Last night when we arrived in Bimthang we had no idea how close the mountains were. Today we were woken up by Mayla again, yelling at us about how clear it was outside! Why is it always the days we plan to sleep in when this happens?! We looked out our window and realized this town was perched just beneath the back side of Manaslu, and we were treated to an amazing morning view of it!! We got up and packed, and had breakfast while enjoying the last of the views before the cloud rolled in (predictable at this point)! 

There’s not a lot to say about today, it was 20km down the valley and most of the time it was pretty clouded in. It was nice being back in the trees, and we felt a weird sense of going back in time, as we quickly moved through all the different vegetation/ecological environments we had climbed up in the week prior! We took a short detour to find some caves, which were more of a Buddhist meditation spot. Very damp and cold, not sure I would want to meditate there!! 

We had a delicious lunch in a spot calle Gho, and again got the pleasure of watching the women pick and wash the greens she was cooking for lunch in front of us. It sounds so simple (and it is) but our awe is so indicative of how far removed we are from our food systems we are in the west, most of the time. 

The last seven kilometres or so after lunch were on the road and went quickly, and we arrived in Tilche late afternoon. The other foreigners we met in Dharamashala were also staying at the same place, so we all spent some of the afternoon and evening together trading travel stories and our upcoming plans. This place also had hot showers which was such a treat, the first time since Pokhara!!

It was here we also had our next decision to make. We had to be in Kathmandu on the 22nd of June to arrive at Kopan Monastery, so if we really pushed we would have time to speed run the Annapurna circuit as well. We were already acclimatized and feeling strong physically at this point, but also pretty tired. Mayla also told us that we could jump in the jeep tomorrow with the others that were staying with us, either to Dharopani (where we could split off to Annapurna) or to Besisahar, where we could get a bus back to Pokhara. After lots of back and forth we decided to push through and try and give it a go, knowing that time would be tight but it would be so worth it for the Annapurna views. 

We all had dinner together and got an early night, still feeling the exhaustion from the previous day.