This blog entry covers the third day of my trek and is
through the Gyasumdo region, the middle part of the Marshyangdi valley which is
still relatively wet and lush but considerably cooler than the lower valley at
the beginning of my trek . The crops along the way changed from rice lower down
to buckwheat, barley, and potatoes and the forests from deciduous to evergreen
trees.At the far end of Dharapani I passed a checkpoint office to
register entry into the Annapurna Sanctuary. The office had some interesting
statistics posted on people entering and leaving at that post in 2013. In that
year about 25,000 people entered to trek and fewer than 6,000 people left at
that post. The nnapurna Circuit trek is almost always done in one direction,
explaining the vast difference between those entering and leaving there.
October was the number one months with over 5,000 entries while April, March,
September, and November all had between 2,000 and 3,000. Nationalitywise,
Israelis were #1 with over 5,000 entrants, France and Germany second and third
with between 2,000 and 3,000 followed by the UK, US, Russia, China, Australia,
Netherlands, and Canada rounding out the top ten. Nepal and India are very
popular destinations for Israelis, especially during the year they usually
travel after they complete their military service . The statistics above
included only trekkers and not the support staff of porters and guides who
accompany many.I aimed for another very early start since I thought it might
get warm by afternoon and knew it would be a killer long day. The day started
easily enough with a steady incline on the unpaved road through a few
settlements with numerous guesthouses. After a few hours the trail left the
road and climbed steeply through thick forests. I stopped for lunch in a
farming settlement high above the valley named Timang, the usually starchy
overdose of fried rice that’s most of what you get in Nepal’s trekking country.
From there the road mostly leveled out with a few ups and
downs past a very traditional stone village named Thanchowk and a more touristy
village named Koto where the trail to the Nar-Phu Valleys branches off. That’s
another trek into very remote valleys toward Tibet which requires camping gear,
an expensive special permit, and accompaniment of a registered guide.From Koto it was only about a half hour to Chame, one of the
largest towns in the valley and my intended destination for the night. At about
2,700 meters (9,000 feet) altitude, it was the first night on the circuit that
was pretty chilly. I had a little bungalow to myself for $2 for the night, but
the bathroom facilities at this guesthouse were particularly poor. Oh well!