Still trekking

It's now day five of the trek. Yesterday we walked for 6 hours. You don't measure distance in kilometres but in time, as the steep ascents and descents really affect how long it will take. All the maps just show place names and heights, not distance.

We stayed in a very pretty guest house which had a great view to a death road across the valley. The road has recently been built on the side of a cliff. It is dirt and just wide enough for a bus. The engineers didn't think about two buses or a truck going in the opposite direction. We watched enthralled and safely out of the way as a truck and bus tried to negotiate their way passed each other. It took at least 15 minutes. Meanwhile another bus and several vehicles arrived to set off a cacophony of horns.

We passed through the village of Ghandruk, where we stopped for some apple pie and chocolate cake. It is only the second time since we have been here that we have had some western style food. The village was very picturesque and well built, with snow covered mountains as a back drop.

I skipped lunch as we had a very steep climb ahead of us. It was only about 300 metres, but was more or less straight up. Anyway, tomorrow is our last day on the trek. It will only be a two hour walk before we bus it back to Pokhara and fly back to Kathmandu. Really looking forward to the smog. At least cars could not access most of the villages on the trek, so we were relatively smog free.

It is a little hard to make out here, but here is the death road to Ghandruk where a bus, coming down, meets a truck carrying building supplies, going up. They spent about 20 minutes in a mexican standoff whilst assorted experts assessed the situation, walking around the vehicles in different directions. In the meantime another three 4wds joined the procession going up whilst a bus was above the mayhem, coming down. Finally the truck backed back letting the 4wds through and eventually the bus. The truck stayed for a short while whilst the other bus finally passed, allowing it to continue it delivery to one of the building sites in the village.