These are dark and troubled times, times we're all have to stay home, to be alone, we have to cancel our hollyday plans and we have to pray for our families and friends. It seems the whole wide world is out of control, it's a mess, the end of an era when we had the chance to discover the world and visit places far away from home. There we found friends and saw things that were strange and great... it's over.
But now let me take you with me to a distant land that is completely inaccessible to any of us right now. And let me tell you some pictureque stories from another time and another place: Nepal, the kingdom of the Himalaya. Follow me and believe: One day we all get back the chance to fly and ride and found out how it it where we not at home.
Always with a view into the low clouds, behind which the Gosainkund chain and the Langtang Himal are supposed to be, we're gropes down the steep and slippery slopes to Pati Bhanjyang at 1,750 metres. It is raining. And it rains. And it keeps on raining. The valley is not a destination, just a break. Every experienced hiker knows how mountains trick, always with the same trick. Everything little step you go up, you have to go back down. And vice versa. From down here it goes back up again, always the rain on your neck and the humid air under your rain jacket. Everyone is soaking wet, inside and out.
It's not even unpleasant until the lunch break in Chipling at 2,150 metres. When you're wet, wou cannoit go wetter, you know. Even drying tests under the canopy don't help. For lunch we have noodle soup, everything fresh, as always. Hurry up and sing with the great Johnny Cash: "Down in the valley, valley so low, hang your head over, hear the wind blow."
After that short break the trail always runs north over the mostly forested ridge and at the moment when everybody thinks we are almost there, another mountain opens up a new perspective: Up there and then we are there. There is hardly any talking during the steep ascent amidst herds of cows. But the landscape, which can finally be seen, seems indescribable. Endless. A horizon full of summits. Green and white.
Behind Thodang Danda it begins to get foggy, and at the lodge in Kutumsang at 2,450 meters it is almost dark. Inside anyway. This ones called “Tashi delek” and this means “Good wishes”. Just ourtside the door metal parts of a plane wreck greets the fog. You're welcome! But lodges in Nepal follow the standard of western barns.
It is windy everywhere, the partition walls are made of crate boards, the lighting is electric, but of the strength of a candle. The damp troop squats in a tiny lounge around a smoldering oven, wet clothes hang everywhere on the ceiling and walls. But the food is fresh from the oven and after the long journey it tastes great as every time when you have done your work for the day.
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