Manaslu MASSIVE
Sarah Hewitt takes a deep dive into Nepal old and new, on a popular Himalayan trek
MOPEDS weave at high speed amongst taxis, cows amble oblivious through the throng, and everywhere there is smog and people clearing their throats. A realisation dawns: I’m not sure I’m prepared for this.
Booking a trip to the Nepalese Himalayas had seemed like a great idea a few months ago, cosy by the pub fire with pint in hand. Charlotte had been to Nepal before and seemed so confident, but for me it was a step into a new world, a new continent. My senses were being assaulted from every direction.
DUMPLINGS AND BEER
Based in Kathmandu’s Thamel district for a few days, we combined eating momos (Tibetan dumplings) and drinking local beer with making plans. With recommendations for a trekking company in hand, we decided on the Manaslu Circuit Trek in the shadow of the eighth highest mountain in the world – plus an additional five days in the Tsum Valley. We then sorted out a guide for the hike.
Life is very much lived on the streets in Nepal, something that made me interrogate my ethics as a photographer. We visited the biggest Hindu temple in the world, Pashupatinath, where we were swept into the crowds observing a funeral. In complete contrast to the closed world of death in the West, here the body is laid out visible to all, as the family walk round and round in reverence and respect, laying flowers and kissing the feet as the final act of love. I took a few shots, but it felt inappropriate. I soon put the camera away.
A few days later we left the chaos of Kathmandu, boarding a brightly painted bus with incense burning on the dashboard. The journey was not for the faint-hearted, but aside from a wheel leaving the road occasionally, we arrived mostly unscathed at our trailhead, Machakola, ten hours later. It would take more than several cups of ginger tea to recover our nerves that evening, but sadly that’s all we had.
The next morning, we woke to blue skies with mountains framing the view, and prayer flags, faded and frayed, fluttering in a cold breeze. The trail began gently enough but grew narrower, looser and steeper as it wound up the valley. A river ran blue and clear below, criss-crossed by simple suspension bridges, wire mesh sides softened by more prayer flags.
It was just as it’s supposed to be... and yet Nepal is changing quickly. A few days later, as we left Jagat, we needed to pick our way over boulders and cables strewn across the path. A construction team were rock blasting to extend the Jeep track all the way round Manaslu. It’s a plan that will change the face of the valley irrevocably.
THE PATH TO TIBET
At Deng, we diverted into the remote Tsum Valley, which only sees around
300 visitors each year, and which had a very different feel to the main circuit. Past Lokpa, the trail became lusher and more tropical, the hillsides decorated with Nepal’s national flower, the rhododendron. We crossed metal walkways that clung like limpets to the cliffs, and stopped at a similarly precarious teahouse for a rest.
Reaching the first plateau, I became aware of a deep peace that lay like a cloak over everything. The clanking of donkey bells had been replaced by a deep silence as yaks, stocky and better suited to the altitude, meandered languidly here and there. From Ripchet, we continued through meadows flanked by snow-capped peaks to our base for the next few days – Karma Lodge in Chekumpar – nestled in the shadows of Himalchuli and Ganesh Himal. And from there, we embarked for the Mu Gompa Monastery as the sun rose and lit the mountains up behind us. At 3700m the grass gave way to rocky outcrops, but after the steepsided valleys, the wide-open space was a relief. Snow greeted us
“The next morning we woke to blue skies, mountains framing the view and prayer flags, faded and frayed, fluttering in the cold breeze”
at the lonely monastery, where we hung some prayer flags from our guide’s seemingly endless supply and headed back to base camp for some warming dal bat.
The Tibetan border was only a few days’ walk away, and this was the closest I’ll likely get to the country in my lifetime.
The proximity of the border is tangible, reflected in the Tibetan greeting of “Tashi Delek” and in the local dress. Many of the women wore brightly coloured striped woven aprons over their skirts, the Tibetan equivalent of a wedding ring.
UNDER THE SKIN
The further we went, the more we began to understand some of the complexities at work. At first glance, Nepal is still a land rooted in tradition. Food and hot water are heated over stoves fuelled by animal dung, and children with grubby faces and beguiling smiles wander the villages with a freedom the West has long forgotten.
Yet most of the teahouses – generally formed of a communal dining room, basic wooden-walled bedrooms, squat toilets and bucket showers – also had satellite Wi-Fi available. This doesn’t just enable trekkers and tourists to check the weather and stay in touch with those back home; it has undoubtedly opened up the world to those who’ve grown up here. I wondered what impact this has had on the culture of the valleys.
