We started our journey with a very hot and bumpy 4 hour bus ride from Pokhara to a town called Besi Sahar. This town is located in the foothills of the Annapurnas at an elevation of 760m and was the starting point for our hike.
We arrived in Besi Sahar around noon and preceded on a hot but leisurely walk along a flat road for several hours, passing through many small towns and finally arriving at Nadi Bazar (930m) around 4pm.
For our first night we did exactly what you're not supposed to do, and stayed at the first guesthouse we got to, as we were too tired to protest as a lady tried to convince us to stay at the Peace and Love Guesthouse. This guesthouse consisted of one long tin shack with wooden partitions to separate the rooms, but the view was beautiful and it was right next to the river.
Our first exciting botanical find was these gorgeous Himalayan Lilies that are about 20cm in length.
After our first night on a hard bed with no electric lights or private bathroom and some mild food posinoning, we began hiking at 7am towards Ghermu.
We caught some of our first glimpses of the snow covered peaks to come.
A lizard of some kind.
After about an hour of walking Chelsea bent down to tighten her laces and found that a part of her sock was drenched in blood. We determined it to be the work of a leech as it didn't hurt and there was only a small puncture wound that wouldn't stop oozing blood...but nothing a band-aid couldn't fix.
We saw much exciting botanical life in the surrounding tropical vegetation.
Some lovely bryophytes...
On our way we passed through many small villages filled with local children asking half-heartedly for sweeties and school pens.
We thought we had an easy, short day of walking planned for our second day as lonely planet said it should take us about 3.5 hours to reach Ghermu. We arrived at the Rainbow Guesthouse in Ghermu (1130m) at about 2pm just minutes before it began raining, after walking for around 7 hours.
We hit the trail again at 7am the following morning with the goal of reaching the town of Tal by the end of the day.
After a couple hours of walking we reached Jagat, where there were abundant patches of wild marijuana plants growing.
After stopping in Chamche for lunch, we walked for a few more hours through the tropical forest while passing by many pack horses as well as their droppings.
We passed this lone Langur monkey, grazing on the new growth of this tree.
Bamboo grew abundantly.
There were frequent places along the trail to stop and buy some tea and snacks.
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