Day 5 - Ghandruk to Chomrung, visiting a porters family

Its a long hard day today, down one side of a valley and up the other to a major village, Chomrung.

I am unwell, so the Swedish doctor has started to give me antibiotics. We started within a winding walk through the village, a beautiful place of stone paths and terraced fields. The stone work is amazing, most paths near a village are flagsstones and bordered by chest high stone walls. I think that it helps hold everything together in the wet. And from what I can see its all dry stone ( no mortar). Everyone is very industrious and house proud so you see lots of sweeping with short hand brooms ( made of local dried plants). Imagine having hundreds of trekers, mules and porters walk past your front door each day!!!

Then a slow couple of hours down a very steep dirt track to the valley floor. The country here is more open, not the dense forest of previous days, but still incredibly lush.

We are getting to know our porters well by now, they are the same age as Katie, what a different life!

River crossing and then up we go for 2 hours to lunch half way at Jit’s family home, where we met his lovely daughters and bought raffle tickets for their school! Some things are universal ( first proze is a TV so i got two tickets and told the girls if we won they had to keep the TV).  He is away for long periods of time trekking so is very excited to see his girls. To see how basically they live, and how happy they are, certainly gives you food for thought.

I’m limited to eating boiled rice with a little broth on it, surviving on mint tea with heaps of sugar plus electrolyte tablets in my water bottle. Argh!!! I cried some times today out of exhausting. The lovely Swedish doctor just walked behind me the whole way, thanking me for giving her a nice slow pace, and checking on my health. And Aman, our guide, was at my elbow ready to catch me if I needed him.

Todays vegetation was more open as we walked the mountain side up to Chomrung. And everywhere the most magnificent vegie gardens, cabbages, lettuce and tomatoes ( in big trees) in seaason.

We are still walking in t-shirts, with another layer at stops. That will change tomorrow as we begin the 2 days walk that leads up through the glacial valley to the first base camp.