Six Days of Trekking

Last week, when I went to arrange a trek in the Indian Himalayas, I met a mother and daughter from Israel and we decided to go together. The daughter, Leeon, is my age and her mother, Rut, is originally from South Africa. On Monday morning we set off on our trek and walked up to eight hours a day through The Markha Valley in the boiling heat for the first three days led by our local guide, a young, friendly girl called Mentok. At many points I could not believe I had paid to do it as it was pure torture with the altitude, heavy bags on our backs, the extreme heat and the exertion for hours on end!

I've never seen such a blue sky.

The Markha Valley - endless mountains that we walked through for the first three days of the trek.

Each night we would stay in the homes of mountain villagers (their tiny 'villages' consisted of 1-3 houses) where we would sit on the floor and drink tea with them: chai tea, mint tea, local butter tea (the latter was disgusting, it tastesd like a cup of melted butter but glad I tried it anyway!). As soon as we'd get to each homestay we would wash ourselves and our clothes in the freezing river that cut through the valley. The families would make us dinner each night and we would eat with other trekkers who had stumbled upon the village.

Our homestay for the first night - we were at breaking point when we arrived here after an extremely difficult day of trekking.

This homestay was nestled in the valley between the mountains. 

We slept in a communal room on thin mats.

The Indian/Tibetan-style food the families cooked for us was delicious; we had rose-shaped steamed dough with spinach and dhal, momos, rice soup, many different types of curry and it ws all vegitarian. We slept on the floor and were woken up at 5 or 6am to get started on the walking before it got too hot.

We would often see donkeys in the valley as this is the only method of transport - they would carry supplies to the villages.

On the first morning I woke up and it smelt like the house was burning down and then a hand poked through the door holding a box with smoke coming out (my second thought was that they were giving us more tea); I discovered that it's a local custom to burn really strong incense in every room each morning to ward off bad spirits!

We climbed up and down the sides of these mountains.

When nature calls the only option for the whole six days was to go beside a rock or, if we were lucky, a mud hut with a hole in the floor at a home-stay; to access these you go up a few steps into a little room, the door is usually a burlap sack, and the waste collects in a pit below which can be accessed from outside. I have developed a bit of a phobia of falling down one of these Indian toilet holes! The more trekkers there are the more disgusting and smelly they are! One day, as I was being very careful not to fall down, my head torch pinged off my head and down the hole! Nightmare! I needed the torch back as there is no electricity at these home-stays and it gets extremely dark at night with the absence of light pollution. So...there I was on my hands and knees with a shovel trying to move the torch through the pile of poo and over to a crack of light I could see underneath; I could feel the excrement all over my arms when I went outside to retrieve the torch from the hole at the bottom edge of the pit. Suffice it to say, when I was done, I sprinted in the pitch black to the icy river and threw myself in.

This was a very smelly mountain goat - apparently they make pashminas out of them!

After each day of walking we would teach the local guides card games or play with the other trekkers. We met some children who were fascinated with us and declared that we were all "very fat" - they'd probably never seen white people before! That night, exhausted from the day's exertions, I fell into a fitful sleep and woke up to a massive spider crawling over my face.

A charity had set up this tiny Eco-cafe in the Himalayas so that villagers could earn money from trekkers. Here is me with the mother and daughter I was trekking as well as a French couple.

On the forth day we went mostly up hill which was exhausting and my brain felt like it was going to explode out of my skull because of the altitude (we went up to 5600m). The views were amazing and we visited a tiny monastery on the way. We had fresh chapatis for breakfast and the family would pack us lunch which was typically some sort of naan bread or roti with vegetables such as okra. We crossed over rickety little bridges and sometimes the river was so high that we had to take off our boots and fight against the current to get to the other side. That night, on the eve of my birthday, we stayed in tents and prepared to cross the highest pass the next day.

Fighting to cross the river! 

Mentok, our guide.

After night number four, a miserable night of violent shivering, on my 26th birthday, I woke up in a tent on top of a mountain absolutely freezing to the sound of a donkey screaming (it sounds exactly a woman being strangled). That day we did loads of strenuous up-hill walking to get to the last peak and we all felt like we were dying. Seven hours later and we arrived at our last home-stay; I can honestly say that I don't think I have ever looked or smelt so bad in my life!! All of us were filthy! After our daily river wash I came to the room and Rut and Leeon had blown up balloons and made me a happy birthday sign! They gave me a little toy monkey that they had bought from a home-stay a few nights before in preparation for my birthday! Somethingaboutmonkeys???!!!

You see that white patch to the left? That was our camp site on my birthday! 

On top of a mountain on 'the roof of the world' (the Himalayas!). 

Birthday surprise! 

On the last day we walked for only two hours and then went to see two monasteries with some giant Buddhas and crazy Buddhist paintings. The past six days have been exhausting but really unforgettable!