Once I got to Nepal I had to make several decisions about trekking:
Where? Nepal is synonymous with top class trekking, so it was hard to choose where to start. In the end I went for the three-week Annapurna Circuit. It has oft been called the "best trek in the world", but recent and future road building threatens this status. So I thought I should walk it now that I had the time and before the road encroaches too much.
When? Peak trekking season in Nepal is October and November, with the low season corresponding to the summer monsoons. I arrived in Nepal in January, the middle of winter. Not many people trek the Annapurna Circuit in January and February because of the cold and snow, which can often cause the Thorung-La Pass (the high point on the circuit) to be unpassable. While that risk is the disadvantage of trekking in winter, the advantage is the avoidance of the crowds of peak season. I decided to wait until a week into February before starting, hoping that the weather might get a bit warmer.
With whom? While many people trek in Nepal with guides and/or porters (the sight of porters carrying huge bundles on their backs held in place with a strap on their foreheads is one of the defining images of trekking here), I wanted to do it independently. But for safety I didn't want to trek alone, So through a trekking website, which felt like a form of internet dating, I teamed up with Aly from England and Laura from Germany. As Aly wasn't able to start for a few days, I had time to spare, leading to another question:
What to do while waiting to begin a long trek? Simple, do a short trek! With the son of the owner of the guesthouse where I was staying in Pokhara, whose name Sagar means ocean, which is something that he, like most Nepalis, has never seen, I went on an enjoyable three-day trek. While the days walking passed fields filled with mustard-seed with views of the Annapurna mountains in the distance were enjoyable, the experience of spending a night in Sagar's home and a night in his uncle's home made this "mini-trek" a memorable experience.
Other homstays that I have done, in Mexico, Bolivia and Vietnam, were more like staying in a B&B (the Irish equivalent of a "homestay") than staying with a family. But this was different. The first evening I sat in front of the house watching the world go by (i.e. a few old men using discarded trekking polls as walking sticks, and women carrying wood down from the forest) with newly-hatched chicks under a wicker basket to my left and Sagar's 74 year old grandmother stripping sheaths of corn to my right. While Sagar's mother prepared dhal bhat (the staple Nepali meal of rice and vegetables) in the smokey kitchen behind me, their goat gave birth to male twins (I learned that male goat meat is tastier and therefore more valuable).
I was thankful for this fascinating though brief insight into rural Nepali life.
When I came back from that short "homestay trek", I had been in Nepal for three weeks, so I was now eager to start one of Nepal's great treks - the Annapurna Circuit.
