Ghasa- Tatopani (1050 m)
Happy birthday and last dinner together
It turned out to be a short walk, barely 5 hrs.
We got onto a road cut into steep slopes next to the roaring Kali Gandaki. The broad riverbed had given way to narrow gorges soon after we left Ghasa. We had morning tea at a gazebo under a magnificent waterfall part of which running over the road.
Waterfall across the road
At around 1 p.m. we came into a village where we saw a whole herd of sheep stubbornly refusing to be driven up to some truck waiting to take them on their first-ever-and-last ride to Kathmandu. They stood together and blocked our way. Animals fear for their lives too.
No! not to the slaughterhouse in Kathmandu !
they can resist their owners’ effort to lead them onto a truck. But eventually they will be Do animals have universal right not to be slaughtered for human consumption? No doubt mercilessly forced to board the truck to be transported to Kathmandu’s slaughterhouses.
At the end of the village houses there was a tea-house with a shady garden by the side. We had lunch there.
It took us another 1 and a half hours after lunch to get to a tourists town called Tatopani which means “hot water” because of the presence of a hot-spring next to the roaring Kali Gandaki.. Here Kali Gandaki has got out of the flat basin in the upstream completely and is now a torrential flow over huge rocks and boulders which are being continuously washed and eroded into very odd but esthetic shapes.
Beautiful rocks in the river
We had checked into a popular hotel. Having washed and rested well in the afternoon most of us spent the evening strolling up and down the street paved with stone slabs. Jamie, Gan Che and some others made use of the internet facilities to write home or check their mails. Again I asked Jamie to send a precise I-am-fine message to office. I am glad to be left alone for another two weeks or so.
Here I came across a poster showing the oldest man to have conquered the Sagarmartha(Mt Everest), world’s highest peak, in 2007 at the age of 76. A man selling posters and maps nearby proudly told me that he is from Tatopani.
Just behind this row of shop-houses huge shadowy mountains rise sharply into the sky. I can’t help feeling again the terrible destruction that may happen here in the event of a killer earthquake.
It was fun time again at dinner. It was Weng’s birthday brought forward and farewell occasion for Chang, Keok, Weng and Old Lee for tomorrow they will leave for Phokara in a jeep. As far as Chang, keok and Weng are concerned their sojourns in the Himalayan mountains of Nepal have come to an end. Old Lee is concerned that he may not be strong enough to go with us over the few days on extremely challenging steep climbs and so he wishes to be driven out to Phokara where he will wait for Gan Chee, Mee Poon and I to arrive after our Poon Hill climb and then four of us will then move on to the Lumbini Valley, the birth place of Buddha.
Our guide gave us very special roasted chicken for dinner- first same not-according-to-order meal for all! The girls somehow managed to order a beautifully decorated birthday cake for Weng. She was so touched by their care and concern that she said her thank-you and bid us farewell almost in tears. Later more and more porters joined in. They sang some Nepalese folk songs. They danced too. Kelly and I joined in for good fun.
These pretty and gritty girls passed Thurong-La on foot
5 of us. Chang and Mee Poon who conquered the Thurong-La on foot
Past 9 those of us who are to continue on to Poon Hill have gone to bed leaving the others to their good time.
No comments:
Post a Comment