Wagle Hits Jenn!:I wasn’t very well on the first day, I was constantly falling asleep in the bus, and as I am told by my travel mates, I was falling over to Jenn’s shoulder. “Dinesh hits Jenn!” was what I heard Matt saying to others! And the laughter followed. I wasn’t aware of Brooke taking this photo but was pleasantly surprised when she sent me this a few days ago (Nov 1).
The alarm clock in my cell rang off just in time: 05:00 AM. I rushed to Thamel, and without taking much time, the trek team boarded bus that headed for Beshishahar, the district headquarter of Lamjung district, at around 06:15. Sometime in 09 AM I started feeling uneasy in my stomach. May be I wanted to throw out. The bus stopped, we ate snacks, I ate tarkari as per the suggestion of Gyan Bahadur Budha Magar aka Gyanu, the sardar of the trek team that included members from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands. I was invited by the group leader and the guide of the team Wanda Vivequin, a Dutch with deep New Zealand connections and lives in Canada. Tarkari seemed to be working for good but not completely. I was still reeling from the common cold that was giving me pain for the last few days. I didn’t want to miss the trekking so I though I would tame the common cold as I head toward one of the coldest places in the country.
We got off at Beshisahar, the starting point of popular Annapurna circuit trek, at around 2 PM. It was now time to move on, on feet. So did I but that was terrible. The heat was burning me inside and the backpack was definitely heaver than I had expected it to be. In addition to that, as I have mentioned earlier, I wasn’t feeling well. I could still feel fever deep inside me. At one point, while taking a quick rest at Heaven’s Restaurant in Bhulbhule, I felt like I was dying. I can’t walk, I thought. And at that point Brooke captured me in her camera (pic below).
But I was determined to make it to the destination. Destination of the day, if not of the whole trek! After an hour of walking, it felt good to see tents already installed by the camping crew on a green ground in a place called Ngadi, not far from Bhulbhule. Felt like coming back to the home away from the home. My first experience with the camping was just beginning and I wasn’t too much sure how things work in the world inside those red “toys”. But they worked quite well. I had a good night’s sleep inside the tent with Wanda on my right side.
Dinesh Wagle on Nepali Society 