NEPAL [ A Family Trekking Travelogue ] - by limwhow & SereneXMM

[limwhow]

"Papa, are we there yet? How long more to go?"
Well, I really don't know leh.. I only know that the most siong part hasn't come yet.
And here we walked through a lovely tiny village with terrace farm...
I can't help but admire the serenity of the place. Hmm.. a nice place to retire in, I thought..

My reverie was broken by the son's words:
"We are now at Ramghai. Not even one thrid way yah! Our lunch destination will be at Hille."
Ok, so looks like there is more suffering to come.

But for some, the suffering process has already started.
SereneXMM was not her usual fit and extremely fast self. Today something funny leh..
She only walked a while, but she started feeling breathless and complained of feeling syncope (fainting).
No, it cannot be acute mountain sickness yah. We are only at most 1300m and AMS does not occur at this altitude.
Must be MANJA lah...

So how? I ended up carrying two day packs - one mine own behind, and one hers in front.
Man, I could just have been a porter...

So we walked and walked and came to a rest point..

.... to be continued...

 

[limwhow]

Reading your travelogue, make me feed that I am one of the member in this trip too...Excellent...

Thank you so much, NikF601.
Appreciate your encouragement!

 

[tecnica]

every single post is a surprise.. brings my day to a cheerful end...

so fortunate are your children...

 

[senser]

Fantastic travelogue! Well done! More pls..inspirational...

 

[noob117]

fantastic thread! feels like im reliving my time there!

 

[limwhow]

every single post is a surprise.. brings my day to a cheerful end...

so fortunate are your children...

LOL... tecnica, I think the reverse should be true ~ so fortunate am I to have their company! And of course my lovely wife SereneXMM - supportive all the way.

Fantastic travelogue! Well done! More pls..inspirational...

senser, senser, senser... my good senser.. LOL.. no lah. Just a simple mountain strolling.
Nothing much lah.. Thank you for coming over here!

fantastic thread! feels like im reliving my time there!

noob117, many thanks for your good words! Very good to have a fellow trekker here on board!
Please don't laugh if we are no where near as fast nor as fit as yourself. Haha...

 

[limwhow]

Are we tired yet?

Very honestly, at this rest point, both SereneXMM and I were a LITTLE tired ~ she tired from the steep slope, and me tired from having to carry both hers and mine own back packs. LOL..
The children are so far doing ok.
The elder Jiejie's - Penguin is really no Lasa one. She is a real fitness freak.
The Hair Dryer Q jiejie - she will walk. But she will complain and complain - not outside. But inside. LOL..

So when Mahesh says, we are getting close to Hille which is our lunch destination, we were all pretty relieved.
Thus we gave the steps some last burst of fire...
Didn't know since when, the track has narrowed into small paths with stony and rocky climb...

.. and we took one more turn, pumped out thigh muscles up a flight of rocks.. and we came to...

Hille...!

Heng ah.. lunch time!
Well, and it's just about high time.. my energy was about to run low already.
Any lower, I will need to be portered up myself.

What? Where is this Hille village?
I heard someone in the audience asking quietly.. LOL..
Here, click on the map for a bigger version and you will see Hille at 1495m.
Looks close to our final destination, right?
But wrong. Still very very far away..

​

Along the trek, we have met and lost, and lost and met again and again the same individual/group trekkers from South Africa, Korea, London.
And they range from fit, muscular young man to petite Asian lady to really old Englishman.
Along the way we found ourselves giving each other words of encouragement and checking on each others' progress.
Here at Hille, the South African young man decided to spend his night here with his girl friend.

When told we were going to be heading for Ulleri, he said:
"Oh, you guys are good. I've had it for the day. This lodge here is lovely.
We're just gonna rest here for the night. You have a good climb up to Ulleri!"

Siao liao lah.. Even the Ang Moh also stop at Hille and not progress towards Ulleri.
For a moment it made me reconsider my decision...

Meanwhile,....

Lunch!!!
And how can a Nepali lunch be without my favourite.. Dal Bhat!

 

[wolfton]

Absolutely beautiful series. Really love the way you present your pictures.

 

[limwhow]

Relaxing in Hille...
This Mahesh was very clever.
He knew that this was our first day of trekking. And he knew that the BEST has yet to come.
So what did he do?
He allowed us a little bit more time to eat and recuperate in Hille.
Almost a little too much, I thought.
But seeing how the children were enjoying themselves.. I thought aiyah, heck it lah. Just enjoy and relax lor.
Anyway, we were not in a rush, were we?
Hey no. We were on holiday.

