Close to Pokhara is the Annapurna mountain range. On a clear, windless day you can see them reflected in the lake as they tower above Pokhara. Unfortunately the monsoon is at the doorstep so the only thing towering above Pokhara are the rain-clouds. Since the mountains weren’t going to show themselves, we decided to pay them a visit. We hired a porter-guide to carry us along the correct path and set of for a 5 day trek.

Trekking here is totally different from trekking in the Alps. Where in the Alps the only people above 2000m you will meet are fellow trekkers, here they still have complete villages at 3500m. Hence the paths are filled with villagers going about their business. Another striking difference is the way Nepali build their paths. They have taken the mathematical rule of shortest distance to the extreme. This results easily in a 800m descent and a 1000m ascent to get from one village to the next. On our first day we were introduced to the Nepali solution of steep slopes: stairs. We had to climb an insane amount of steps to get to the village of Damphus. From here we had our first view of the mountains. Rising from the clouds was the fishtail-mountain; Machhapuchhare. This mountain is almost 7000m high and it is just an amazing thing to see it just going up and up. We continued our ascent until we reached Pothara. Pothara would gives us our first real view of the Annapurna mountains, except for the clouds. Where Machhapuchhare had managed to rise above the clouds, the clouds had grown stronger and prevented us from seeing our first eight-thousander . It even started to rain before we could reach our final destination for the day. Seasoned and very well equipped as we are, we took shelter on the veranda of some house. In the meantime a local school had decided to call it a day, due to election or something. The trekking path was suddenly filled with kids in uniforms and flipflops heading home. They also decided to wait for the rain to stop in a shelter on the other side of the street. The very interesting fact that two whities where sheltering as well probably induced them to stay at that spot. After a while the rain did stop and we continued our way. Multilingual as we are we said goodbye with a ciao and ciao-ciao. This last one generated a storm of laughter from the schoolgirls, apparently to them it meant noodles.

Locals carrying their groceries back home

Horizontal space is a treasured commodity in these steep hills, so you often find yourselves on the edge of a terrace. Even more interesting are the villages. Each house has its own (flat) courtyard and they are interconnected with stairs going to their neighbours, left, right, up, down and between. Most the villages are then connected by one path, taking as less horizontal space as possible. So if you are passing one village on your way to another village you need to navigate a maze of stairs and courtyards. Most treks have a more or less standard route through the villages, turning this into the local boulevard. So you just need to follow the endless strings of guesthouses and restaurants until you reach the end of the village again.

The next day we had to go to Chomrong which was only 200m higher and in plain view. We also noticed the two steep ravines we had to cross Nepali-style; all the way down and up again. Fortunately one of these ravines had hot springs so we could drink a beer under a forest cover whilst the rain was falling down on our heads. Once the rain had stopped we climbed another 800m without moving more than 300m on the map! The guesthouse promised to have on the most spectacular views of the Machhapuchhare, but ‘clouded view’ would have been the best name for the place.

Sierk contemplating beer in a hot tub

There was hope that early in the morning we could get a glimpse but when we left at 6.30 there were only clouds. The clouds grew darker and after lunch (11am) it started raining. I had always associated leeches with swamps, but subtropic rainforests in the rain do suit them as well. They are used to semi barefooted porters, so they had a hard time navigating our twin sets of pants and heavy hiking boots. In the end I had counted 5 leeches stuck in various layers of my clothing :). Tadipani, where we were heading for, turned out to be filled with lots of trekkers in various stages of drowning. the dining area of our guest house became the main centre for activity.This was due to their brilliant insight that a fire would be a welcome thing in the cold rainy weather. Once everybody was dried and fed we learned ourselves a new (Nepali) card game; doomple and spend a few hours trying to beat the Nepali. The villagers decided that we were such a fun group (or big enough) to throw us a party with singing and dancing. They squeezed a 12 member strong music group sum choir and a dance floor into the already packed dining area and started singing their high pitched songs. Once the dancers retired, we filled their spot and dared our porters to do the same. Somehow while we were doing this it had become very late so we decided to sleep in the next day and left at 8.30.

Millions of leeches, leeches for me

Our last destination was Ghoropan, famed for one of the best views of the Annapurna range of the entire Himalayas. Looking at the clouds in the morning we comforted ourselves that we had see a few glimpses of the mountains already and that they had been impressive. We had to go uphill almost all the way (for once) and every step brought us nearer to the clouds. Then we crossed the pass and the heavy rainstorm of the other side hit us in the face and soaked us to the bone before we could get our raincoats. Soaking wet we battled the horizontal rain for another hour until we arrived at our last nightstop in the mountains.Within 30minutes the rain stopped and the clouds started to disappear. Fellow trekkers who had been enjoying clouded views on their treks as well where hopeful we could see the mountains at last. They where right, at 3 am it was totally clear and we could see the white peaks of the high mountains glitter in the starlight. We had had a similar experience a few nights before but then, the clouds had regrouped in the morning, so we went back to bed. This time it turned out to be different. At dawn we were awoken by voices outside of our bedroom. When we looked outside, the highest mountain of the region, together with her smaller siblings was shining gold in the early morning sun. We went outside and had breakfast in this magnificent setting. Pictures just don’t do justice to the sheer size of a 8167m high lump of rock towering above the fellow and the other mountains. We reluctantly let the clouds take over once more and we went down the 3500+ steps that would brings us to our pick-up-point.

