That was a high time of our surprise when two (of the four) Israelis came with their flashlights at about 8:20 in the night. That was ‘insane’! One guy was carrying another’s bag. We had left them in Gosaikunda in the morning. Their story goes like this: These two guys left their other two friends (a couple- Israeli boy and an American girl who met in Miami and fell in love) at Phedi (actually this is the place just half an hour away from the Ghopte Bhir (steep) where the ill fated plane crash-landed), about 2 hours away from Ghopte lodges. The girl ’suffered from hypothermia at the pass’ and was unable to walk. Worst, these boys, who were leading the trail, were walking on the wrong way. Luckily (?) they sensed they were talking the wrong route only after an hours walk. Then what they did was like this: they directly descended via steep area without any route. One problem after another was following them.
“Damn… that [explicit deleted] map… we were carrying”, one of them, who was also planning to go to Annapurna trek after this, said- “In Israel, I can go anywhere, however unknown the place might me, with the help of maps. They are accurate. Here, they are just misleading.” He was right. We also found several faults with the map. They both were telling their sad story which was full of unwanted adventure. Their presentation of the events made us laugh almost for about an hour. They were all the time using the words “damn” and “believe me” in the Israeli accent. So funny. One guy was telling that “he will never forget that day.” I remembered the couple. They both were nice people. We had seen them some days ago too, when they were resting near Thulo Syabru. We took some photographs on the bank of Gosaikunda Lake too.
One of the ‘adventurous’ boy took a group picture at the lake. These boys were hoping the couple will be there tomorrow by 10 AM. After two days, when we were near to Kathmandu, we were talking about those Israelis. We all thought that they will not be able to make arrive in Kathmandu in the next four days. An email by Stan next day made me surprised. The email read like this: “Dinesh, you won’t believe with whom I had dinner last night: those Israelis. Yes, they were right behind us.” Oh my god!
Dinesh Wagle on Nepali Society 