So here, is a totally relaxed, totally Singaporean-turned-Nepali trekker wearing his Rudy Project.

... and I kept looking at the Jiejies' Kathmandu-acquired trekking pants and I just couldn't help thinking how good a quality they were of.
And the green looked very nice with the mountain and the sky as background.
So I made them stand side by side like young little girls and shot nothing but the trek pants...

Sigh.. of course.
AhLiXMM and her obligatory teddy bear shot.
What have I gotten myself into?
Who have EVER heard of people bringing Teddy Bears on trekking trips?

 

[LowLights]

As usual .. Power !
You the man !

 

[limwhow]

"Hey Sing!" I called out. "Eh I kept taking photos of you all."
"How about you helping us take a shot of both of us?"

So this very young lady, who happens to be the only child out of all of them who can operate a Rangefinder, obligingly took a shot of us sitting and smiling and relaxing just at the doorstep of this lodge in Hille.
And I would say she did a pretty good job.
Well done, Sing!

And Penguin Jiejie and Hair Dryer Q Jiejie both a little bit sianz already.
Must have waited a little too long that their lunch have digested completely and have passed down their digestive tracks.
They must be raring to cheong mountain again liao...

Yupe. I am quite sure now, seeing how Sing is starting to do her Tae Kwondo kicks.
Their energies are coming back and they are ready to go...

And SereneXMM just cannot help herself disturbing the girls with her own Taiji kungfu...

"Ok OK.. Let's quickly take a group photo here before we start the last siong siong climb," I ordered.
And Mahesh helped us take this picture. How to shoot, he asked.
I thought for a while.. hmm, it's a little too on-the-spot to explain to him how to use a Rangefinder.
So I just set it at "f/8-and-be-there" and instructed him to just frame and shoot.
And I think he did a great job, for a first time Rangefinder shooter...

 

[limwhow]

So, how long more to trek... really?

I pulled Mahesh over and quietly asked him as we trekked.

"Mahesh, hey how long more from Hille to Ulleri ah?" I asked.
"Not far lah," again, his Singlish reply. "To Tikhedhunga maybe another 20 minutes. And then the 500m steep climb another mabe.. one and a half hours.. maximum 2 hours for the climb."
Me: "....... wah lau eh.. like that another two and a half hours..."

Very encouraging, this Mahesh.

As we neared the end of Hille, we passed by the last few houses.
I understood from what Mahesh told me that this area around Hille, Tikhedhunga, Ulleri are inhabited by the Margar people, a Hindu tribe.
But this house here certainly looked Gurung in the design.
The Gurung are another tribe of mountain people who are Buddhist.

I looked up and saw rows and rows and rows of some yellowish thingy hanging on the veranda.
"Wah, girls! Look! Chicken chicken!" I cried.
"No lah!" they nonsensed me. "Those are corns lah!"
Wah lau eh.. really hor...
My eyesight must be damn bad. Must be the high dose of ultraviolet light up here in the mountains lah..

Ok OK OK...
So along the track we trudged.
One moment we were going down slippery wet rocks...

...another moment we were climbing up steps of rocks...

... and when we arrived at the top of the flight, to behold YET another high gradient climb ahead..
The porters, the son, and the ponies were already waaaaaAAAAYYY ahead liao...

So demoralising.

 

[limwhow]

Absolutely beautiful series. Really love the way you present your pictures.

wolfton, thank you very much for coming by. Hope you enjoy my story telling.

As usual .. Power !
You the man !

Big Brother LowLights... you see me too up liao lah.
You know me lah... TCSS king. But honestly it was a really really enjoyable trip.
We loved it. The children loved it. I think they want to do more.

 

[limwhow]

... heading towards the last frontier village of Tikhedhunga...

All I knew was, we just got to make it to Tikhedhunga, where we will come to a last and final suspension bridge before we start the ascend.
So with that in mind, we pushed on.

...Up...

... Down...

... Cross the second last suspension bridge with the ponies...

... and Tikhedhunga welcomes us warmly into her embrace...

 

[limwhow]

... The Last Climb ~ Tikhedhunga to Ulleri ...
​

This is the actual GPS track of our climb up from Tikhedhunga to Ulleri

​

A few minutes through the small village of Tikhedhunga, we came to the last and the final suspension bridge.

