This morning we woke up to a cold Dovan, had a quick breakfast at 7am, and set off just before 8am. We had a long, knee-banging day ahead of us and we really needed to arrive in Jhinu by the end of this day.
THE VIDEO
Click on image below for my Strava record of today's trek
Click on image below for my Relive Video of today's trek
Relive 'ABC 2018 Day 10: Dhovan to Jhinu'
This day turned out to be another huge up and down day, with almost 1400m of total descent and 700m of total ascent.
From Dovan at 2600m to Bamboo at 2335m we took only about one hour which was what a normal Nepali would take.
“Wah, we are quite in line with the estimated time ah,” an imprressed Kong Wan said when we arrived in Bamboo.
From Bamboo it was downhill and uphill, but mostly downhill first, one and a half hour to Upper Sinuwa, then another half an hour to Lower Sinuwa where we had our lunch.
So far we were on par with the estimated time this day.
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| Wah lau eh.. I see these type of rocky climb I also giddy liao |
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| This type of track even an experienced horse rider also needed both arms outstretched to maintain balance wor... |
Pain, pain and more pain...
But by this day 10, several of us were already suffering from quadriceps pull and banged-up knees already. A couple of Intramuscular injections of Diclofenac would certainly help, which they did, though not completely.
During lunch Kong Wan tried milking the 72 day’s acclimatization effect ok Jacalyn and Shu Ning: “Hey you both should really make full use of this 72 days and do another climb in Nepal!”
Both ladies laughed their heads off and Jacalyn said: “ok let me think about it!”
Still some remnant AMS?
I asked Ah Sing: “Hey Sing, so your SMUX friends have passed us already right?”
She replied: “Pa what’s wrong with you? They passed us going down at Deurali while we were on our way up to ABC that day!”
Oh yes! I suddenly remembered. Somehow, this high altitude thingy really gives me the muddly fuddly state of stupor in my brain, and I could not link things together. I laughed at myself. Ok I was sure once I descended I will get back the full faculties of my mental function.
After Sinuwa we headed towards Chhomrong, which was about two hours away.
“Wah lau! Look at the steps going up!” kao-beh-ed Serene once she reached the bridge at the lowest point between Sinuwa and Chhomrong.
Nicole reminded us: “Yes, remember on our way out it was down down down all the way from Chhomrong to a Sinuwa. That’s why now we need to climb up up up all the way back to Chhomrong.”
And what a climb it was! Really tough, breath-sapping climbs. We clawed back the altitude to arrive two hours fifteen minutes later at Chhomrong at 2170m. And we were glad that soon we had Chhomrong to our backs, and were heading further downwards.
On this day the weather was kind to us. The vegetation had changed back to plenty of trees and green thick undergrowth and we walked oftentimes beneath shady thick canopies of tees, which I personally disliked not only because it was cold, but I much preferred the sunny, open spaces of higher altitudes. Still, we pushed on.
The difference between ABC and EBC...
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| The difference was obvious: One was just concerned about drinking.. the other, her immaculate hair. |
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| Ryan and Kong Wan's water bladders were good. Next time I will really seriously consider them. |
“Papa, you know something?” Ah Li told me while we were trekking. “After we discussed the difference between EBC and ABC last night while we brushed our teeth in Dhovan, I have finally understood the difference between EBC and ABC.”
“And what was the difference?” I was interested to hear her opinion.
“In EBC, you trek for the journey. In ABC you trek for the destination.”
My goodness! Such a profound piece of wisdom from my little daughter! She was absolutely right. When we were trekking up to EBC last year, we arrived at an altitude above 3000m very early and we were exposed to the cold, the altitude and everything by hitting the ground running. But along EBC every day was a new adventure, in my personal opinion, and I found there to be something new daily- a new peak, a new vast openness about the old glacier valleys, the liberating spaces, and to me, importantly it had abundant sunshine. Thus although technically there were plenty of climbs, but the climbs were much more tolerable than the ABC climbs. I found that along the trek to ABC we spent the first 6 days in the cold, unbearable shades of the vegetation’s because we were trekking for the most parts under 3000m. And only the last two days after we punched through Deurali and ascended to ABC then did we finally catch a glance of the open spaces so characteristic of the higher altitudes. Of course ABC was a wetter environment than EBC and above Bamboo and especially above Deurali, there were plenty of precipitation, thus plenty of snow. We particularly enjoyed being in the valleys of the snow mountains with Machhapuchchre behind us, and Annapurna South and Annapurna fangs directly in front of us.
Thus to different persons, each trek may present with more difficulties than another. And some will say EBC is worse while others, vice versa.
