Day 6 - Forest Camp to Lwang

Today the focus of our trek shifts away from views of the Annapurna range to trek through rural areas and, in particular, staying in a Nepalese village. Mukti said around 5 to 6 hours and again mostly downhill.

We managed to get away before the boys today. However they did overtake us within 10 minutes. The picture below shows Carol being concerned at the load the boys were carrying the baskets the boys are carrying loaded with our camping gear. We were assured that by this stage the baskets were getting close to empty as we had eaten most of our food and, because we were about to re-enter (relative) civilisation, supplies could be brought from the villages. This is part of Mukti's program to ensure that as many Nepalese people as possible benefit from his treks. 

We followed a ridge we had walked on the way up for around 3 kilometres before turning off the main track onto a much less traversed track. Mukti said the track was used most by the people who own Forest Camp so that they can get to a power source to charge the batteries in their mobile phones.

As we got lower the track became more defined as it is used by more people. Farmers from places like Lwang use the meadows along this trail to graze their cattle and goats. In fact, one of these farmers had built a stable for his cattle along with accommodation for himself. In a truly sustainable style he had also made himself a vegetable plot that Mukti assured us had a good crop of marijuana plants earlier in the year.

There was also a goat herder on the track who was letting his goats roam free through the forest. He had a baby goat following him because it's mother had been taken by a tiger! This was the second time on the trek we had heard of tigers taking goats - apparently it is some of their favourite food. Mukti asked the goat herder if he had any goats for sale as Mukti was interested in cooking goat on his return to Eagle's Nest. The herder dragged a goat from the forest somewhere and, after examination, Mukti declared it good value but only if the goat herder would take it to Lwang for him. The goat herder wasn't interested - turns out we were still a good 2 or 3 hours from Lwang so we left minus the goat much to Carol's relief!

Just above Lwang the forest made way for terraced fields. Most of them were being prepared for the rice planting before the onset of the monsoon proper. We came across one farmer out with his oxen and wooden plough. Ashish took a turn and proved to be quite skilled at getting the oxen around the small plot. Mukti then took the reins and managed to get the oxen jammed in a corner before convincing them to move again. Unfortunately he didn't know how to stop them when they got to edge of the terrace and promptly disappeared over the edge with Mukti in tow! Turns out there was another terrace a metre or two below the one they were on but from where we were it looked like they had plunged metres into nothing.

We stopped for quite a while and took in the view of Lwang below, perched on the side of the valley.

When we got into our lodgings in Lwang, after hundreds (maybe thousands) of man-made stone steps we discovered to our delight that we were in beds for the night. After a quick hot lemon and some freshly roasted peanuts we took a tour of Lwang. The paths are all stone as are the fences and houses. After hundreds of years of development it is all very neat and very pretty. There were no cars as the paths weren't designed for them so everyone gets around on foot, and goods are either moved manually, by donkey or apparently by the occasional motor bike, although we saw no sign of any while we were there.

Lwang is promoting itself as a destination for trekkers to sample a Nepalese village complete with an example of their traditional dancing. Unfortunately for them so far the only trekkers that have been through was a group Mukti took through last year and that's it!

After dinner (finally around 9pm after a lot of uncertainty as the power was out - again) the whole village assembled in our little teahouse courtyard for what we thought was going to be a display of traditional singing and dancing. We weren't sure what was going on but it opened with them singing to tunes drummed by our boys and the old ladies of the village insisted we got up to dance. It seemed that we were the attraction.

A group of 4 other trekkers that were staying just for the night appeared and they too seemed pretty bemused by the happenings. Now, we were told, the real dancing would start. This seemed to be the ladies singing, similar dances, all backed by our boys drumming and singing. Then they started up an amplifier and we were shown some Bollywood dancing and other "modern" forms. By 11pm when it was all over we were all nearly asleep on our seats. After a few speeches the crowd dispersed and we could (finally) get to use our beds. We had after all been up since before 6am and were generally in our tents tucked up in our sleeping bags by 8.30/9pm :-)

Nepal Day 6 - Forest Camp to Lwang