We were lucky enough this morning to again wake up to picture perfect blue skies. We really can’t believe we haven’t had a drop of rain yet despite it supposedly being Monsoon. God bless the rain shadow and long may it continue!!! Our route today would take us up about 600m elevation so we would finally be sleeping over 3,500m tonight. We decided to start taking Diamox to help us adjust to the altitude and took our first dose this morning. Our day started with porridge and cappuccinos from our fancy “resort” which was nice, but I think we were both excited to get out to somewhere that felt a little more real. 

The first few hours followed the river valley through a number of villages and side valleys, climbing down to bridges across side streams and then back up multiple times. Along the way we had great views back to Ganesh North West and surrounding peaks. They were hazy and in the distance but looked amazing, a great backdrop to the beautiful valley. We also met a few interesting animals, a Jopke (half yak half cow), a pair of huge eagles circling us from above, cute baby cows and a gorgeous trail dog who followed us for most of the morning. As we are getting higher up the Tibetan influence is huge. Most of the communities now are Tibetan people, and there are Tibetan Buddhism stupas, chortung, mani, archways and monasteries. Everything is very colorful and the level of detail and quantity in the stone carving is amazing. If you were here on a Buddhist pilgrimage or a more devout Buddhist you would walk around each of these clockwise three, five or ten times, but we don’t have time (or energy) for that!! We do try to always walk on the correct side (in a clockwise direction) and I like to thank the universe for reminding me to be compassionate and kind to all beings, including myself. This section of the track was also where we saw Manaslu for the first time, in all her glory!! It was very cool to turn a corner and see the iconic double peaks come out from behind the ridge! 

We reached a village called Lho at about 11:15 AM, the last in this section of the track. The different agriculture spread around the town was super interesting, and the town itself was bustling and busy with everyone going about their day to day life. A far cry from Namrung which was all but boarded up out of the main tourist season. We walked up to the top of the town and got the most amazing views of Manaslu, framed by a monastery gate. In Lho we decided to keep on pushing further for lunch, and we faced our hardest ascent of the day. From Lho we had to climb about 400m up a place called Shyala. To start, we actually had to drop about 150m to cross a side stream, before walking up a gorgeous creek all the way to Shyala. As with most challenges we’ve faced on this walk, the idea of it was much worse than the reality. We were starting to feel the altitude but if you just focus on the next steps in front of you, you make it to the top! The tracks here are also all in pretty good shape (makes sense considering the donkeys that need to traverse them), and when you’re used to near vertical root scrambles like we have in New Zealand bush, it’s a nice change to just be able to walk up step by step, even when it’s hard. 

As soon as we came out of the bush at Shyala the vibe was totally different. The best way to describe it was feeling like we were in the moutains, instead of looking at them! It was nearly 2 PM now so most of the peaks had clagged in, but you could still tell it was nearly 360 degrees of big mountains around you!! It’s also much drier, we’re basically at the tree line now, and also much more open. Waiting this late for lunch was pretty hard and we were both exhausted before eating and feeling the altitude. After a quick nap in the sun, a big feed of Dahl Baht, lots of water and a rehydration sachet we both were feeling much better. After lunch we only had an hour or so through to Samagaun, so we plodded along up and down a couple of side valleys and bridges before dropping down to our destinataion for the night. 

Again, stunning views obscured by clouds, but at this stage we’re pretty confident it will open up in the morning! We got to walk through a meadow like area with lots of flowers, one of the benefits of monsoon season. We also saw possibly the cutest animals we’ve seen on entire trip, baby yaks! Then we walked through the more local area of the village to reach our guest house, village life here looks simple with amazing views, but a hard life. So remote and so extreme. Despite the challenges, we’ve met some lovely friendly people, everyone says namaste on the trails and gives us a big smile. 

Our guest house is Tibetan and Mayla told us that up here we can switch out “Namaste” for “Tashi Delek” which is a Tibetan greeting. We suffered through a freezing cold shower to clean the dirt and sweat off our tired bodies. It might be one of our last showers until we cross over Larke pass in a few days time, as the accommodation higher up is simple. For dinner I had a delicious Thukpa soup (Tibetan dish) and Josh had a big plate of egg noodles to load us up for tomorrow. It’s so exciting to be up in the mountains proper! Tomorrow we have an acclimatisation day before we continue up to the pass, and there is an amazing Buddhist monastery at around 4000m which we are planning to visit.

P.S: These might get a bit shorter now as we get higher, we need to focus on being more sporty and less academic (aka the altitude ruins our brains).