Day 18 Dharapani to Chame – 16th July 2009

View from the lodge


The lodge

Morning has come

Same schedule wake up about 0645hrs just brushed our teeths and face as the water is too cold to have a shower. Got ready and had breakfast, mine was buckwheat bread which costs NRP300 (USD4) !! Same price as my tuna spaghetti yesterday for dinner… Ramli just had half boil eggs.. Total costs for this hotel and food is total NRP1640.. As the villages get higher the prices also got higher… Must start to stinge a little..

Left the hotel and start our journey at 0830hrs, starting wasn’t so bad and about 1 hr later it got worst.. We had to cross a pass which is so high and all steep, I was panting like mad and for Ramli his knees just hurt so bad.. This climb is “killing” us silently la…

Village girls..

But all for a good course. After about what feels like an eternity, finally we reached the top of the pass. Bad knees and all we have reached the “summit”. Wahahaha. And the disturbing thing is, here we are struggling up the hill with just our backpacks on our back, this porter carrying around 45kg worth of bags and tents and other stuffs like taking a leisure stroll. RESPECT man!!

Little girl at the lunch place

Waiting for lunch

Anyway we reached our lunch place after another 30mins trekking. This time for lunch we had potato curry and egg curry. The potato was nice and the gravy was very thick while the egg curry, hmmm all I can say is it tastes like maggi soup. Oh yeah we had what seems to taste like fruit punch.

Lars, the doctor trekker, helped me check my knees and he told me exactly what was wrong with it. He said that it was because the muscle on the side of my knees is rubbing against the side of my knees. He knew exactly where the pain was. So confirmed, he is a medical student. Anyway he offered to give me some pain killers but I said so far its still bearable and I will ask some from him if it gets worst.

The boy with the knife...

Along the way we saw some children and gave them some sweets as usual and took some pics of them, but one child had both of pondering. We walked past a house which seems to be empty and only with the little boy of maybe 3 years max squatting at the porch of the house with a kitchen knife in his hands cutting on a piece of wood. He was wearing a sweater with a hood that have ears.. He looked so adorable but what he is doing is very disturbing for us. We gave him a sweet , he took and continued what he was doing. Hmmm where are his parents? Rahul told us that this is a normal nepali childhood…

Yeah we reached Chame

We continued walking after lunch for another 3 hours and finally reached our hotel for the night. Tillicho Guest House at Chame. My knees were fine for a while but it came back again after half an hour. But all in all it was not a challenging trek.

The cottage room at Tilicho Guesthouse

Us taking a rest

We reached our hotel (Tillicho Guest house) and everyone was there. Lars, the fast women and one more couple, a nepali guide with his Belgium girlfriend. We had a chat with one of the French ladies and apparently they had a squabble over food and lodging quality. Hehehe. The view at this hotel is beautiful and the place looked like a cottage with individual rooms looking like small houses made of pine wood surrounded by gorgeous greenery and majestic mountains. Niceeeeeeeeeee………..

Anyway we talked for a while, and then had our shower, ready for our dinner. After shower and doing some laundry, we went to the dining area and had a small pot of black tea. After about half an hour there, we realized that we are still quite early for dinner so we decided to explore the village. We walked pass a police station, and kids playing badminton in the alley and men playing volley ball in a make shift court. And then suddenly it started raining! We had to run back to the hotel in our flip flops which was about 5 mins away while at the same time, maneuvering around rocks, loose stones and of course the dung which is scattered all over the floor. Finally reached the hotel and just in time for our dinner to be served.

Cindy had fried macaroni with mushroom and I had spaghetti with tuna. It was not really that nice and the portion was a bit too little for me. So after that serving I ordered another plate of fried rice with egg which again wasn’t that nice so I ate it with lots of ketchup.

Finished our dinner, had small chat with the rest of the trekkers and then we headed to our room for a well deserved rest. Hopefully it is gonna be a beautiful and clear day tomorrow.