As I promised in my interim postings, I have finally pulled all the text and pictures together to tell the story of our trek around Annapurna and our subsequent travels to Chitwan and Kathmandu. As with Dolpo, these postings cover many pages for those wishing to read them.
The notes go back to November 6, the day we returned from Dolpo to Kathmandu. Although they are all posted with today’s date, I have arranged them to display in chronological order. To see all the entries, you will have to click the “Older Posts” link when you reach the bottom of each page.
Overall, this was a much easier trip than Dolpo, as we could eat and stay in local guest houses, usually in private rooms. Marcia and I stayed healthy throughout except for one bout of intestinal trouble and a head cold I brought from Kathmandu. We both lost weight and now feel strong enough to climb Mt. Everest, which we actually did several times over in the course of our travels.
The Annapurna circuit is justly famous, as its spectacular scenery covers a huge variety of terrain from jungles to alpine passes. It is a well-inhabited area with plenty of services and local activity. It offers views of the many peaks of Daulighiri and Annapurna, the seventh and tenth highest mountains in the world.
Over 25,000 people follow the Annapurna trek each year, which means a lot of fellow travelers. We tended not to socialize much with the younger crowd, but it was instructive to encounter dozens of languages and cultures from around our very large globe. Most were European, especially French, who seem particularly fond of using their long vacations following in the footsteps of Maurice Herzog. But there were many other nationalities, from Russian to Australian to Chinese to Thai and Malaysian. Americans were a very small minority, I guess because the only people with enough money these days don’t have time to make such a long trip.
We hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we enjoyed taking them.