Langtang National Park Trek - Part One

Syaphrubesi.
Syafru Bensi.
Shyafru Besi.
Syabhrubensi.

No matter how you spell it – and I saw it spelled at least half a dozen ways – that’s where the trek really began. But first, we endured a winding three hour drive on the main road leading north out of Kathmandu to the dusty river town of Trisuli. The ride there had not been very comfortable due to the potholed road and constant swerving to avoid hitting the people, goats, cows, dogs and buses we met along the way. Lunch in Trisuli consisted of cold dal bhat (rice, thin lentil soup, curried vegetables, and spinach) served by an unusually large Nepali woman dressed in a bright orange mu-mu. The dining table had not been wiped off from her previous customers, and her two small grandsons didn’t help the situation when they climbed on the chairs and rubbed their faces on it. We ate quickly, hoping to digest any germs before they could infect us.

Janardan Lamichhane, head of the Biotechnology Department at Kathmandu University (KU) and my host, was the leader of our expedition to Langtang National Park. Also on the trip, aside from Bonnie and me, were three Masters students (Deepak, Prajwal and Keshab) and a botanist from KU’s Pharmacy Department known only to us as “Ma’am” since we were never formerly introduced. Her job was to identify plants used for medicinal purposes by the locals in the Langtang Valley. These roots and herbs will be the basis of a natural products research project by the three students who hope to identify active anti-cancer or anti-bacterial chemicals in the extracts. Janardan wants to start mining the vast biodiversity of Nepal to find useful products that might help kickstart the country’s nascent biotechnology industry. Being a foreigner, I am not allowed to collect anything, so Bonnie and I had to go along as observers, carrying our official Tourist Information Management Systems (TIMS) cards which all non-Nepali trekkers must show upon demand by park officials.

While the drive to Trisuli was bone-jarring, the next three hours to our final destination was bone-shattering. The pavement ended at the edge of Trisuli, replaced by a narrow, hard packed road of cobble-sized rock. Our neck and abdominal muscles were soon sore from our bodies’ involuntary contractions as we tried to keep from pitching forward and sideways with each lurch of the jeep. As we rose higher and higher out of the valley, the Trisuli River was reduced to a small rivulet in the distance, a mere 2000 foot drop over the edge of the road. We climbed up the seemingly endless mountain, once having to get out of the jeep to reduce the weight so the driver could get up a steep grade covered with scree from a previous landslide. At the crest of the mountain, at an elevation of 6000 feet, we arrived at the headquarters of Langtang National Park in Dhunche where we spent an hour getting together our official stamps and letter of approval for the collecting activities.

It was dark by the time we came to the end of the road, at the small village of Syafru Bensi (don’t ask me why, but this is my preferred spelling). The main drag was no more than a few blocks long and consisted almost entirely of small lodges catering to the trekking industry. Bonnie and I checked into a spartan $3 room at the Buddha Hotel. The small dining area was being monopolized by a group of South Korean trekkers, one of whom was obviously feeling good from high altitude drinking. In a deep, but not unpleasant, baritone voice he alternated between singing a nearly correct musical scale (do-re-me-fa-so-la-SHE-do) and an odd version of “My Darling Clementine.” Really beaten by the day’s rough drive, we hurriedly wolfed down a little dinner and then retired into our sleeping bags for the night, serenaded by strains of Clementine wafting under our door.

At 5 am we got up for hot showers, only to realize that the hotel ran off of a solar hot water system. The heat from yesterday’s sun had long dissipated overnight. So, standing away from the spray of cold water, we took the best possible shower without actually getting too wet. After a short breakfast of black tea, eggs and toast we hoisted our packs and went outside to meet the others at 7 am.

Syafru Bensi is at the junction of the Bhote Koshi and Langtang Khola rivers which, once merged, become the Trisuli River. Our goal was to hike up the Langtang Khola river canyon for two days all the way to the village of Kyanjin in the Langtang Valley, a total elevational change of about 7,000 feet. Kyanjin, at nearly 12,000 feet, is nestled at the base of several 20,000-22,000 foot snow capped peaks of the Langtang Himal section of the Himalayan Mountains. Mount Everest was less than 100 miles to our southeast, and the Tibetan border less than 5 miles to our north.

