My travel diaries
Wednesday 6 June, 2007 - Gosainkund, Langtang, Nepal
I get up at 6am to visit the yak cheese factory in Shin Gompa where, strangely, it costs 170 rupees for half a kilo of cheese and 350 rupees for a kilo. I buy two half kilos.
We set off at 7 to walk along a gently rising footpath through mixed fir and rhododendron forest. The path alternates from left to right of a wooded ridge, so there would probably be good views of Langtang on one side and Ganesh Himal on the other, were it not for the cloud. We are passing through an area of forest marked on the map as a red panda reserve, but as they are shy creatures I don't hold out much hope of seeing any. At one point I spot a furry thing scrambling through the trees, but I'm confused by its colour.
"Is there such a thing as a grey panda?" I ask Siling.
The mystery is revealed a few minutes later when I see a langur (monkey) climbing a tree just off the path.
We stop for black tea at a teashop a few hundred metres above Shin Gompa. The trail reminds me of the southern Annapurna foothills. Continuing along the trail we arrive at Laurebina, at 3900m, at 9.30. I hand around the yak cheese in another tea house and buy a bag of peanuts, spilling half its contents over my lap trying to open the pack, much to Maila's amusement. By now the trees have given way to grass and patchy juniper and we ascend through a cold mist. We leave the tea house at 10 and continue to Gosainkund. The mist gets thicker, it becomes colder, and we can see nothing more than good path, grass and rocks through visibility of just a few metres. I could be walking on any number of hills in Scotland.
After a while the path seems to be zig-zagging high above a steep drop to our right, but we can't see much to confirm this. As we approach Gosainkund, at 4300m, and see the first of the lakes, Bhairav Kund, I hear a voice behind me.
"After lunch, swimming in lake?"
It's Maila making one of his few forays into English. I turn around and laugh. Siling explains that Hindu pilgrims are known to walk for days to come and bathe in the sacred waters of Gosainkund.
This gives me an opportunity to turn things around. "But you're a Hindu, Maila. Have you brought your swimming trunks?"
He doesn't reply.
We check into a fairly basic lodge on the shores of Gosainkund at midday. As the afternoon goes on, the mist gets thicker and the rains heavier, and I worry that the monsoon has arrived and we'll be soaking wet for the rest of our trek. There's an English lady in the lodge who has come all the way up here to meditate in a cave the other side of the lake. I don't know whether she's aware of the temperature at 4300m or that the monsoon was due, but I hope her cave is dry as there won't be much wood around here for a fire.
I talk to a young couple from USA and Zimbabwe also staying at the lodge. They seem to be hardened travellers who have been travelling all across Southeast Asia, but perhaps they're not so accustomed to high altitudes. They've walked all the way up from Dunche at 2000m in just two days and are suffering from headaches. For people who are not already acclimatised to high altitudes, like we are, this is a little too fast to ascend safely. They've decided to cross the Laurebinayak pass and descend the other side - a good idea for acclimatisation purposes, if not weather-wise. Shortly after they set off it starts tanking down, and continues for three hours. It can't be much fun out there, I think to myself as I listen to the rain hammering on the roof of the lodge, and I expect we'll be getting the same treatment tomorrow. Before they left they told me they had beautiful views all the way to the Annapurnas on their way up here. By contrast we could see bugger all.
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