Postcards from Nepal (p.3)

Editor’s note: Part 1 here, Part 2 here. Words and photos by Chelsea Phillippe

Namaste

Our 17 day trek around the Annapurnas was amazing. Almost every day was an uphill walk. We had a special permit to a restricted area called Nar-Phu, that added a wonderful 6 days to our trek. These areas have a heavy Tibet influence, and have only very softly been touched by western influence. They are similar to the Anasazi of the Southwest of the States. They build houses atop each other outta stones and mud. One house’s porch is the other’s roof. They are built into a hill/cliff and there are storage caches up high on cliff walls, like ruins we see in cliffs. Very neat to see people still very happily living this way. A few people had solar panels for light at night, but all cooked with wood and used local food stuffs with a few additions from porters and mule trains.

We hiked over 2 5000 meter passes, the highest I have ever traveled by foot.
We also saw a few festival celebrations; one including beating barely for 2 weeks by hand (4am – 10pm), and the other was the brother sister festival, where kids give their siblings gifts and go around singing to businesses at night.

One evening a kid was lighting fireworks and one misfired hitting me in the forehead. It bled pretty well, but Jason quickly reassured me it coulda been worse…it could been in my eye. That would have put me in a very tough place being so far from any sort of medical facility.

Towards then end of our trek we found a town with a hot spring and cheap massages. Jason enjoyed a leg massage, but I resisted after hearing some lady explain she got a sort of happy ending from the massage man…?!?

We are now back in Phokara relaxing and taking a day off.
The next few months are still pretty open to whatever may come Our only plans include another rafting trip (11 days) and hopefully a trek up to Everest Base Camp.