July 19, 2009

• Nepal Project’09 – Spur of the moment trekking

  July 16, 2009
  6:40PM Kathmandu time

  Our second full day in Lamjung district is coming to an end.  It was another full day of hospital work for Sofia while Dan & I decided to explore the local mountain side and see how far we could go.  Originally, we had planned on finding the local government school and do an assessment on it, but we realized that today was our last chance to try to go trekking in Lamjung, so we opted to try and see how far we could go.

  Our first mistake was when we got to the border of the town, we were confused if we needed to register with the Nepali goverment that we were going to go walking outside of Besishahar.  The language barrier unfortunately also confused the Nepalese lady who was trying to fill out our registration cards.  Ultimately, we left the village without obtaining legal registration cards to indicate that we left the village and were heading out to the mountain range.

  Our second mistake was the fact that it was such an impromptu decision to go see if we can get a view of the Himilayan mountains that we didn’t adequately packed.  Even two years ago when we did a similiar type of trek in Pokhara, we at least had packed food, water, and left at an early hour.  We did none of that on this trek and found ourselves with little water, no food, and at mid-morning.  Plus, we had NO IDEA where we were going.

  Thankfully, there were little merchant stores spread throughout the path from Besishahar to Bhulb Bhul Le and that allowed us to get needed water and food.  Plus, after about 3 hours of trekking and coming no where near Bhulb Bhul Le, we caught a micro-bus that was heading to the base camp.

  We took a look around and unfortunately discovered that since we didn’t have a registration card, we were not allowed to go walk on the path that would head towards the Himilayan mountains.  In addition, we actually were breaking the law by being at the base camp without a registration card.  Luckily, I mentioned that my wife was working in Lamjung hospital and made it pretty obvious to the two security guardsmen that Dan & I were simple idiotic tourists who made a mistake on coming up the mountain range.  :>P

  They told us we could stay a little while and catch the next micro-bus back into Besishahar and let us go our way.  Though we didn’t get the chance to see the mountains, we did see lots of sights along the way.  Plus, it was more exposure to the landscape and people surrounding Besishahar.  A sombering reminder that after you get pass the tourist signs and the attractions of mountain trekking, people actually live here and their existences are rarely acknowledged.

  It took us about 40 minutes to get back from Bhulb Bhul Le into the town center of Besishahar.  It was surreal as we realized how much distance we covered in our 3 hours of trekking, and if we had decided to do the entire trek purely by walking, we still wouldn’t be back to the village by now.

  • 5:03 am
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