Serene herself found that the going at ABC was easier, compared to her EBC experience, because of the ups and downs. As for myself, I subscribed to Ah Li’s opinion- ABC is tougher because one got enclosed in a long dark channel of canopies for days before one emerged from the dark path and found sunlight and open glacier beds.
Ah Sing loved ABC much more than EBC. "For EBC I was sick with food poisoning for a great part of the trek. But here in ABC I felt stronger and I enjoyed it more."Kong Wan belonged to the EBC school. Like myself, he enjoyed the openness of EBC and being out in the sun most of the time, and being on wider open land.
LUNCH!!!
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| Lunch was speical for Ryan |
Babu pulled me to one side during the walk to Jhinu: “Do you think tomorrow we can cut short our distance trekked by trekking to a village just after Ghandruk and then we could send a vehicle to fetch us all the way back to Nayapul?"After consulting with Kong Wan, Jacalyn and the rest, I gave Babu an affirmative.
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| Erm... I don't know how many among us will go this a way again in the future.... |
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| Yes, this familiar shop again. |
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| Why the look? Doesn't want to go home to Singapore is it? |
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| I knew Ah Sing just wanted to lie down in bed with everything on, |
So we would trek until lunch and then cal for exercise cut and go right back to Pokhara by vehicle. Those were good news for Ai Lin and Jacalyn who were both suffering.
Jhinu, finally! What a relief!
We finally arrived at Jhinu at about 4:45pm. Babu wasted little time by organizing our group into parties to walk that ‘20 minutes’ walk down to the nearby river beside which the hot springs were.
HOT SPRING... well, not the top class onsen. But ok lah...
It was a 20 minutes TREK to the hot spring. With slippers, about 40 minutes. Man, wherever you were in Nepal, you just had to trek.
For 100NPR (S$1.20) per person, one couldn't ask for more lah.
Luckily Babu warned us and reminded us to bring our warm down jackets because it was DAMN cold after the hot spring and it was cold and breathless making our ways back.
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It was such a wonderful experience for us boys - Kong Wan, Ryan and myself- because we witnessed how cheerful our guides and porters have become upon jumping into the warm waters of the hot spring pool. And started animatedly chatting between themselves. This was the happiest moment I have seen them in and it set the positive cheerful vibes for myself, Kong Wan and Ryan too.
“Wah this is really comfortable.” said Kong, soaking himself fully.
“I hope when I wake up tomorrow morning, all my thighs and knee pains will miraculously disappear,” I replied. I was hoping for a miracle. What medicine could not heal, hopefully Nature could.
So in between a pony-tailed Ang Moh man all several of our Nepali porters and guides, we immersed our tired bodies in the relieving water and listened to Ryan give a lecture on Geothermal electricity and how hot springs water were derived. I was impressed by Ryan’s knowledge in these.
I asked Sharan and Raj Kumar while we soaked in the hot spring: “for the past ten days while trekking with us, did you all shower?”
They all laughed out loud and told me of course they didn't. An answer that was exactly as what Kong Wan and I expected. Thus our guides and porters wouldn’t shower in the mountains perhaps because they were probably walking in their zone one pace and they didn’t sweat much thus it was quite comfortable for them.
Though the hot spring was nice and soothing, the 20-30 minutes trekking to and fro the hot spring down at the river side was tiring. But by the time Sharan led us back up after we breathlessly wore our clothes, trembling in the cold dark evening, scrambling to find every piece of clothing that would give us the warmth, both Kong Wan and I were suffering from the panting and fatigue in our thighs.
“Whatever pain accumulated over the past ten day’s you have managed to remove, in this 20 minutes walk you gain the pain all back again,” jokingly said Ryan. That was a really realistic observation.
Dinner at Jhinu, Namaste Restaurant and Hotel
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| The roasted chicken was heaven after ten days. |
This dinner was one of the best we have had along the trek to ABC. The roasted chicken drumstick was really nice and crispy on the outside but tender and soft in the inside.
I remembered precisely how delicious the roasted chicken drumstick and my chicken sizzler tasted.
A quick round of pre-returning accounting done among several of us in our room in Jhinu's Namaste Guesthouse that evening post dinner, and after all the amount were distributed and settled, we finally retired for a good sleep.
I was very happy all of us were still feeling well and were determined to make the best of our treks.
The day after tomorrow we will be doing our paragliding in Pokhara and the day after that, while in vehicles driving back to Kathmandu, some of us will be doing water rafting. This was really turning out to be quite an adventure!
But on this night, we needed to rest.
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