A Little Bit of Solitude

Annapurna Circuit Trek 2008 - Day 7

Day 07 - Wed 15 Oct 2008

Trek Day 5 - Chame (2670m) trek to Lower Pisang (3200m)

This was a rather short day, although we had to ascend about 670m. The trail was rather gradual throughout. I cannot remember any steep slope at all. And we were beginning to see very beautiful views of Annapurna II and IV, and Pisang peaks.

Corinne and I reached lunchpoint, Dhikur Pokhari, 11am. There were a number of construction works going on to build new guesthouses and restaurants. A few of the restaurants were really very new. Along the way to Dhikur Pokhari, we had saw workers cutting down trees. I am worried that this may lead to deforestation and who knows what repercussions there would be later.

This day, there were a lot of people at Dhikur Pokhari. Dhan Rai felt that the restaurant that we were supposed to eat at was a bit crowded, so we switched to another.

At the restaurant, we spoke to a French elderly lady, who was trekking alone, with her guide. I think she is over 60 years old. But boy, could she walk. She had no porters, carrying all her stuff in a 30-35 liter backpack (or perhaps her guide did help out with some load). She would be taking the Upper Pisang route, so we could possibly see her again on our acclimatisation day at Manang.

On the way to Lower Pisang. Left-side route leads to Lower Pisang, right-side route leads to Upper Pisang.

We left lunchpoint at 1.30pm; Corinne and I reached Lower Pisang just 40 minutes later. That was 2.10pm. The rest would all arrive by the hour’s mark. Uncle George was very angry, questioning Gopal why then he didn’t think of bring us for an excursion to Upper Pisang and then to Lower Pisang. Since I have reached the guesthouse, I had no intention of going out again. Only Jonathan and Mun Yew went up to explore Upper Pisang.

There was only one bathroom at the guesthouse. And there were another guests there. So it was a long queue for shower. After a while, there wasn’t any more hot shower. Fortunately, that was after Daniel, Corinne and I had our nice hot shower.

This day my tummy didn’t feel quite well. I took some poh chai pills. Diarrhea is always my biggest concern during any trip, so I was a bit worried.

Fortunately, by lunchtime next day, the symptoms subsided and everything was fine then.