Yeti Fan 2011

Yesterday evening before dinner it started to get cold here. We broke out some of our warmer clothes from our rucksack which was a shame because they were all neatly and compactly stowed in the bag. After a good and generous meal of noodles, we went back to our small and sparse room and here I also opened out our sleeping bags. So when we leave here, we will have some packing to do. A dog in the local area barked most of the evening so I used the earplugs which I had brought from Fuji. Don’t laugh; I knew that these trekking lodges would be noisy in the early morning as some people left to get a head start and so I bought earplugs with me. That was a good idea because when we went to bed at about 9pm, the dog was still barking. We slept with our clothes on in our sleeping bags under thick duvets and were comfortable. At about 7:00 the sunlight coming through the very thin curtain woke us up but we didn’t want to stir from our cosy cocoons. We had a breakfast of local bread and honey before walking through the village with Narayan. The mountains were clearly visible and a spectacular sight. There was a small museum showing everyday and agricultural items from Gurung (the people of this village) life. We skipped lunch and I read while Julian carried on with his maths homework. At about 3 we decided to have an early shower before other people got the same idea. Despite the sun shining all day on the water heater on the roof, the water at best was tepid. We used our collapsible bucket but the shower experience wasn’t much fun and after the next sizeable town, Chommrong, I think we won’t bother trying again! In the afternoon sunshine, I read Julian the first episode of the Sir Rutherford Alcock story complete with sound effects and funny voices. We then had a few games of cards with Narayan. He taught us a completely unfathomable game which I appeared to win twice despite not being able to even pronounce the name of it! We then taught him pontoon and as usual Julian won most of the rounds. Then we talked about the plan for tomorrow and we intend to make it to Chommrong (2,170m) which is the last substantial village on the way to Annapurna Base Camp. It’s only 200m higher than this village but Narayan said the course is up and down and it could take us 5 hours. After tomorrow we will ascend more gradually so we don’t run the risk of altitude sickness. We can see the path windy gradually upwards on the hills in the distance but our eventual goal is actually behind the mountains in the distance! Wow! It’s now 5:30 the time that we ordered dinner for. The lodge is full with people coming up and down so I expect the dinning room will be standing room only! Time to go I think…

Robert – was there a split infinitive in this post?

An interesting German/ Japanese combination; Sakura means cherry blossom in Japanese.