Start of trek! Nayapul to Tikedungha

Day 1  Pokhara (900m) -> Nayapul (1,070m) -> Tikedungha (1,480m)

Total time: 3hrs 45mins

Breakfast: 2 toasts, eggs (@ Green Tara Hotel)

Lunch: Fried rice & fried noodles

Dinner: Sizzling grilled chicken and steak, Apple fritters with custard

In the early morning, 4 of us squeezed into a super small Suzuki Nepali taxi and drive up to Nayapul.  The journey took about 1½ hours.  It was a winding narrow road up to Nayapul, a large village with shops and teahouses.  At 8:30am, we started our day 1 trekking.  The start of the trail was some slippery steep stones down, and it was quite funny, I totally forgotten about my trekking pole and I was so scared to walk down the stone steps.  Kenn was very puzzled why I kept grabbing his hand so tightly instead of using my trekking pole.. :| 

@ Nayapul, start of trek

Along the way we saw ponies carrying heavy stuffs like food, even gas tanks. There were also the Himalayan goats, loads of them.  According to Maila, these goats will be slaughtered during the festival which started on the 5^th of Nov. Sigh…

Goat handler

Himalayan goats

We encountered a short rope bridge and when we were half-way crossing the bridge, ponies carrying heavy goods started walking from the opposite direction.  Well, we can't request them to turn and walk back to let us cross 1st (I wonder how, if the ponies "said" yes), so we gotta quickly turned and walked back, Maila almost got "squash" half-way...

WJ & Maila taking a rest

Than we continued on along the banks of the Modi Khola river, gentle slopes.  We stopped for lunch after about 2.5hrs of walk.  Ordered fried rice and fried noodles all with cheese sprinkled on top.  Hmm.. the noodles sucks.. I shall shun fried noodles from now on.  I was craving for some cold drinks so I also ordered a canned fruit juice.  It set us back at Rs 155 (approx USD 2.20), that’s expensive for a small can juice in Nepal!  Ok, from then on I shall just stick to hot drinks that was provided unlimited in my trekking package.    

Rice padi

After an hour long of lunch, it’s time to move on.  Greeted me was a long flight of stairs.. I hate staris K  but an hour + later, Maila told us we’ve reached the lodge for the night.  Kenn was like shocked, it was only about 13:45hrs and we’ve reached?  He wanted to carry on.. but it was final, so time for rest.  I was in a way glad today was a short trek.  Been a long time since my last trek (Sep 2009 to Mt KK), I'm feel like someone with 2 left feet, can't walk properly.  Well, I guess it really need some getting used to again???

Trekking trail to Tikedungha

 1^st lodge (or teahouse) for the night. Very simple room, 2 beds with very thin mattress and a small side table. Door lock is as good as not lock.  No view, only trees from the windows.  No heater, even with the door and windows closed, the room is still cold, thus the down sleeping bag had become our or rather my best friend.

Room with view of trees

It was common toilet and bathroom. I was surprised there’s a western style toilet in this lodge, wow.. I am impressed.. but not impressed with the users of the toilet.  There’s also hot shower, seeing it’s still early and sunny, we decided to go for shower to get ourselves refresh. 

The convenience store next to our lodge sell nothing much and things were expensive.  Mineral water here costs NRs 70 for 1 liter as compared to at Kathmandu and Pokhara which cost around NRs 10 - 15, so we decided to take the water from the tap and put water purification tablets in.  Thereafter, nothing much to do, we decided to hide in our room to do some reading.  In the late afternoon, it started to rain, making it so cold… gosh.. it better don’t rain tomorrow morning!

Me & Kenn with our sizzling steak and grilled chicken

At night we both ordered western food… grilled chicken and steak both on hot stone.. when it came it went sizzle… sizzle.. ok, mountain standard the steak was good but the chicken was tough.  We also ordered apple fritters with custard.. this was heavenly desserts.  Kenn started his journey on all drinks and wine…. 1^st was the Raksi wine.  It’s Nepali rice wine.  Think it was deliberately diluted, quite bland…

Over dinner, we chit-chat with fellow trekkers, sharing our travel stories... till around 8pm +... lights out, time for bed.. Nepal sleep real early...