We all took off in buoyant moods, quickly making our way through the village and down the hill to the two suspension bridges that took us to the trail along the southern bank of the Langtang Khola. The rocky trail was steep in places, but with fresh muscles and packs weighing only 20-25 pounds we scrambled up the ravine like mountain goats. Even Ma’am, who is 62-years-old, made excellent progress. At one point we passed several yaks grazing along the trail and a couple of yak herders milking them. After two hours we arrived at the first lodge in Domen where we stopped for mid-morning tea.

Bonnie and I had not done much pre-trip study and really didn’t know what to expect in terms of facilities along the way. We had brought enough dry snacks for 4-5 days’ worth of lunches, a few liters of water and some water purification tablets. As it turns out, there are lodges every one or two hours along the trail where you can purchase bottled water, Coke, Sprite, Fanta, Snickers, Milky Ways, crackers or order a hot meal or room for the night. Since all supplies are carried up on the backs of porters, the prices rise with the elevation. In Syafru Bensi, a liter of bottled water cost 40 rupees ($0.50) but three times that price in Kyanjin. Our group did not use porters, but we passed many foreign trekkers who carried either no packs or very light day packs while porters followed behind them laden with mounds of heavy bags strapped to their foreheads. We saw a few porters carrying two large bags of rice, each bag weighing nearly 70 pounds. Janardan told us that the standard daily rate for a porter was 600 rupees – that’s less than $8 a day for backbreaking work.

By noon we had reached the lodge area called Bamboo. We stopped there for nearly 1 ½ hours to rest and have lunch. I had a filling, but unappetizing, bowl of Knorr packaged vegetable soup while the Nepalis went for the traditional dal bhat. Bonnie eats like a sparrow and was happy to carry on a conversation with two young Frenchmen. I sat a short distance from them and could only make out occasional exclamations of “Voila! Voila!” every few minutes as one of the Frenchmen agreed with whatever point Bonnie was making.

Uphill from Bamboo the trail became steeper and then crossed over to the sunny north side of the river. I had started out that morning layered in a T-shirt, light long-sleeved flannel shirt, a fleece vest and a windbreaker, but by 1 pm I had stripped down to the T-shirt. The temperature had risen into the low 70’s by then and the sunshine at my back made it feel even warmer. But still, November is the optimal time for trekking in the Himalayas. The early mornings and evenings can get down to freezing or slightly below depending on the elevation, but the days are clear and pleasant and the mosquitoes have disappeared. There were moments during our trek when there was the perfect combination of warm sun and cool mountain breeze that stopped us in our tracks and extracted a simultaneous “Ahhhhh” out of us.

The last leg of our journey that afternoon took us up the steepest part of the river. By then the straps of my pack were eating into the meat of my shoulders. The lactic acid burned in my thigh muscles like hot coals, and raising my feet high enough to step onto the next rock was getting harder and harder. Prajwal had gone ahead of us to reserve rooms at a lodge in the little settlement of Rimche. Bonnie, Janardan and I were in the middle of the pack, and the other two students were with Ma’am who brought up the rear. We had to stop for breath every ten minutes and take advantage of a few lodges along the way to rest and have a drink. Janardan somehow managed to actually sleep for five minutes at a picnic table, feeling young and refreshed when he woke up. I still felt old and wasted.

We arrived in Rimche at 4 pm and settled into our rooms at the Jungle View Lodge which was run by a very nice Tibetan Buddhist couple. There were two buildings: one a two-story sleeping area with small rooms and cots, the other a small stone structure for cooking and dining. There were also 5-6 other lodges crammed together in the same small clearing. In one building a bunch of Czech trekkers were already singing Moravian hiking songs as someone pounded on a drum.

Bonnie and I had learned from our earlier experience and decided to take a shower before the solar heated water got cold. Although not hot, it was warm enough to stand in. After getting into some clean clothes, we joined the others in the 15 x 15 dining area where a small wood stove in the center kept the room nice and toasty. We struck up a conversation with a middle-aged American from Seattle who was trekking Nepal and India. He had just come down from Kyanjin and let us take a look at his topo map. Bonnie ordered vodka and popcorn while I opted for roast potatoes.

The proprieter moved around the room taking orders and delivering food while at the same time fingering his prayer beads. In a deep, monk-like voice he muttered the same short prayer in Tibetan, once for each of the 108 beads on the strand. The resonance and repetition of his voice was very soothing, almost hypnotic, and reminded me that I was, in fact, a stranger in a strange land.