Je had er bij moeten zijn…

Having spent 5 days at 2500+ we had forgotten how hot it was down below, so arrived in Pokhara hot, sweaty and unshaven. We took a long cool shower (the showers are solar powered but with the cloud cover they never reached 20 degrees) and went looking for a barbershop to treat us with a shave and a massage. Our porter-guide had promised to celebrate our victory over the clouds that evening. He took us out for dinner at a very local restaurant with live music and dancing. After putting our previously acquired Nepali dancing skill to work and even getting some locals to join we finally decided our trekking days were over and went to bed for a whole lot of rest.

After we discovered that New Dehli airport never sleeps, nor did we the night we had to spent there, we arrived in Kathmandu on Sunday the 18th. After 3 weeks of soviet bureaucracy, Nepal gives you a bit of a culture shock. We could just walk to a desk, show our passport and enter the country. This unlike Central Asia where multiple officials check every step of a strict procedure. This lack of rules and officials is exemplified by Nepal’s traffic. Probably the main reason that not everyone not driving an armoured car is not yet dead is the general speed. Due to cattle, bicycles, infants and donkeycarts occupying the same road as the cars they rarely pass the 30kph limit. We were greeted by Erni at the airport and he masterfully crawled his way through traffic to his house. During this trip we ran into some demonstration. Apparently the Maoists had tortured and killed a business man, putting the nation on edge again.

Erni and Herma do not actually live in Kathmandu, but in Patan at the other side of the river. So instead of going out for dinner near Kathmandu’s Durbar Square they took us to the one of Patan. This is said to be more beautiful than the other one. Both are filled with temples, the LP had 13 pages with temples for Kathmandu’s and 7 for Patan’s squares. Instead of going through all these pages we just opted to view the night settle in over the square from our rooftop terrace.

Dusk at Patan Durbar Square

The next day we went to explore Kathmandu. At the bank we found out that it was a holiday. The Nepali have about 26 holidays and every now and then the government declares a holiday at random. As such not everyone keeps track of these holidays, at least our host didn’t know this one. By the power of the ATM we did get money to do the usual tourist stuff in Kathmandu, but on our way back we found out that the unrest was increasing. Our taxi driver suddenly stopped the car and turned. Next he went with breakneck speed (50kph) back against the traffic. Quickly every other vehicle on the road was trying to do the same warning the oncoming traffic to turn back. Then we saw the course of this panic coming running down the street. An anti-maoist protest had turned into a riot and the police couldn’t control them anymore.

At home we heard that a strike was planned for Wednesday. This meant that the Kathmandu valley would be locked of from the outside world stopping us from getting to Pokhara. So we changed our plans yet again and quickly left the next morning to get away from the unrest and chill at the lake.

Chilling at the lake

Due to holidays and weekends we had three whole days where we didn’t need to show up at the embassy. A few hundred kilometre from Bishkek at 3000m there are a few natural hottubs. We liked the idea of a long hot bath high in the mountains and off we went. The easy bit is getting at the feet of those mountains. You just need to sit for 5 hours cramped in a minivan that was driven by someone with a certain death-wish. We arrived late in the afternoon and spend the night in Karakol so we could go up at first light *ahem*. From Karakol it is about 30km to the actual trail, this we did by minivan as well. The lonely planet states that is a 5-6 hour walk from the gate, where the minibus stops, to the hottubs. My sister said it was more like 3-4 hours. What both failed to mention is that the last few kilometres are very steep and that taking a 15+kg backpack doesn’t make that any easier.

We had started early-ish but by the time we arrived at the steep part it was just past noon and the sun shone merciless in our face. We were already packed like a mule so we opted to bring only 1 litre of water each counting on streams to replenish us. A risky strategy, but fortunately it played out well. When we finally made it to the pass we were covered with salt crystals, but hadn’t ran out of water. From the pass we had a good view of the valley. It was as picture-perfect as the lonely had promised. At the far end there were snow covered peaks, both flanks still had traces of snow and the valley it self was covered with a thick blanket of green grass. Along the silver stream a few houses and huts were scattered around.

