Travel Day: Journey from Kathmandu to Besi Sahar (starting point of Annapurna Circuit Trek)

Waiting at the bus station in Kathmandu while the bus is blessed.

We made it back safe and sound from our trek, but we will be posting our Himalayan adventure in piecemeal for fear of overwhelming readers.

This first couple days are fairly brief (we were very tired at the end of each day!) and after re-reading what we wrote, we think it's a tad on the whiny side. However, we want to be true to the spirit and feeling of when we wrote these entries, so we're leaving them as is. Please be patient with us as we adjust to life on the trail. Enjoy!

Travel Day: Journey from Kathmandu to Besi Sahar (starting point of Annapurna Circuit Trek)
We left Kathmandu in the morning on the local bus (we were the only foreigners on it), expecting to arrive at Besi Sahar by early afternoon. We were warned that plans are often foiled in Nepal, especially during the Monsoon season (we are at the tail end of the season). About two hours outside of Kathmandu, our bus approached a long backup of vehicles which stretched further than the eye could see. After waiting roadside by the bus for several hours, we painstakingly learned (as there were few people who had any info and even fewer that spoke English) that we were blocked by a large landslide. Seeing that there was no movement of vehicles nor alternate routes we could take, we decided to start our trek early. Walking in the rain, past a long back-up of buses and trucks, we finally reached the landslide about 12km away, where large boulders the size of semis, blocked the entire road, of which abruptly then fell off into the river. There was a long queue of nervous Nepalis and the odd foreigner waiting to climb around, over, or under the unstable rock and mud. A few soldiers attempted to direct the anxious crowd over the easiest route - a narrow gap between a huge boulder and There were about 3 possible routes to take, none of which looked appealing nor safe. A few soldiers attempted to direct the anxious crowd through the easiest route, although the line dissolved and chaos ensued as some boulders started tumbling down in front of us (it had been raining nonstop for several hours and the ground proved very unstable). We grew nervous and inpatient as we felt it was dangerous to just be standing there so we dropped down to the lower route next to the river where we scampered over wet rocks and mud. Hearts racing, drenched with sweat and rain, we felt relief at having passed unscathed. We walked another few km and found a minibus that would take us to Dumre, a town in the direction of Besi Sahar, for an exorbitant fee. We arrived there almost 12 hours after leaving Kathmandu, and still several hours short of our planned destination. Not an auspicious start!