Namaste from Nepal

Hello Friends,

Greetings and Namaste from Pokhara, Nepal.  I hope this message is finding you in good health and good spirits.  Mom and I just returned here yesterday from our three week trek thru the Annapurna region in northwest Nepal.  It was an awesome, amazing journey.  Beautiful and difficult and everything in between, sometimes all at once!  I will be posting pics on Facebook soon so, for those of you who are receiving this by email, you can use my email address to find me on FB if you want to see pics.  I’m working on using another photo sharing medium (suggestions are welcome) but I have not decided on one for now. 

 

My mom had found a wonderful guide service on the internet in the states before we left called 3 Sisters.  They train and employ women and also fund women’s empowerment programs in Nepal.  We hired three ladies, a guide and two helpers, Bighuati, Anita and Chija.  They were absolutely wonderful and so much fun to share the journey with.  They taught me some useful Nepali phrases and ten had fun laughing at me as I made up my own.  In addition to learning some Nepali, we learned so much more  about al sorts of things than we would have if we were trekking alone.  We learned about the areas we were passing through, names of plants and animals, what people were growing in their gardens,  and even occasionally a bit of town gossip!  We even had the wonderful experience of leaving all our bags, unguarded, on the sidewalk at a bus stop in a small town while we went for lunch and having them all be there when we got back! You could not do that anywhere in the US. That was when I decided that this is a place that I could live.  

Ours was an 18 day trek but we both decided that, if we had it to do over again, we would do it in ~25 days so we could stay extra days in some of the town we found most interesting, or in the ones with the nicest guest houses.  Like the guest house in Muktinath which actually had gas heated hot water in an ATTACHED bathroom with a FLUSH toilet!!!  We were speechless.  Or the one in Jomsom which was the cleanest by far on the entire journey.   I would have stayed a week n the guest house in Thorang Phedi, even though it had no shower and no flush toilet anywhere because the owners sons were wonderful musicians and one of them had the coolest girlfriend visiting from New York.  They had a real guitar, with all 6 strings that was actually in tune!  Again, speechless.  It was the only guitar like that we found on the entire journey.  They taught me a wonderful little song that can be played equally well on both the guitar and the ukulele.  I would have stayed in the Fish Tale View Lodge because it had the best masala tea I have ever had, with fresh graded ginger at the bottom of the cup, and outstanding dal bhat with spick relish on the side hot enough to make your eyes water.  You may be wondering why it was called Fish Tale View, it is because fish tale is the English translation of Machhapuchare, which, as the name implies, you can see from the guest house.

A word about having this experience with my mom (amaa in Nepali, just like in Burmese):  She is such a badass!  She was ahead of me for most of the uphill hiking, I was only able to catch up on the downhills or when the path was narrow because she is much more careful.  The bridges were her biggest challenge, especially the really long ones that sway in the wind and have lots of prayer flags attached (so you can pray that you make it to the other side).  Throughout most of the journey she was surrounded by 20 and 30somethings and I’m sure she wondered at least once a day whose idea it was to come out here and do this.  Everyone we met, Nepali and tourist alike, thought it was great to see a mother and daughter on the trek together (amaa and churie).  On the top of Poon Hill, when we climbed up at sunrise to see the beautiful views of all the surrounding mountains, a group of Israeli girls told her that they wish their mothers could/ would do this with them.  

I could fill many more pages with the adventures of the last few weeks, but you don’t have time to read it and I don’t have time to write it, at least not now.  We have to return some rented gear, get some pictures printed, replenish the cash supply and meet our new friends for pizza.  The weather as absolutely gorgeous today Lakeside and I wish you were all here to enjoy it with us.

Much love from the other side of the planet,

-michelle