And, as another donkey caravan passed us by, it was hard not to feel conflicted about the consequences of increased tourism – even though we were tourists too. These caravans mostly carry western luxuries that visitors desire, en route. Despite being a vital source of income, it was hard to reconcile with the toll taken on the animals, their herders and the places themselves. The Coca Cola bottles that litter the wooded hillsides were sad scarlet reminders of this tension.
DID SOMEONE SAY PIE?
Food on the trek was pretty limited, due to a lack of fresh available ingredients and also due to the standardisation of the menu
by the Nepali Tourist Board. Breakfast generally consists of fresh chapati and boiled eggs, pancakes or porridge, washed down with tea and sweet milky coffee. For lunch and dinner, it was vegetable fried noodles, vegetable fried rice, vegetable dumplings and vegetable noodle soup... you get the gist. Up here, variety was not the spice of life. Imagine our excitement, then, on reaching Namrung in the rain, to find a coffee shop serving freshly brewed coffee and apple pie. We quickly inhaled three slices between us.
As the trek progressed, the weather deteriorated. Morning sun would give way to clouds and rain after lunchtime. As we gained altitude, our anxiety levels about the conditions on the pass also rose. March is within the limited trekking window between snowfall and monsoon seasons, and snow wasn’t expected at this time of year. But it soon became clear that we’d hit unusual weather, or perhaps just the start of the new normal. We crunched through snowy forests to Birendra Lake at the foot of Manaslu Base Camp and watched a small avalanche cascade over the rocks into the water. By the time we reached Dharamsala (4470m), the ground was thick with snow, and we holed up in our teahouse with Thermoses of hot chocolate. Going to the bathroom here was even more of an adventure than usual, with the entire area coated in ice, from entrance to enamel surround.
HIGH POINT
A 4am start saw us form a human caravan with other trekkers, head lamps bobbing in the darkness as we made up our way up the trail. We witnessed the most incredible sunrise, cobalt blue skies, shimmering white peaks and a sun so warm we swapped our down jackets for shorts. A few hours later and we reached the highest point of the circuit: Larke La pass. At 5106m this was the highest
I’d ever been, and I was grateful to have made it without suffering from any ill effects from the altitude.
A moment of celebration and a few hurried photographs were taken, but the weather was beginning to close in. Visibility was
“As we gained altitude, our anxiety levels about the conditions on the pass also rose”
reduced to mere metres and the route became hard to discern, which led to delays as the guides found a new trail, section by section. Stray thoughts of avalanches and crevasses hovered unwelcome at the fringes of my mind, but we finally made it off the pass and into the warmth of the teahouse in Bimtang. Never have I been more delighted to have a bucket shower, filled to the brim with water heated on the stove by our host. We decompressed with beers round the fire and got an early night.
LANDSLIDES AND SNICKERS
The next few days were a return to relative tranquillity. An easy-to-follow trail wound down the valleys, gently losing thousands of metres of elevation. Snow turned back to rain, jagged peaks to forests and rhododendrons, and the donkey caravans we’d not seen for days re-appeared… along with the unforgettable smell of donkey wee!
As we neared the point where the Manaslu and Annapurna circuits meet, the villages grew larger. And with increased infrastructure, the extremities of life in this environment were exposed. Shortly after Dharapani, half a village and a bridge had been washed away by a recent landslide. Buildings in Tal were propped up on haphazard piles of bricks. There were countless roofs painted the uniform colour of the United Nations. We had become used to stepping over the effects of landslides on the trail almost every day, but seeing the direct impact of the earthquake and monsoons on human life made it clear that this is a country still very much at the mercy of Mother Nature.
It makes all the (mostly Chinese) investment in roads and infrastructure seem all even more extraordinary, given it could all be destroyed at any moment.
There’s no specific finish point – it’s more a question of how long you want to spend in a rickety Jeep to the nearest town, Besisahar. As someone used to finish lines, medals and celebrations, the end of the hike felt a little lacklustre. I’d wished there was at least a sign to mark the end of what had been a real adventure. We did, however, finally treat ourselves to that deep-fried Snickers we’d seen on every menu on the circuit but never quite got around to ordering. Perhaps the most fitting celebration.