Today, we – Val, me, Aparna and her colleague Usha – were setting off on our trek to Mount Api base camp, in the far north-west of Nepal. (And this will explain, for those reading this in real time, why there have been no daily posts about life here for a while, as we have been off=line.) Not that we were going to be doing any trekking today. The first task was to head north, in the four-wheel drive Scorpio (a sort of modern Land Rover) that Aparna had arranged to take us. We assembled pretty much on time, in itself a minor miracle, the Nepalese attitude to time being not so much laid-back as positively horizontal. A quick trip to a couple of cash-points to withdraw 70,000 rupees (about £450) which we hoped would see us through the next… few days(?), and we were off.
After a couple of hours drive, we stopped for rice pudding. Not quite as bizarre as it seems, for it is a local speciality, particularly in the town of Sahukhar, (though the proprietor of the café most famous for it dies last year) and recommended to us by Yogi (in regular contact by phone at this point.) And it really was delicious. True, it was served with a small amount of some spicy, savoury mixture, but that was in a separate compartment of the bowl, so could be (and was) ignored.
Our next stop en route was at Ugratara temple. It was gloriously colourful, with bright new flags flying, and the approach – shoes and socks off, out of respect – an avenue of heads, most cartoonish rather than realistic, with animals as well as various gods and, I assume, heroes. And there were bells everywhere, most of a single design, but of various sizes, and thus resonances. And ringing them. Simply by knocking them with your hand, was absolutely encouraged. We stayed a while, taking many pictures, but had to move on; the trek was not going to walk itself, and we needed to be ready to start.
Stopped for lunch, of course, the regular meal: rice, dhal, veg, then onwards and upwards, following the valley, on a winding road. Val was rifing shotgun at this point, and reported that it was very scary indeed, with the driver giving a sharp intake of breath on a couple of occasions, with near misses with other vehicles, pedestrians, etc, and one time when the wheels were very near the edge… with a mighty long drop below.
As it began to grow dark, we were still a long was from our final destination, a supposed hotel – nothing was certain – in the town of Latinath. But the road was starting to disappear altogether; Val was trying to track our progress on Google maps, but for much of the time we were a blue dot in an expanse of nothing; you could just see the river we were following, but no mention of a road. And when the road did sort of reappear for a while, it led s through a collection of a few houses – village would be far too grand a term – with our way blocked by a group of very drunken men, drumming on a couple of oil cans, whooping and screaming. It looked proper lairy for a few moments, but fortunately some slightly more sober heads prevailed and they moved out of the way.
It was properly dark by now, and we were effectively driving off-road; we were by no means certain that our driver had signed up for quite such an adventure.
But just as we were all beginning to despair of finding the place, there was a small collection of houses, two of which appeared to be hotels. Pretty basic, in both cases, and not evidently hotels, but there were rooms; ours even had an ensuite (though of a Nepali kind – we were going to have to get used to squat toilets.)
Aparna, Val and I celebrated with a beer, but it was far too strong (so far as Nepal is concerned . anything between 5 and 6% is called “light”, and this was “strong”. And dinner, when it finally arrived, was most disappointing. Still, we weren’t doing this for the culinary delights (as we were very much to discover) and took ourselves off to bed. The real adventure would begin tomorrow.
