs for a week or so before the festival starts.
We had some food before leaving, I had chow mein with cheese and roast potatoes with hot chocolate and Liam had 'mesh' potato which was a bowl of milky mashed potato. It looked nice if a bit plain but Liam said he liked it. After he had finished his lemon tea and we had both put more talc in our socks and stripped to our shorts we set off again. We realised we had managed to get burnt somewhere along the way from the walking and sitting at the springs so we smothered ourselves in sun cream and hoped for the best.The rest of the walk was fairly easy in a way because it wasn't so much climbing rather steep inclines. It was a lot like walking through the downs banks or Cannock chase only a lot higher and views of the mountains through the trees. It was hard work and our legs were aching but it was lovely and peaceful, sometimes absolute silence, other times the sounds of the birds and insects. We walked for about 1.5 hours until we finally got to see how high we had actually come. We were at a similar level to the snow peaks and the clouds were all rolling past. Looking down at the valley and the scenery was beautiful. We began climbing again, it became like rolling meadows with white flowers everywhere. But started to get distinctly colder. I ended up having to get my fleece back on despite still working hard and working up a sweat.
We finally arrived at our lodge for the evening at about 4.30. It's right opposite the langtang peak surrounded by clouds and mist. It's REALLY cold! It will be good for liams burnt neck and shoulders and my neck and right side of my face! Our room is a wooden hut attached to a bunch of others, you can see the people in the next one through the cracks in the planks of wood and hear everything...We hope we don't get a snorer! There's no electricity so when it gets dark it will all be by candle light and our torches. I really hope we don't need to toilet in the night because they're shacks about 60 meters away from our hut and it would be bloody awful trying to pee in them in the middle of the night.
The dining hut is simple but nice, with a lovely big log fire in the centre so when we eat we're warm. I'm writing this blog sat on a bench in front of it, when I look out the window I can see the mountains. Sometimes the clouds come over and you can't see anything but white. We've put more layers on, had one of our secret stash of chocolate bars and a nice hot chocolate.
We've both ordered our food, I've ordered fried potato omelette with Tibetan bread and Liam ordered potato veg momo and noodle soup. He's contemplating whether to buy a coke at the moment, I'd go for more hot chocolate personally! (since saying that we've one more lemon tea).We will be going to bed early tonight, we set off at 4am to climb another 800 meters to the view point to see the sunrise. It will take around 2.5 hours and it's going to be cold! We should be back down to the hotel by about 9am for breakfast then onwards for the walk to the next place.
