My travel diaries
Friday 8 June, 2007 - Kutumsang, Helambu, Nepal
We leave at 7.15 in a thick, damp mist. The trail would probably be quite picturesque but for this, but it's the start of the monsoon and so far we're lucky not to have done any walking in heavy rain. The trail starts off along a ridge then weaves through rhododendron forest.
This part of the walk is characterised by leeches. Bill Tilman conducted his 1949 exploration of the Langtang region during the monsoon season, and described, "hundreds of menacing, weaving heads, stretching out hungrily from every stone, twig, or blade of grass." This is something we quickly become accustomed to, with humour and a great deal of laughter to begin with, but quickly subsiding to something more akin to horror the more of the little blighters we see. Each time we break for a short water stop, they appear out of the earth standing on their ends and squirming around with their heads in the air trying to sniff blood. We stand on rocks to try and buy ourselves a bit more time before they reach our boots and start crawling up them. I've picked up a trusty leech stick the size and shape of a shoe horn which enables me to remove the leeches with a deft little flick. At one point Siling thinks he sees a barking deer hopping through undergrowth and he stops on soggier ground. By the time we move on I have about half a dozen of the little squirmy things on my boots and more appearing. Each time I flick one off, two more have reached the leather, and I find the only way to get rid of them all is in shifts. I move to a rocky bit, remove a few, then move quickly to another rocky bit to remove a few more. After a series of these hops I find I can get rid of all of them before they get to my ankles and start sucking away. The regular leech inspections pay off in the end, and by the end of the day I'm still leech free.
Meanwhile Siling is on the lookout for more exciting wildlife. The American trekker told us he saw a tragopan yesterday, a colourful pheasant-like bird which is extremely rare in Nepal. It's so rare, in fact, that Siling the keen birdwatcher has never seen one and is extremely jealous of the American. As we're walking along, every so often I shout "tragopan" to wind Siling up, but eventually Maila, who is leading, really does see one walking across the trail ahead of us. It's a female, less colourful than the male, but to make up for it there are three little tragopan chicks following it across the path.
"Tragopan, tragopan," cries Siling. He goes stomping off behind them excitedly and, not surprisingly, they disappear into the bushes never to be seen again. Still, at least he's broken his duck.
The trail dips into a clearing containing a handful of lodges marking the small community of Mengengoth. A little further up from this we stop for an hour at another lodge with a cosy and colourful dining room where we warm ourselves by the fire. We're glad of the rest having walked pretty much non-stop to avoid acquiring leeches. We leave here at 10.15 and have a two hour walk to the next village, Kutumsang, where we decide to stop for the day. The path is mostly descent along slippery trails eroded by streams, and through forest which becomes more mixed lower down, with oak and fir joining the more common rhododendron trees.
Kutumsang is a slightly bigger village in a picturesque location on a ridge. Although the clouds still swirl around us, the sun is trying to peep through. The view is not extensive, but we can just make out the lines of ridges and hills opposite. The Mountain View Lodge, where we stay, is a little more comfortable, with running water and a shower for the first time in 3 days. It's been a nice short day, and I spend the afternoon sitting in a pleasant little garden perched on top of the ridge and overlooking fields and forest, reading my book and keeping my eye out for a black eagle which keeps sailing by overhead.
At lunch Siling and I discuss the late royal family. Almost every lodge and tea house we have stopped at contains a photograph of the late King Birendra, his queen, and their two sons and daughter, including Crown Prince Dipendra, who gunned the whole lot of them down in a palace massacre in 2001. Although the current King Gyanendra has been stripped of most of his powers, and Nepal is well on the way to becoming a republic, the former royal family were clearly very popular and still enjoy a place in the hearts of their people.
At night I'm kept awake by the noisy and incessant pounding of the monsoon rains on the roof of the lodge. I know these tin roofs exaggerate the magnitude of the rain, but even so I fear for tomorrow's weather.Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Next
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