Bideha Nidhi Bhattarai
Day 1
On the eve of 16th August 2024, fifteen staff members at Deerwalk Dhading School left for Pahiro, a staying place in the Langtang trekking route. Kyanjin Ri was the ultimate destination, but the plan for the day was to ride our bikes and scooters up to Domen via Syabrubesi, and then hike for thirty minutes to reach Pahiro. But as they say, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans”. Only four of us would reach Pahiro that day.
It was a quarter past six when we started. We had decided that we were going to have a stop at Galchhi to gather ourselves, and only then move towards Syabrubesi. However, due to an unforeseen turn of events, the group had to split into two. Five of us had to return to Khanikhola to manage some other affairs, while after a stop of about an hour, the remaining ten of us headed towards Domen.
It was already dark, the clock striking past 7:30, and to make matters worse (our plans must have made God laugh himself off to tears), it started to rain just as we crossed Betrawati and entered the twists and turns of the road that led to Dhunche, Rasuwa. Some had to take shelter from the rain in highway teashops, while some of us continued shielded by our raincoats, but almost all of us became separated from each other, and our only communication was through phone calls.
At places on the road, the heavy rain had made way for small waterfalls, and also landslides. This was not the Pahiro we were thinking of when we left Deerwalk Dhading School in the evening, but we still rode through. The road was as smooth as butter, but a few kilometers from Dhunche, the condition of the road deteriorated. At midnight, the news arrived that four of us had reached Syabrubesi and were now heading for Domen. They eventually reached Pahiro as well. The rest of us, however, advised by the locals that the journey was too perilous for the night, decided to stay the night at Syabrubesi.
The five who had returned to Khanikhola mid-journey were still hours away from Dhunche, let alone Syabrubesi. At two in the morning, they came to a stop at Ramche, a little town twenty kilometers away from Syabrubesi. After taking a light nap in a little shop along the way, they woke up and started riding again, arriving at the hotel some three and a half hours later, at seven in the morning. And this group would start the trek almost completely sleep-deprived.
Day 2
The destination for the day was Langtang village. We parked our vehicles at Domen, along the bank of the Langtang River where a dam had been constructed, and was still being worked on.
The trail towards Kyanjin follows this river all the way. Now that the riding part was over, the trekking part began.
The bulging water as it struck violently the rocks was a visual treat, and its deafening roar soothed the otherwise stormy minds of the travelers. By the time we reached Pahiro, we also got to see a few waterfalls white as milk. They were on the other side of the river, falling from immense cliffs. We were retracing back the journey that the river must have taken some thousands of years to carve out into the hills, and the gorge it made was now our passage. But we only had three days.
The four of us who had gotten ahead were waiting for the rest at Pahiro. Since leaving Deerwalk Dhading School, it was the first time that the fifteen of us had reunited. Everyone seemed in a jocular mood, recounting their personal experiences (or misery) of the journey with hearty laughs. A few of us ate some noodles while most only opted for tea before getting on the trail again. The plan was to eat a fuller meal of dal-bhaat at Lama Hotel.
We snacked on popcorn and chocolates on the way and filled our bottles with the cool waters of streams and waterfalls (tonsil alert!). The locals said it would take three hours for us to reach Lama Hotel, and it might have taken some of us more than that. We walked through suspension bridges adorned with prayer flags where the wind was considerably stronger than on the hill; through dangerous landslides where one slip would have meant the game finished; through stairways that never seemed to end; and all of us were fully exhausted when we reached Lama Hotel, but despite that (or because of it), felt greatly rejuvenated in body and soul. We ate our meal, rested for a while, and then kickstarted our journey again.
It was 6 pm and already very dark when we reached Ghodatabela (2950m). The winds here could chill the bones, and there was a soft drizzle as well. We were surrounded by gigantic cliffs, so only the patch of the sky directly above our heads could be seen, and the horizon was inaccessible. After the group reunited, we considered the various circumstances of our trip and decided to stay here for the night. We planned on leaving for Kyanjin the following morning.
The evening was wonderfully spent in the cozy lobby of the hotel we stayed at. We warmed ourselves by the fireplace, sitting in a circle around it. We played cards, drank some local liquor, threw ourselves at what little sukuti we could get our hands on, and also made friends with a Dutch group descending from Kyanjin and an old couple from a village nearby, who too were heading towards Kyanjin to attend a jatra that happens every year on the same full-moon day we call Janai Purnima. Later we came to know that this was the only hotel open in the vicinity because the rest of them had already ascended to Langtang village to follow the jatra.
Day 3
The following morning, there was a light rain. We got into our raincoats and started the trek at around 5. The next difficulty that presented itself to us was that of the rising altitude. We experienced shortness of breath, dizziness, and even headaches as we neared the 3500m mark. Practicing breathing exercises, coupled with sucking on ginger and garlic, helped immensely. We stopped at Thangshyap and treated ourselves to a glass of sea buckthorn juice . It had a sweet and sour taste, the locals called it the “organic redbull of the Himalayas”.
Outside, the rain subsided, and we again started for Langtang village. When we got a little glimpse at a snow-capped peak, we were hopeful that the clouds would soon clear and reveal to us the majestic Langtang range. Alas, it was the only glimpse at any mountain we were going to get on this trek, and that too lasted only for a short while. The mountains would remain veiled by the clouds all day.
