When the day came to set out for the town of Besisahar at the beginning of the Annapurna Circuit trek in Nepal, I was a bit apprehensive, as I knew it would be the beginning of up to a month or more of continuous walking. As a person who generally tries to keep his daily walking time under ten minutes, that seemed a little daunting. The amazing scenery I'd heard so much … [Read more...]
Who Says Trekking in Nepal Has to Involve Lots of Walking?
In the first part of this series I covered our record-setting start on the Annapurna Circuit Trek in Nepal, in which we became the first non-wheelchair-bound people ever to stop for the night in Khudi, after setting out from Besisahar about 2 kilometers up the road. On our second day, we proceed to set the bar even lower. We got up early, before 7am, because that's what one … [Read more...]
Conquering the Annapurna Circuit’s First Hill
After our pathetic first two days on the Annapurna Circuit Trek, we were fully expecting to see some of the people from our bus ride again, as they lapped us on their second go around 230 kilometer loop. To avoid that, we set the town of Ghermu as our goal for the day. It was only 9 kilometers down the trail, but that was 7 kilometers more than we covered on either of our … [Read more...]
Trek to Jagat and a Rant Against Guides on the Annapurna Circuit
When we first got to our guesthouse in Bahundanda, we immediately noticed the beds. Comfortable mattresses are a rarity in Nepal and one of our goals upon entering any town where we planned to spend the night was to find the guesthouse with the softest beds. In many villages, the thickest mattress you could find was about as wide as a finger and Bahundanda turned out to be one … [Read more...]
Jagat to Tal: Our First Real Day of Trekking
When I left off last time, we had just checked into our guesthouse in Jagat and were looking forward to a solar heated shower. Getting one would turn out to be a little more difficult than you might think. The little shower room looked like the boiler room of an aircraft carrier, with a maze of pipes covering the walls and ceiling and buttons and dials of all sizes dotted … [Read more...]