Around Annapurna

Since trekking participants fly from different cities on different flights, the group will gather in Nepal. Everyone buys their own tickets. If you need help, we will tell you how to do it.

At the moment, the cheapest tickets to Nepal are sold by FlyDubai and AirArabia (from 500 to 700 dollars). Both airlines have flights to Kathmandu from Kyiv and Moscow. In most cases, you will have a long layover in the UAE - from 5 to 10 hours at Sharjah or Dubai airport. People are not allowed into the city without a visa, and airport hotels are unreasonably expensive. Therefore, I recommend taking a rug, a sleeping bag, a book and some cards with you into the cabin of the plane. Then you can take a comfortable nap on the floor of the airport lounge. Don't be shy, we've done this many times before, it's normal practice.

Upon arrival in Kathmandu, you receive a visa, and take a taxi to the hotel (it is booked in advance by the instructor). In some cases (time permitting), the instructor will meet participants at the airport. Upon arrival at your hotel, you will meet the rest of the hikers and receive brief instructions. In the evening, if you have time and energy left, you can stroll through the tourist shops of Thamel (Kathmandu district) and look for inexpensive equipment (down jackets, sleeping bags, trekking poles, woolen socks and hats). There’s no point in walking for a long time, since tomorrow we’ll leave before dawn.

We wake up at the crack of dawn so that at 5 am we can take a customized minibus to the beginning of the trek, more precisely to the village of Besisahar (about a 7-hour drive). 2-3 hours after the start, the bus will make a stop at the Hamlet restaurant. If you didn’t have time to grab something spicy at dinner last night, then here you can more than make up for lost time. Breakfast Nepali style :)
In Besisakhar we lightly stretch our legs, drink masala tea and transfer from the minibus to the jeeps. For the next 5-6 hours, old Land Rovers and Mahindras will diligently shake, shake and shake us out, making their way along the newly built mountain road to the village of Chame. Very tempting views will flash outside the window (jungles, rice fields, gorges and waterfalls), but most likely you will not want to open your eyes :) Upon arrival in Dharapani (1860 m), we settle down for the night in one of the lodges. By the way, from this village begins the route to the foot of the beautiful eight-thousander Manaslu (8156m), which we will pass sometime next time :)

We get up long before dawn and have a quick breakfast. We load into the jeeps again and continue to shake and gather dust. We have another 3 hours to go. Beyond Dharapani the road turns sharply to the west and for the first time we have a normal view of a large snow-capped mountain. This is Lamjung (6983m) - one of the smallest peaks of the Annapurna massif. But it will appear so unexpectedly and so close that it will seem inexpressibly huge and impressive to you. But if you look back, you can see a real giant - the eight-thousander Manaslu (8163 m).

The altitude will barely exceed 2000 meters when the broad-leaved forests finally give way to pine needles. And if just yesterday we saw quite summer rice fields, then here the autumn zone begins. In the opposite villages, the harvest is being harvested, the last leaves are falling off the stunted apple trees.

By 10 am we will reach Chame (2670m). This is a relatively large village with a pronounced Buddhist affiliation - the large Mani Wall, and painted Buddhist gates. There were once hot springs here, but now they have dried up. We unload from the jeeps and change clothes for the track. The hike finally begins! We walk along a fertile valley planted with apple orchards. After lunch we cross the bridge and approach the Gates of Heaven.

Early in the morning, even before breakfast, we go for a walk to Upper Pisang to break through the labyrinth of narrow medieval streets and get to a service in a Buddhist monastery. Inside, shaven-headed monks in bard robes are going through sacred texts, a gong sounds, an endless mantra flies to the heavens, and the mountains around are so magnificent that it will probably not be easy to convince you not to stay here for permanent residence, but to return to the difficult and hectic life of a tourist :)

There are two roads leading to today's overnight stop - a short (simple and boring) and a long (winding and spectacular). We will decide on the spot which one to take. This will depend on many factors (health, weather, mood). I won’t hide that I’m closer to the idea of going on a beautiful (long) trail with views of Annapurna 4. But it may happen that you have to choose a short trail through the village of Khumde (3280m). By the way, there is a tiny airfield there that previously regularly received cargo flights from the “Big Earth”. Now, with the construction of the road, its importance has sharply decreased.

If we choose the upper (long) road, then be prepared for the fact that we will arrive after dark without spending the night. But along the way we will be able to see two absolutely incredible villages of Gyaru (3580 m) and Ngaval (3670 m). This is pure, unadulterated Tibetan exoticism. There are no such authentic villages either on the trek to Everest or on the way to Annapurna Base Camp.

