Day 7 - Lwang to Kharpani

We awoke to Steve outside saying there were great views of the Annapurna Range. It seems that no matter where you are in that part of Nepal you can always see some part of the range.

Mukti and the boys slept on the veranda of the teahouse. Steve was actually out of bed before they were, probably the first time any of us beat them out of bed, and made good use of the camera.

The teahouse we were in was owned by a family consisting of a mother and her son. Tragically the son's wife died (drowned in the river I think) and I suspect Mukti choosing to stay here was one of his acts of ensuring that as many Nepalese people as possible benefit from his treks.

Today was to be a long day - that was all we knew. Whenever we asked we seemed to get a different answer that varied between 6 and 8 hours.

We started with another kilometre or two of stone steps that have been laid over the centuries so people can get to Lwang from the valley floor. Once on the valley floor we walked through a few small villages before crossing the river over a concrete and steel swing bridge.

The whole valley floor is dammed and terraced to allow the locals to harvest rice. In a month or so the whole valley floor would be in flood providing ideal conditions for the rice. It would also appear that some of the villages might have been cut off by the flood but I suspect that it just means a (much) longer walk for them if they need supplies.

After following the river flats through some more small villages we turned into a valley formed by a monsoonal river. At the head of this valley was a small temple to the god Shiva. Quite remarkably (to me anyway) the story related to this god involves a princess being held captive in Bali and the god Shiva had to go rescue her. How they knew about Bali all those years ago is beyond me!

From the temple we climbed a short distance and found ourselves on a plateau. The plateau appeared to be entirely devoted to communities with their corn crops. Because it was late-ish morning and corn doesn't provide a lot of shade it was getting very hot. We stopped while Mukti talked to some ladies in traditional dress weeding their corn field. Apparently they were interested in keeping the men from the trek but Mukti explained that Carol and Sylvia would not be pleased. I also suspect that they were having a laugh at how far we were walking.

Carol and Sylvia were also trailed by a school class that were practicing their English on them. They could ask questions like "what is your name?" and "how old are you?" but when confronted with the same question were lost, and simply dissolved into fits of laughter.

After leaving the corn fields we followed a viaduct for some considerable kilometres before heading through yet more cornfields. While doing this we were told by some ladies on the track that we still had 3 hours to walk to get to Kharpani. This was a little cruel because we had already been walking for 5 hours and were getting very hot!

Suffice to say that we walked for 3 more hours, up hill, down hill, river crossings, dusty roads, roads being built and finally two swing bridges before we got into camp. It was a great relief to down some cold (not hot!) lemon cordial.

Turns out that Kharpani is famous for its natural hot springs. Despite our hotness, Carol, Sylvia and I went down to the hot springs in an attempt to stave off any muscle soreness. The springs are pools right at the edge of the very cold, raging river with the water being heated by some sort of underground action. Turned out they were very relaxing.

Though this was our last walking day it was probably our toughest - 18kms through some of the hottest conditions we had encountered. Made the uphill climbs in the cold conditions seem like a breeze!

Nepal Day 7 - Lwang to Kharpani