Bowman in a Backpack, Again

Since my backpacking career started at two and a half months in Glacier and continued at six months in Darjeeling, India, we couldn't pass up the chance to do some trekking in Nepal.  On the day after my first Christmas, off we went for a five-day trek from Khara (about an hour's taxi ride outside of Pokhara) to Poon Hill and out to Bierthanti (where Dad started the trek he did six years ago in Nepal).  

Hooray for a first look at Annapurna South!

Since I've done this a couple of times now, the trekking seems pretty normal to me, but I know not all of you have gotten to ride around in a backpack in the Himalayas, so I'm going to explain a little of how it works.  First, when you hear someone say they went trekking in Nepal, don't think hiking.  Instead, think climbing and descending stairs for five to seven hours a day.  In the next picture you can see me sleeping and mom smiling because this was part of our almost 1000 foot descent on the second day.  After we crossed that bridge, we then had to go up 3000 some feet.  She ended up trading my wiggling weight for our guide's lighter pack for some of that, and still wasn't smiling for most of it.  

After you've gone up and down a few thousand feet (everyone speaks in meters there, so it never sounds as bad as it's going to be when they're telling you about the day ahead), you get to a teahouse, which is more of a bed and breakfast on the rustic side.  The rooms we stayed in looked like this 

with simple two-by four beds that we just pushed together and shared for warmth each night.  On this trek, each room was 200-250 rupees, which is about $3.  They charge so little because you are expected to eat in the restaurant of the tea house where you sleep, and they charge more for food than the rooms.  We had dal baht (rice and lentils) with various veggies each night, porridge and naan (Tibetan bread that looks and tastes surprisingly like Indian fry bread from the Backroom in Columbia Falls) for breakfast and fried rice or noodles with fresh vegetables for lunch.  By that I mean that I mostly picked the carrots off of Mom and Dad's plates and chewed on them for a long time before spitting them back out.

While the insides of these teahouses were fairly nondescript, here is a view from the front of one of them.  Totally worth the $3, huh?

Overall, I'd recommend the Poon Hill trek, especially if you can sucker someone into carrying you the whole time.  Just make sure not to fall asleep when the clouds clear!

Mom, me, Dipes (our guide) and Dad looking at another angle of Annapurna South