Part two.

I ended my last post right before my ascent to the village of Ghyaru. I started my trek on May 3^rd – that’s when I arrived in Besi Sahar from Kathmandu. The hiking didn’t start until the next day, from Chamje. So the first installment of the trek, covered in the last post, would have gone from Chamje to Brahtang, covering perhaps 30km and rising 1500m.

After spending a shivery, sneezy night in the guesthouse in Brahtang, Yuvash and I set off. My pack, which had seemed so manageable at the start of my trek, was making me a little crazy. The shoulder-straps started cutting into my collarbone, and after only a few minutes walk, the compression on my back had me sweating uncontrollably – thin air be damned!

The hike passed through Dukhar Pokhari, a quaint collection of lodges with a couple of broken water taps. We swept through, passing a fetid pond covered in red algae, and a long open plain studded with pines and firs.

At this point, we decided to take the upper route to Manang. There are two routes – one that ascends sharply to 3600 meters, and passes through the villages of Ghyaru and Ngawal, and the other that follows the river to the south west, passing through Lower Pisang and Humde. The pros of Lower Pisang and Humde were that they had internet, cheaper lodging, and probably better food, but the guidebook we were using suggested the upper route for the views and the benefits of acclimatization. (After 3000 meters, Altitude sickness – characterized by nausea, tingling in the extremities, lack of appetite, coughing up blood, and in the worst case, death – is a serious concern.)

So we took the high road.

Right before the climb up

We crossed some spitting rapids first, and lost the trail. After some determined scrambling and bushwhacking – not that there was that much to whack at that altitude – we arrived in Upper Pisang, a sun baked collection of stone houses clustered against powerful bursts of gusting wind.

I scarfed down as much trail-mix and tea as I could, and some veg fried rice. Then my friends and I set off again along one of the foot-wide, willy-inducing trails cut into the mountain. Eventually the trail widened and snaked through a forest of firs and pines, dead ending at a cable bridge.

“Oh crud,” I thought, looking upwards.

The road became a series of serpentine switchbacks crawling up an immense crag maybe 400 meters high. At the top, I could just make out the gleaming white of a Buddhist ghompa.

Halfway up

“We’ll make it in 30 minutes,” I said, grinning at the moans of my hiking companions.

An hour later, panting, quads aching, gasping, (and praying for a quick and compassionate death), I stumbled through the gate to Ghyaru, elevation 3600 meters.

Overlooking Ghyaru

A woman was waiting at the first lodge, the Yak-Ru lodge. She was dressed in a blue and white sweater, a green vest a long skirt, and she had an amused, slightly alarmed look on her face.

Her name was Da Minh Do, and she was the owner of the Yak-Ru. The lodge felt like it was perched on the edge of the world. Below, the river we’d been following snaked around the Annapurnas like a piece of blue silk ribbon. A massive wedge of rock sat in front of us, but Da Minh Do’s son quickly corrected me when I asked its name.

“It doesn’t have a name – it’s not a mountain. Sometimes the snow at the top melts,” Dorje said.

He was a gregarious guy, and sat with me while I slurped down tea and munched on biscuits.

Ghyaru has 60 inhabitants now, Dorje said. Before, there were as many as 800 people in the town, but now most of them have moved out to work in Kathmandu, Manang, or Pokhara, two other nearby cities.

The village is almost 1200 years old, Dorje said. “A long time ago, a lama (Tibetan monk) was going by here. He was carrying his stuff on a yak, and the yak died about 600 meters from here. The lama couldn’t carry his stuff, so he took the yak’s horns, and buried them in the ground with wheat in them.”

“’In seven days, if it grows, it will be a good place to stay,” the lama said (according to Dorje). ‘If not, I’ll leave.’”

The wonderful Da Minh Do

Five days later the wheat sprouted, and the village was born… along with its name. Yak-ru, Dorje said, means “Yak-horn.” It was only later that a surveyor came along and mistakenly dubbed the place Ghya-ru, or “cow horn.”

The monk settled in the area, and became the “Ghale,” or the highest of the Gurungs, the inhabitants of that area.

That night, the cold set in, raw and constant. I slept fully clothed and wearing my down jacket. Despite the oncoming summer, it’s still incredibly cold at night up there. I learned from Dorje that it had snowed the night before we arrived. This was also the point when a vicious little infection took up residence in my lungs, which would sideline me in Manang for three days.

Go to Ghyaru.

But that’s for the next post.