Annapurna Sanctuary

Twelve years ago my family and I flew to Nepal to hike through the Annapurna mountains.  My dad carved a wooden walking stick for me that wrote Nepal 1998 and amazingly I was able to walk the trails again with Tad, Casey and Ty last week.  

First sunrise on the Annapurna trail.  We would wake up early for the sunrise and share a big pot of lemon ginger tea.

After hiking a few hours we arrived at bigger village which was celebrating the seasonal rhododendron festival.  They had a huge volley ball competition which we wanted to join but it was really competitive and organized.

One of the first things we learned was humility!  You think that your pretty cool to be hiking in the Himalayas and carrying your own pack up and down some of the steepest elevation on the planet, but then you see the locals...

This guy was carrying a full bed frame on his back, and this was totally normal.  We saw people carrying giant cages full of chickens, propane tanks, massive bundles of wood or straight up baskets of rocks.  So we stopped and took our time to enjoy the view and take some glamor shots.

After each day of hiking we would crash at one of the many tea houses along the way, throw on all our warm clothes and sit down to play cards.  It became tradition to play a game of Rumi while we waited for dinner.  This was fun... until Ty ruined it by winning almost every time.

The higher we got the more time we spent bundled in our room to stay warm...

The terrain was incredibly diverse.  We walked through meadows that felt like the sound of music, hillsides carved into mesmerizing rice fields with small stone houses strewn about.

There were small river crossings...

...and massive suspension bridges spanning the valleys.  

We dipped down into bamboo jungles...

...and then climbed high into snowy glacier valleys surrounded by the highest peaks we have ever seen.  

Took a few more glamor shoots...

But it was the mountains that stole the spotlight!  As soon as the clouds parted this heaven on earth was revealed.

It was hard to leave, but we had a long hike back down and were running out of money.  Turns out there aren't any ATM's in the Annapurna mountains.

Our last night was one of the best!  The room we had was like a giant tree fort suspended on the edge of the cliff with windows making up two sides of the room.  The view was fantastic and the place was just up the hill from a natural hot spring!!

You'll notice that Ty's getting a head massage / hair makeover by one of the local kids who thought it was hilarious to give everyone mohawks.  We all felt refreshed and ready to go on our last day.  It was a long hike but we made it back to Pokhara.

Royal Enfield Bullet..."Made like a gun"

"This next road is without a doubt the most dangerous road in Nepal."

Rick Magill, though at times a little dramatic, proved to be a motorcyclist in the truest sense.  Along with his girlfriend Moniek he began a motorcycle club for Royal Enfield Bullets in Pokhara some seven years ago.  His true love is rebuilding these classic bikes and training riders to wield these tempermental lawnmowers like superbikes.

Each bike he builds has a unique and incredible name and story - for instance, "Honey" is the oldest of the bunch at the ripe old age of 50 and was dug out of the earth in a back alley of Kathmandu before being brought back to life in the shop, while "Mukti" was the first motorcycle to have driven to Nepal's remote Mustang region (Rick's garage wall is littered with pictures of such glorious moments, this one showing a young Nepali girl pointing at Mukti jaw-dropped, disheveled, and ecstatic to see the foreign machine in the high mountains).

" Honey"

"Wolf" 

 "Che"

"Mukti"

Our time on motorcycles consisted of several days of training that covered basic controls, mastering the finicky starting routine for the Bullets, traffic management strategies ("Be prepared for herds of buffalo crossing the road while a truck is passing you on the inside while going through a double-apex corner"), cornering theory, and extensive practice. By the end of it, we were ready to ride these beautiful bikes across the country.

We left Pokhara early on the morning of the 7th bound for Sauraha, a town on the edge of Chitwan National Park. Morning traffic was brushed off in the sheer joy of adjusting to the thumps of the engine beating between our thighs while stunning views of the Annapurna range filled our side mirrors.

After Rick's word of warning we left the green rice paddies of northern Nepal and began rolling down the corridors of the Himalayan foothills.  Any time we weren't weaving between trucks and navigating landslides was spent in a double-raindow like euphoria from the sheer magnitude of this country.

Eventually the foothills gave way to the flat lowlands that bridge Nepal to India, the smell of Jasmine on the road a welcome change from the burning trash that lined some of the Nepalese highways.  After racing past the tax collection station to dodge the 5 rupee charge (roughly 10 cents) we ended our trip by getting a beer (after brushing off a hundred miles of dirt from our beards / neards) on the river that makes up the northern perimeter of Chitwan National Park.

And that was day one.

The less pictureque moments should also be mentioned: those being the rampant travelers diahrrea that had us making frequent stops and the moment a man leaned out of a bus window and vomited, barely missing Ty as he was passing beneath at 40 mph.

We've taken far too long to relive the motorcycle trip to this point, so here's the cliff notes for our second day: During an early morning canoe ride, we saw Siberian ducks, herons, kingfishers, and a mean looking crocodile. We exited the canoes and headed into the jungle in search of wildlife. Minutes after our guides had explained how to safely handle an encounter with the dangerous game in Chitwan (rhinos, elephants, tigers, and bears), we rounded a corner to find a rhino napping in the brush just ahead.  After a few tranquil seconds of gazing at this majestic animal it launched to its feet, which induced a Flintstones-esque shuffle back down the trail in a frantic attempt to run in a zig-zag pattern. Minutes later, Tad remarks, "Huh, I almost thought that rock was a rhino... oh wait, that IS a rhino!" Laying on it's side, it's belly was up to our chests. Believe it!  Luckily this one continued to sleep peacefully and we went on our way.  Just a few minutes later we disturbed a male peacock in his mating dance.  After that we walked through the jungle for 3 more hours before returning to Sauraha.  As we approached the town dripping in sweat we saw the local elephants taking their afternoon bath.  Casey, Tad, and Meg decided it was only logical to join in.

An afternoon ride on the Bullets through mud hut villages nestled between rice paddies was the highlight of the evening and fish curry cooked by an amazing lady rounded out our fantastic day.

Day 3: The Ride Back. Woke up to a broken throttle on Tad's bike courtesy of a local kid playing on it. Our start was slowed again by a massive traffic jam caused by a political protest. 30 minutes after we got through, the entire region around Sauraha was closed to all traffic. Before reaching Pokhara, we climbed one of the steepest and curviest roads to Bandipur, a delightful village in the hills with old Newari architecture. Casey tried his hands at local work. We made it safe down, despite old brakes, got caught in Pokhara traffic for the last hour of our ride, which felt like the final exam. We all passed, had a beer, then passed out from exhaustion.

-Ty and Casey