For a successful and painless assault on the Thorong-La pass, you must first undergo high-altitude acclimatization. One of the common ways to accustom the body to rarefied air is to gain altitude and then completely reset it. Today we will go to acclimatize to Ice Lake. The climb to a height of 4600 meters will take about 6 hours. On the way, we will make a short stop at a tea house at 4200. Since there are no restaurants at the top, we order a lunch snack (lunchbox) in advance at our shelter before breakfast.

In the morning we pass through Manang - a large village, the capital of the district (regional center in our opinion). But a large village in the heart of the Himalayas, this is not at all like a large village here, or even in the lowland part of Nepal. As soon as the morning party of tourists disperses, life here comes to a standstill. The azure lake at the foot of the Ganagpurna glacier glistens in the sun, multi-ton ice blocks silently roll down, the prayer drum creaks lonely at the exit from the city... About an hour after the start, we cross the Jarsang Khola River over the bridge and begin a smooth ascent to the village of Khangsar (3750 m). This village is another stone labyrinth in a very sad state. The long climb continues. We have lunch in the small settlement of Sri Kharka (4070 m). We will spend the night here the next day (after descending from Lake Tilicho), so in Sri Kharka you can store some of the things that you will not need in the near future (shorts?).

We get up at 4 a.m., drink tea from thermoses (the kitchen is still closed), warm ourselves up, and set out on the route around 5:30 a.m. At first we go with flashlights, but dawn will catch up with us very quickly. There is a continuous climb, first in a straight line, then along a serpentine road. In 3.5 hours we will climb to the plateau of 4950 meters, then another 30 minutes among the hills and we will reach Lake Tilicho. More precisely, we are on the high shore of this lake, and to the water itself there are still 70 meters down. But we won’t go there - there are more important things to do. You need to absorb the beauty of this extraordinary place, try to balance yourself with the overwhelming brightness and scale of the surrounding space. Tilicho is a truly huge lake at the foot of snowy peaks, with an icefall descending directly into the water. We take pictures and have a snack - there is a tea house there, you can buy hot drinks and all sorts of small things (Snickers, cookies).

The descent to base camp will take 2 hours. There we will finally have a full meal and rest a little. You can even take a hot shower before it gets cold outside. Then we pack up and go back to Sri Kharka (4070 m) through the already familiar scree and stone figures. The journey will take about 3 hours.

Relatively easy day. In about an hour and a half we reach the abandoned village of Upper Khangsar. Behind it there are excellent views of the Manang Valley. We take a few photo breaks and then go down to the river through a mystical birch forest. Another suspension bridge, a tea house and now we are gaining altitude again. We climb the main Manang-Torong-La trail. Along this gentle path, at one o'clock in the afternoon we arrive at the village of Yak-Kharka (4030 m) and settle down for lunch. The area around became completely lifeless, there were almost no trees. Only rare juniper bushes and stunted grass from the year before last are roasting under the ever-increasing ultraviolet stream. However, while we are eating, clouds will most likely cover the sky and after lunch we will have to dress up a little. It's only an hour's journey to our overnight stay. Around 16:00 we arrive in the village of Ledar (4230 m) and check into the lodge.

Today is an even shorter day than yesterday - we will arrive for the night around lunchtime. But because of the height, this day will not seem easy. We walk for a couple of hours along the familiar gentle path along the river, then cross to the other bank (suspension bridge). The gorge becomes narrower, the river is closer. Along a not very reliable trail with screes, we will quickly arrive at the village of Thorong-Phedi (4450m). Most likely it will be around 11 am. It seems a little early for lunch, but today we have nowhere to rush, so we stop and drink tea with local pastries (a little expensive, but it smells very tasty).

I am sure that in the end many will still have lunch on Thorong Phedi, although the appetite is not quite the same due to the altitude, and given the upcoming climb, it is better not to overeat. After lunch the trail goes up sharply. We still have to gain 400 meters in altitude. This usually takes an hour and a half, but in principle you can go even slower. There is a very strong lack of oxygen here and you can’t really run with a backpack. From a psychological point of view, this is probably one of the most tiring sections of the hike. There is no end to the stones and turns of the path. We will send some of the fastest ones forward to occupy the living space, while we ourselves will slowly move our feet, intensively swallowing air. The snow is already literally underfoot, and although the sun is burning like crazy, the air temperature here is low (about +5).