Soon, we came upon a monument erected to commemorate the deaths of ten soldiers. They had died in the large landslide, triggered by the 2014 Nepal Earthquake, which had also completely buried the old village of Langtang killing at least 300 of the villagers. The Langtang village we were headed to was reconstructed after the incident.
At the newly constructed Langtang, we had a light breakfast. The hotel owner was in a hurry to close shop and join the others heading towards the jatra. The mood was festive with dancing and singing all around. We, too, had our breakfast quickly and started for Kyanjin, which was our ultimate destination now, since there was no point in climbing up to Kyanjin Ri when the mountains were covered thus.
The landscape beyond Langtang was very short of trees since we were getting over the tree line, but the wildflowers that arrayed the trail were exquisite and reminded me of an Emerson poem. The river that flowed by our side had begun to seem our eternal companion and provided a strange comfort and certainty. And after two hours of strenuous walking from Langtang, we finally reached Kyanjin at around noon. It was the biggest village we had come across in the trek. The buildings of the hotels were modern and some of them reached up to five storeys, but most of them were empty due to the jatra having moved farther towards Langsishakharka on that day. Only one hotel was open and we made the order for fifteen plates of dal-bhaat with buff sukuti added for those who were interested. The interior of the hotel was a mix of modern and Tibetan styles.
Outside, in the ground of the hotel, were some tables and chairs where we sat down to bask in the afternoon sun. One of us, preferring to lie down on the ground, requested the hotel for a mattress and a blanket. Then soaking in the sun and the heat, he lay relaxing on the ground, while another to further the pleasure, also massaged his back. Another one of us was having both her hands massaged, while the rest were seated on the chair with their eyes closed and body spread, seeming not unlike corpses. The scene had made quite an impression on an old local woman who gazed at us open-mouthed like we were some zoo animals.
There was a cheese factory nearby, built with the aid of the Swiss government in 1950 AD, where we bought cheese to gift our people back home. Later, we snacked on some dry fruits and chocolates while waiting for the meal to be cooked, but the wait was worth it. The meal was the best we had on the trail, and the hospitality shown to us was excellent as well.
At three in the afternoon, we began our journey downhill. There were still people coming up for the jatra, and the festive mood cheered us all as we too joined in the celebrations. Some of us felt the strain of the downhill walk on our ankles, some in our knees, and when we reached Ghodatabela it was already 6 pm. Therefore, we decided to stay at Ghodatabela that night as well and start for Syabrubesi tomorrow. Now that we had reached our destination, the mood was jollier than yesterday, and the lobby room of the hotel at Ghodatabela was again lit up by our merrymaking.
Day 4
On the morning of Janai Purnima, we started for Syabrubesi. We had estimated that it would take us a lot less time to descend than to ascend, so if we could get to Syabrubesi by noon, then we would comfortably be at our homes by the evening. But if the pattern of this trip has anything to teach, it is this: life’s unpredictable. Many of us were feeling the strain of the downhill descent on our knees, and some had sprained ankles as well. But by the time we got to Lama Hotel, one of us had fallen seriously ill, and started to faint; even the locals got panic-stricken and were asking us to quickly call for a helicopter. Without wasting a second, the hatta-katta people from among us promptly spread the word around and searched for strong local men who could carry a woman on their back. Three local men, after a complex negotiation, became ready. A doko was quickly managed (by managed, I mean bought at a very high price), and after cutting out a section, the doko was ready to hold a grown human adult.
Our group decided to get down as soon as possible. Five of us accompanied the three men as they took turns carrying our ill colleague on their backs. There was a slight scare on the way when she fainted and stopped talking. We sprinkled water on her face and rubbed her hands, and when she finally woke up, it was a relief to us all. We did not let her go to sleep again, engaging her with jokes and short talk.
Now that there was no chance of us reaching our homes on time, we had decided to go straight to Dhading instead, which disheartened one of us, since he could no longer have his annual rakhi ceremony with his sister. Just then, one of our members, Nirmal sir, changed his janai at a tap in Bamboo (1970m), and after that, asked the disheartened colleague, Sachin sir, to cheer up because he was about to make two new sisters that day. The two sisters were Bijaya ma’am and Reshika ma’am. They managed to make a rakhi out of flowers and leaves, while Nirmal sir acted the role of the priest, and the ceremony concluded with smiling faces all around, including the faces of the local men.
We reached Domen at around 4:30 in the afternoon. Two from our group who had arrived ahead of us were waiting for us, while others had already left for the hotel in Syabrubesi where we had left our extra luggage. After returning to Syabru, all of us gathered at the hospital and waited anxiously for the doctor’s report to clear our colleague for traveling. During the wait, we too checked our BP and weight; some of us tied the dora on our hands. To our relief, she was cleared to travel, and we immediately left for Dhading. We could not forget that we had a school to run tomorrow.
Our journey back was considerably smoother. There were lots of vehicles departing from Dhunche since a large crowd had descended from Gosaikunda on the day of Janai Purnima. We had our dinner at Betrawoti, a hearty meal of mutton and rice. Our ill colleague was escorted by two bikes, and although a problem in one of the bikes caused a minor hiccup along the way, everything else was just fine. Since it was past midnight, the riders shouted at each other “Jaagte Raho” to keep them from sleeping, and the passengers too spoke with the riders constantly. Not a single member of the group reached their rooms earlier than 2 in the morning.
