Nepal - the trek

The trek began the next day with a cab-ride to Sundarijal, the entrance to the Shivapuri National Park.  Goat sacrifices or no, vehicular safety was uninspiring – “you don’t have to wear them, don’t worry” our driver told us as we tried to excavate seat belts from beneath his seats, unlatching his own when he was out of Kathmandu proper.  We stumbled out of the cab, found 50 cents worth of samosas and fried breads (enough to keep us pleasantly full all morning), and started on our way.

The park began in 2002, and is peppered with small villages, farms, and army bases.  The trails are well-maintained and generally well-marked (at least compared to one of our previous wanders through the Dingle Way).  Villagers were walking back to town from their Dasain festivities as we began our trek, several demonstrating superior balance by hiking along with a cigarette in one hand and an umbrella in the other.

We started going up stairs, which led to more and more and more stairs, until we reached the highest point in the park.  

By most accounts, October is the beginning of clear weather in Nepal.  Not by ours though - we missed the monsoon season, but were visiting while a cyclone hit India and overcast Nepal. At first, the hike felt rather heavy on climbing, given the limited reward of slightly different views of the pea soup enveloping us. 

Eventually we began our descent, and by early afternoon we reached our first destination: Chisapani.  Chisapani was the smallest village we stayed in, consisting of roughly ten buildings – we stayed in the Hotel Annapurna Mountain View, which is the very tallest, and has a roof deck.  Even in the smallest of Nepal's small villages, hotels try to outdo each other.

After breakfasting on omelettes and Muesli the next morning, we were off to Nagarkot. Nagarkot is the most touristy town in the valley (unless you count Kathmandu – though we wonder why anyone would go to Kathmandu unless en route to another part of the country).  The weather continued to be gloomy...

...until the sun FINALLY came out!

We found a nice place to have lunch -- momos and chipati bread, of course. 

The trek from Chisapani to Nagarkot was our longest day -- we left before 7 am and didn't arrive in Nagarkot until mid-afternoon. And it was also the day of the leeches (but we've almost entirely suppressed them by now, really we have). Nick had reserved a hotel in advance, but it was full up. (We imagine that they might have been able to find the reservation during the low season, but consoled ourselves by quoting Seinfeld at the car rental counter "anyone can take the reservations...").  Instead, we stayed at Eco Home.  As far as we could tell, the only “eco” thing about it was their desire for guests to take short showers.  The frigid water took care of any desire we had to linger.  But it had a lovely, if slow, restaurant and very friendly people working there.

Our final destination was Dulikhel.  The itinerary suggests bringing food for lunch, since there isn't much between Nagarkot and Dulikhel.  Over breakfast (a marathon of hardboiled eggs, banana-porridge, toast, and very likely more), we shocked the management by asking for six sandwiches. We were bargained down to four, which was probably a blessing because even assembling four (identical) sandwiches took over an hour.  But perhaps the wait was fortuitous -- a mile into our hike, we finally saw a mountain!

You have to look hard -- and not in the direction Margaret is pointing -- but we really did see a Himalaya.

This was the most beautiful day of hiking.  The weather was gorgeous, the terrain was incredible and made the more spectacular by the myriad terraces sweeping all the way up every hill.  We passed fields of potatoes, rice paddies and goats goats goats. (The goats we encountered were painfully cute -- about half the size of an ordinary goat.)

The houses were painted in vibrant colors, and seemed to glow out from the endless green fields.

We had a rude awakening from our pastoral wandering upon arrival in Dulikhel. The town is a mini-Kathmandu, without the history. It struck us as noisy, dusty, and busy. We wandered around in hopes of finding its secret shrines, temples, samosas, etc....but remained confused, slightly lost, and at risk of being run over at every turn. We decided to get out - to any other town we could find in our guidebook - and were in the middle of haggling for a taxi when a true Dulikhel patriot (and small business owner) took charge of us. 

We can't explain how exactly, but after a brief motorcycle ride (Margaret whispering "we're going to die, we're going to die" under her breath the whole way), we wound up here: 

Tashidhalek Guest House was our favorite hotel of the trip, a six-dollar-a-night, four-room guest house run by an ex-guide and his family. We had the most delicious meal of the trek for dinner, with greens from the garden, soy bean salad, dal bhat, and huge mountains of rice.  Even Nick was full by the end - a feat no other cook had managed during the trip! Behind the house, there's a barn full of goats, a couple of cows, and a lovely little vegetable garden. There is an orange tree and a lemon tree, wireless internet, and one hot (truly hot) shower for guests to share. And this is the view from the window. It was heaven. Please go. The owner is saving for a second solar panel.

It's not in Dulikhel proper, which is all to the good in our opinion. Instead, it's beyond it, on a little village-y hillside that's on the way to the Namo Buddha monastery, a popular destination for trekkers. We didn't go (it would've added a day to our trip), but we did run up to the Kali Temple, which is at the top of the nearby hillside. On the way down, we stumbled upon a giant golden Buddha keeping watch over the forest. Yet another lucky accident, to end a trip full of lucky accidents.