Finally at the highest point

We walked down into the valley looking for the old man with the rusty quad. The first guy we met turned out to be this old man. He invited us in and gave us chai and honeybeer. We had hauled our tent all the way to there so when he offered us a place to stay we declined politely and asked if we could just pitch a tent outside. Due to his reputation as a chef, we did decide to join the communal dinner. Apart from us, two French couples and a mother and daughter from Austria joined. We found out that everybody was leaving the next day and figured we might run into each other again on our way back.

After all the candles were burned we went to bed, preparing for the race to Bishkek. The others had the big advantage that they only needed to eat their prepared breakfast and run down the mountain with their light daypacks. We, however, had to prepare, eat and clean up our breakfast. Pack our tent and stuff and struggle down the mountain with our mighty backpacks. When we finally arrived in Bishkek we already had overtaken the Austrians and met one French couple at the busstop. They informed us that the other French couple left 30minutes before.

At the busstation we could board a minivan which immediately left for Bishkek. If the first driver had a certain death-wish, this one surely wanted to get as many others involved as well. However, he managed to do the trip in considerably less than 5 hours. We went to our hotel, had dinner in the city and did some shopping and were quite astonished when we saw the French couple enter our hotel, stating that they just arrived. They had taken a real bus, without death-wishing driver.

After going back and forth, back and forth and back and forth to the Kazakh embassy we found ourselves once again with two days without embassy. We already had been so long in Bishkek that people started to recognise us, so it was time to leave again. Bishkek, although nice, is not a place where we wanted to spent another two days idling in its streets. So we left for the Ala-Archa canyon nearby. Since it was only for one night, we shed as much luggage as possible and walked up the canyon. This is a beautiful and very accessible canyon. Unfortunately the locals had discovered that almost any car can drive up to the “Alplager” and did so in quite large numbers. We didn’t look forward to camping between partying and picnicking locals and hoped to find a way out once we arrived. At the alplager we took a good look at the mountains around them and noticed a small rock outcrop on the other side of the river. The bridge over the river was already enough of a barrier to stop everyone who had arrived in a SUV and the path up the mountain was steep enough to be another watershed. The top looked reasonable flat and we figured that would be a perfect spot to pitch our tent. From that spot we had a clear view of a 4800+ meter high mountain on the other side of the valley and of the locals who had managed to get lost in the mountains above us. After we guided the locals back to the trails with lots of armwaving and whistling, we prepared ourselves a nice risotto.

A mountain of risotto

For some reason a chilly wind came down the mountains in the evening so we packed ourselves in fleece and gore-tex, gazed at the stars and drank our wodka. The wodka ran out sooner than the stars so we went down the mountain to see if we could get some more wodka at the Alplager. The moon was half-full and provided us with enough light to navigate both the steep slope and the reminiscences of the bridge. Once we arrived at the Alplager is was closed, so were the buildings around it. We were already heading back to our tent when we ran into a few locals. We asked in our best Russian: ‘Wodka’? They spoke English and immediately understood our predicament and invited us in for more wodka and some unknown Kyrgyz’ drink.  After they ran our of wodka as well they tried some more houses but alas, it was time for us to climb back up the mountain.

Sierk crossing the br.d.e

After staying in the village we went back to Shymkent where Rafael, a friend of my parents, had agreed to host us. Apparently Shymkent is famous for three things; the museum, the bazaar and the parks. Everything happens in the parks, filled with people and activities, unless it rains. And it rained…. the bazaar, the second option, had been closed due to hygenic problems, so that left the museum. This museum, the regional historical, is very well staffed, we counted at least 8 persons. Their number is probably dictated by the number of light switches inside. Every room we entered the lights would be switched on, turning dark into lesser dark and switched off when we seemed to plan to leave the room. Meanwhile we were closely watched by the light switcher. The Collection included stuffed animals, tools and weapons from local tribes and lots of documents, vague photos and books. Since everything was in Cyrillic we had no clue what we were witnessing, except for the snow leopard.

In Bishkek, a few days later, we noticed that this love for papers and vague photo’s is shared among the ex-soviet museums. The state historical museum of Kyrgyzstan is an extraordinary sight. Set on a grand soviet design square with a supersized facade overlooking the two fixated guards and the flagpole in between them. When entering you see Lenin coming down from the stairway, on your left a lady behind a table and in perfect symmetry on the right as well. The first lady has the important task to explain visitors that they are on the wrong table and should refer to the other lady. The museum is more about grand metal mural telling the heroic story of Lenin than about the history of the state, it is worth to pay the extra money required to take photographs. We were welcomed with a larger than life head of Lenin at the top end of the stairs. Apart from this and the murals the museum is filled with the usual incomprehensible papers and photos with their Cyrillic explanations. Of course there was an army of lightswitchers but since we, for once, were not the only visitors, they didn’t need to switch the light and sticked to trailing us.

Lenin is still alive..

