My temporary life in urban Nepal

We’d been told that if the weather was clear on Day 4, to expect a wake-up knock on the door at 5am. To be honest, after the weather we’d had so far, I really didn’t expect it, so I was both surprised and quite excited when I heard the tap on the door.

We set off at 5:15am in pitch dark, for a hard, fast walk up the stepped trail to the top of Poon Hill (3210m). I could hear the blood rushing in my ears and my co-trekker almost threw up. That's how bad it was. It took just under an hour and we were arriving as the mountains started to become visible in the first light of the day. Along with dozens and dozens of other people, we watched as the sky became lighter and lighter, through the first rays of sunshine touching the peaks, to the full sun of morning.

And did I mention it was literally freezing?? I ran into someone I’d met earlier in the trek, and I could barely speak to him as my lips wouldn’t move properly. But the cold was a small price to pay for being able to see such a magnificent sight.

Back down in Ghorepani, we began our descent along the main trail by walking, mostly by the river, to another village called Banthanti (2210m). It was such a different experience walking through the forest in the sunshine. In fact, we were enjoying it so much that when we had our break at Banthanti, we decided to just go for it in the afternoon and walk all the way down. This meant we would be doing the hardest part of the descent on top of an already tough day, but we decided we’d rather be on the trail than cooling our heels in a lodge.

The section of the trail from Ulleri to Tikhedungga (1540m) was steep and all steps – extremely hard on the knees - through agricultural land. But we passed countless breathless, red-faced people going in the opposite direction, and once again I thought to myself that I was glad to be going against the tide. To enter the pretty little village of Tikhedungga we had to cross the river by a couple of suspension bridges. I’d been looking forward to this, but had not realised I would be walking across the bouncy bridges with no feeling in my legs… I’m surprised I didn’t fall flat on my face.

Not counting Poon Hill, Day 4 was about 6 hours of walking, including breaks, and mostly in a downwards direction.

After an overnight stop, all that was left for Day 5 was to walk back to Nayapul, mostly along another unsealed road from Hile onwards.

This took about 3 hours. Then suddenly we were in the car and within an hour we were back in Pokhara for a long, hot shower (and a caffe latte).