Rise at 3 o'clock in the morning. We drink tea with cookies and go out on the trail around 4 am. You need to have time to reach the pass before the sun rises, since together with the luminary a strong headwind usually wakes up, carrying dust and snow crumbs from the other side, from the mysterious Mustang. For the assault on the pass, we dress in winter. It's -10 outside and there's very little oxygen. At first, your hands and feet will be very cold, but gradually you will get into the rhythm and warm up. The well-trodden path in some places goes through firn (compacted snow from last year). Walking up it is easy, easier than yesterday on the stones. If fresh snow does not fall, the climb to the Thorong La pass (5416 m) takes about 3 hours. At the pass we drink tea (there is a tea house there), take pictures as a group and prepare for the descent. Going down is even easier and faster, but now the snow slips treacherously and you can easily fall. Fortunately, there are no dangerous crevices here and a fall does not threaten you with flight to the center of the Earth. This is where ice access shoes can come in handy. In 2.5 hours we will descend to the village of Yak-Chava (4150 m), where we can finally have a proper meal (I wonder if this is breakfast or lunch?).

In the morning, we roll up our trekking poles and pack our backpacks like a car. We have to walk literally a few hundred meters to the bus station, and then we load onto a jeep or bus and drive down.

On this side of the pass, the terrain is very reminiscent of Tibet - a dusty stone desert framed by high mountains. But for people from Tibet (and they are the majority here), the valley of the Kali-Gandaki River seemed like a blooming paradise and they called the region Mun Tan (fertile valley). When performed by Europeans, the name was transformed into Mustang. Once a closed kingdom, Mustang is still not very willing to let foreigners in. Admission there is quite expensive, but one corner of Mustang can be seen for free. Our jeep will stop at the village of Kagbeni (2800m) and we will be able to walk through the stone labyrinth of streets of this living reserve of the Middle Ages.

The next stop is in the town of Jomsom (2720 m) - the administrative center of Lower Mustang. Here you can buy famous local apples relatively inexpensively and exchange currency. We drive further along the wide valley of the Kali Gandaki River. Theoretically, this valley can be considered the deepest gorge in the world (measuring from the river level of 2500 m to the top of Dhaulagiri 8167), but in reality it does not look like a gorge at all - a wide channel, huge spaces, forest, dust and road.

In the morning the torture with Nepalese jeeping continues. We have to endure 4-5 hours of dust and shaking before we arrive in Pokhara - a pretty town on the shore of a picturesque lake. We quickly check into the hotel, have lunch and leave for the traditional Pokhara “all-around” - a punt swim on Lake Phewa, a tour of the Hindu temple on the island and an ascent to the snow-white Stupa of the World (our native Annapurnas are visible from there). It’s already dark when we return to the hotel and have dinner.

But don't be fooled by the "sportiness" of the previous sentence. Pokhara is such a wonderful place where you willy-nilly relax and stop rushing. Just think - you'll have to row at night! After what we experienced in the mountains, all these are the little things in life.

Although the hike was over, no one canceled the early rises. After breakfast, we jump on a chartered bus and travel for 8-9 hours to Kathmandu. Upon arrival, we check into a familiar hotel and immediately run for evening shopping. Tomorrow there will be very little time for souvenirs and other purchases, so today you need to make at least one full circle around the shops of Thamel (I remind you that this is the tourist quarter of the capital). Then on the second lap you will feel more confident and bolder to buy all sorts of nonsense like singing bowls, petrified ammonites (aka shalagrams), kukri knives and T-shirts from the Annapurna Circuit (the name of our route).

Today we are flying apart. In principle, you can fly home at any time. But if you want to see at least a little of the city, then take tickets on the latest flights from Kathmandu.

We have breakfast and load into the minibus. We will start the cultural program from the most controversial place - the Hindu temple of Pashupatinath (a place of cremation of the dead). Then we will go to the giant Buddhist stupa Boudhanath. A very bright, positive place. Pilgrims walk around, prayer drums spin, flags flutter, and you stand and smile, looking into the stern eyes of Buddha. The next point is Swayambhunath, better known as the Monkey Temple. We take pictures of the arrogant monkeys (don’t feed, don’t touch, don’t tease!), admire the panorama of Kathmandu (temple on the hill), watch how Hindus and Buddhists coexist on one piece of land. We go down to the city, we just have to see Durbar Square - Royal Square. There are pagodas decorated with carvings, the palace of the king and the house of the living goddess - the Kumari girls. Everyone, shoot back! Now let's go shopping. In the evening we fly home and spend the usual night at the airports of Sharjah and Dubai.

Don't oversleep your flight home - be sure to set your alarm in the evening. Usually, after going to the airport, sleeping at the airport is much easier both psychologically and physically. The noisy crowds of Nepalese construction worker-guest workers no longer bother them, and morning prayers do not disturb their sleep. It’s warming to think that just a couple more hours and we’ll be home. Another adventure has come to an end.