This museum was not only thing that remained from the soviet era we found out. We had planned to apply for a Kazakh visa the next day and head for the mountains for few days of trekking. Alas, the soviet bureaucracy had not left the Kazakh embassy. We had to hand in a copy of our passport, on A4, the higher quality A5 would not do. Then we had to come back on Monday, receive a piece of paper stating the amount of money we had to pay. This payment must be done by a bank on the other side of town. Come back with loads of forms, copies and letters and get the visa on Thursday evening. Note that this involved standing your ground between pushy locals for about an hour. Having to come back every few days it proved impossible to camp out for more than one night at a time. Still, writing this down at 2500m on a rock outcrop overlooking the valley down below, it is worth it.

Camping on the rock outcrop

Driving with Alikhan and his chauffeur we were crossing a Lord of the Rings-esk landscape. This feeling amplified by us coming from Gallandia, at least according to the Kazakh. We were driving away from urban life, the towns became ever smaller and sparser. In between we saw herds of sheep and cattle roaming the green landscape. Until the point where our cellphone lost coverage and the high quality tarmac road suddenly turned into a potholed gravel one. At this point we could see the end of the valley and the foothills of the Ugam mountains behind it. Here in a tiny farmers village we stopped at the house of Mills. Not hindered by any knowledge of English he bid us a hearty welcome to his house. He showed us the yurt that would become our residence for the coming two nights.

His farm and in fact the entire village had striking similarities with other farms and villages I’ve visited when I was younger. For me it was easy to recognize the different aspects of the farm and the purpose of the different tools. With the aid of his phonetic English phrasebook and our phonetic Russian phrasebook we managed to talk a bit about his farm while he showed us the farm and hinterland. After lunch he brought us on top of the hills on the other side of the valley. From here we had an unobstructed view of the nothingness that is the Kazakh steppe. Everywhere we could spot small and larger herds of sheep, cattle and horses, often unaccompanied by humans.

Horses in Tolkien-land

In the evening we went down the road to visit the other foreigners in town. They turned out to be 2 women and one man from New Zealand. They were traveling from Beijing to London by train. They told us about the very interesting twilight ritual that happened in the village. Apparently the sheep herding and the herding of the younger cows was a communal effort. A few herdsmen took all the sheep and the younger cattle to the pastures uphill. In the evening they would return over the main road and the animals would branch of to their respective stables. Also, at least as interesting, they told us that everyone leaving China is being searched for subversive pictures on Tibet. They also had met travelers who attempted the same trip as we originally had planned. They all were stopped and turned back before they could reach Tibet. This made our ‘loss’ of Tibet slightly more bearable.

The next day we set out for a 20 km hike to the mountains. According to our Kazakh guide it would involve some extreme climbing. We walked into a valley and at the point where it turned into a gorge with almost vertical sides our guide decided that this was a good point to do the ‘extreme’ climbing to the top. From there the mountains seemed to be no further then an hours walk. They did so for the rest of the trip. The valley and especially the gorge had a raw nature feeling to it. However on the highlands above it cattle and horses grazed. We past several herds of animals until the guide stopped at one and carefully counted them and send them to a different direction in the end. He explained us later that there were his horses.

Sierk having a ball with balance

We had lunch in the herdsmens hideout in the hills. One of the herdsmen we had met had taken our food and prepared a nice warm lunch. This surely was communitybased tourism. Once back home we had some quality time with our beds before dinner and discussed possible Dutch-Kazakh trading oppertunities with our guide and host before turning in.

We managed to get the correct ticket for the night train to Shymkent. My parents dropped us off at Almaty II and we immediately ran into a few locals who spoke English. They explained that they were three brothers, but only one was actually going, the others merely were there to say goodbye. We were more then an hour early so there was ample time to do so.

Our four bunk coupe got filled up with an elderly man and a young woman. The gentleman was very talkative but he had not yet mastered the English language, nor did we do so for either the Russian or the Kazakh language. Fortunately the young woman was learning English by herself so she functioned as an interpreter. The old guy told us a short history of nearly everything involving Kazakhstan, Russia and the former USSR.He was very firm in his believe that the fall of the USSR was a good thing. He called that era and everything related to it ‘blogga’ meaning something like bad or evil. Since he had to wake up at 5 to get off at Taraz he retired early and the three of us continued our conversation on the top bunks.

Our neatly made beds

The one-of-three-brothers and the the woman both offered their services to help us find our way in Shymkent. This was not necessary since our eco-tourism coordinator was supposed to waitt the station with a sign saying ‘Steven’. His sign ‘Steifan’ was close enough for us to recognise. He took us to a car and after overcoming the language barrier he understood that we had not yet had breakfast. We had bought breakfast, but left it in the fridge in Almaty. He then took us to a small restaurant in Sayram where we had Shashlyk for breakfast(!).
After breakfast the car went further into the endless steppe ever closer to the looming mountains.