I’ve been in Pokhara for six days now and it’s time for me to do something. You see, I’ve avoiding the paragliding, the bike rides, the temple hikes and boating here very successfully. In fact, the closest I’ve come to doing something is walking down to the Western resturaunt overlooking the lake for apple pancakes. You don’t understand… they have syrup! After five months I can appreciate syrup, even if it’s a little off.
Most people come to Pokhara to hike the Annapurna range. The classic route takes you over a 5,000+ meter pass and takes around 18 days to hike. I’m sure it’s beautiful, but I might die of boredom hiking for that long. If you haven’t figured it out yet, hiking’s not my thing. So, I sat around here for a week feeling incredibly lazy for not booking a trek. Sui, the woman I’ve been traveling with since Lhasa, decided that she wanted “a challenge” and set off today on the Anapurna Base Camp trek.
It took me one extra day to decide to stop being a wuss and just go somewhere. So I picked The Jomsom Trek in reverse. The route is actually the second half of the entire Annapurna Circuit Trek but instead of heading up from Pokhara I’m flying to Jomsom and then hiking down. Hiking down sounds much better than hiking up and this way I’ll still get to see the beautiful scenery and small villages—the “real” Nepal.
A new law came into effect very recently which requires everyone trekking to either have a guide or a porter. This means I have to fly my porter out with me tomorrow morning at my own expense. I’m taking comfort in the fact that he’s named after a Hindu God, Shiva, and seems pretty agreeable. Even though most people say the route is very easy I’m happy to have a porter to keep me from getting lost and to carry the three Toblerone bars I bought today. I can only hope he’s a good cartwheel photographer.
3 responses to “Guilt Trek”
hope you have a great time!! I would love the chance to hike in Nepal. 🙂 Love the pictures by the way… can I just say, I’m SO jealous?!
I think we are all jealous, Julie, you are not the only one!
I’m sure you aren’t jealous of my blisters or aching knees!