"This is it," I told myself.
"Ok children, remember... take it slowly a step at a time... a Baby step at a time.." I crackled over the walkie talkie.

But somehow, something told me that my advice was not really needed for the children.
It was more of a gentle reminder to SereneXMM and myself rather.

Here is that fateful moment...
[video=youtube_share;aBcfg8RqP3g]http://youtu.be/aBcfg8RqP3g[/video]

 

[limwhow]

One Baby Step at A Time...

Yah. I thought back of our trekking in Namche Bazaar when an Ang Moh man said to us "One Baby Step at a time.".
Such truth.
I kept saying to SereneXMM and myself.. One baby step at a time.
And we both could hardly talk... our lungs were too busy gasping.
I stopped to purposely checked my heart rate. It was about 160/min.
Good. I am in Zone 5 heart rate. Should be burning quite a few fat cells off already.
SereneXMM she was even more poor thing.
She totally couldn't talk.
Every few tens of steps, she and I would stop and gasp for air for half a minute, before we continued our way.
This was really a damn painful way of climbing stairs. How nice if there were lifts to the top. Haha..

Somehow, the words were lost on the babies.
Although they are babies, but they certainly didn't know the meaning of Baby Steps.
They were way ahead of both of us liao... Crazy babies!

And looking at the way AhLiXMM ran up the steps.. I couldn't see anything Baby about her pace..

Stinging Nettle...!
Yes... the famous stinging Nettle.
Well, yah lah yah lah, the children climbed so quickly that they didn't watch out for this nasty stinging nettle.
And Ah Sing and ZA and even SereneXMM got their forearms scratched by this little plant.
I have never seen these before in my whole life.
But within a couple of minutes, their forearms and scratch marks were all swollen with hives.
And that crazy son.. his eye started to tear.
My goodness, what a reaction these innocent looking plants induce!!

Quickly, we whipped out our first aid kit and applied some steroid cream and popped some anti-histamine into each of their mouths.
"Pa, it is very painful. And my hands are numb already. My eyes tear so much that I cannot see anything..." complained the son.

Ok Ok.. Let's just rest a while.
I reassured them all. Give the medicine about half an hour's time to act, by the time you are up there, it would have set in fully and you will as good as new.
Yah.. so much for Singaporean first aid. Haha..
But from that point onwards, EVERY ONE of us were on the look out for these nasty Stinging Nettle and didn't dare go anywhere near them.

 

[limwhow]

Onwards to Ulleri, Soldiers!

Phew phew phew... panting away, we continued our ascend.
I have totally lost count of the time, and my initial attempt to confirming the total number of steps it will take to reach the top had somehow been aborted somewhere in the middle.. I didn't know where.
All I knew was I was walking like a zombie...

Looking up, I can see all the girls there, making their way slowly.
But where on earth is that son of ours?
That crazy fellow is fit, yes I knew. But don't tell me he is THAT fit?

It must have been at least one hour since we started the steep ascend already.
The children are also showing some signs of slowing down..
They must be tiring already..

Ok, girls. Take it easy ok?
Stop and rest a while before you continue the ascend.
I don't want you all to shagged out yourselves on the very first day.
We have another four more days to go one ok?

Climbed and climbed and climbed we continued.
Until we reached an opening. I looked back and appreciate the few from a high vantage point for the first time.
Whew... we must have climbed quite a bit already. Because the things looked a little smaller below us now.
How long more to go... I don't know.
I only knew.. JUST KEEP ON GOING...

 

[MichaelLee]

Thanks for sharing. One of the best thread ever.
Indeed I login every few hours to hope there is more update from you.

I have been to Nepal almost 10 years ago. Your thread inspire me to go trekking one day with my family.

 

[CamInit]

Just came back from Nepal on almost the same trek last month. Hasn't had time to process all the photos yet but couldn't help but smile at your description going up to Ulleri. Boy, talk about deja vu. After some time, you are just mechanically walking upwards. Legs lost the feeling and stuck at one single pace. I could still remember my guide telling us that section up to Ulleri is about 3342 steps. :sweat: :bsmilie:

 

[Beserk]

I was there last month doing a solo trek up to ABC as well. I share the same feelings regarding the endless steps and uphills. Siong!!! :sweat: :bsmilie:Waiting to see your pics from Poon Hill as I missed out that portion.