Lantang Trekk. 1st day Sundarijal-Chisapani

1^st day Sundarijal-Chisapani 

15 Km walking. 800 mt climbing. We took around 5 hours.

We took the bus in Kathmandu to get to Sundarijal. Getting the bus itself in Kathmandu is all and adventure that could be compared with the trek itself. City buses are small white vans that look like any other particular van but they go full of people. There is no proper bus stop either so you just have to shout, whenever you see one of these vans over crowed. You can also start asking local people where the bus stops and again, if you are lucky and found someone who knows about your bus, they will place you in a random street of the city, swearing that there is where you bus will stop and then you have to go to step 2..shouting the name of the place when vehicles like that will arrive.

Well, once we get into our local bus we arrived at the wrong station. Then we have to take another bust to the right bus station again. What we thought it will take us one hour (take the bus to Sundarijal) ended up taking three but, “it was ok”

So we finally got the right local bus, full of locals that will spit out of the window every 5 seconds and not really quietly but producing some guttural noises that will scare to anyone. I think I got used now after almost one month in Nepal. We arrived to Sundarijal at around 10 am. It was a very nice town, especially coming from Kathmandu where everything is polluted, noisy, dirty..well refer to my Spanish post about my favorite city with Delhi..kathmandu.

Sundarijal was country side, small, green with little houses and small shops and relatively “clean”.

First thing we did when we arrived was having breakfast..especially thanks to my insistence since for Johan was not that important (I just refused to walk with my stomach empty).

After not such a good breakfast, we start walking, and we start going up up up..I don’t remember there was any way down in that trek. We have to pass Shivapuri National park and stop at the entrance to show our permit.

The day before we issued our permits to do this trekking. Two permits are need for any trekking in Nepal. Cost of one was 3000 nepali rupees and cost for the other 20 dollars. Yes, they are in different currencies, I do not know why. You have to show them in different points of the trek. It is the way they are organized and know you have passed through that point. The park was the first point where we showed them but we will be showing them all the way along different points.

The park was more forest than anything else. It was a very nice forest but nothing that would really excited us about it. And at that point I started imagining that some wild animals will show up give our previous chat with that guy.. Then I found my first wooden stick there, well Johan found it for me J it was a very nice one, and helped me a lot to climb and also to go down.

After about (I think) five hours, we arrived to Chisapani. Only comment I have to say is that Johan missed the way and wanted to continue skipping a few houses on the distance that we saw. I thought we could go and ask the locals if we were on the right way and he, grumbily accepted while waiting for me, very sure that the way we took was right. When I get there I discovered, surprised that those houses where more and was Chisopani itself. I will remind him that for the rest of the way in case of any other disagreement on future steps :)

In Chisopani, I remember we were so tired that sit on the first house we saw for lunch. It turned out that was the most expensive one in the menu with difference. That is how we found menus are very different from house to house even if they serve the same food. Food anyway is very expensive on the mountain, which I can understand because there are no roads and people have to take the food through porters. One coke for instance can be 300 rupees (3 euros for a small bottle), water around 150 rupees and any kind of simple pasta like chowmain around 250 rupees. This is in a country where these things would cost you less than half in Kathamandu or any other communicated by road big city, so when you come from there at the beginning is a bit of a shock.

I remember, after checking the rooms that they asked me for 250 rupees for the room which was ok. But in order to get that price we had to have dinner and breakfast in that hotel and nowehere else or room price would be higher.

First I was annoyed for this, later I will know is the system used in the whole valley and I think everywhere in the mountains in Nepal. Moreover, you do not have to pay the room if you have all food items in the guest house which are expensive enough. Room for them is the minimum revenue they get.

So we stayed in one guest house with incredible views of the valley. The nice thing about the valley where the terraces the people create in these lands for growing their rice and other things.

There we met Ana and Malti a German and a Spanish which we will be meeting along half the way. Also few Belgiums who will be with us in all other guest houses too. And a couple of Irish that were doing a short trek and told us some history about one warm who pee on her in some other hotel in malasya  and which was all night standing on the ceiling, they first thought it was water poruing through the ceiling but ok, things that happened while travelling I guess and that is their story