Chame -> Upper Pisang – Walking on Sunshine

9. March 2023

 

 

I woke up. It was very cold in the room. There was brightness through the curtains. I opened them: yaaaaa! Sunshine! High snow-covered mountains! I jumped out of bed, looked here and there, ate my breakfast, shouldered my backpack and started walking. Actually, maps.me doesn’t need it for orientation – and it also produces oddities like this:

 

 

I didn’t need 22 hrs. and neither 2,2 km walking up and down. What a joker. I walked through Chame.

 

 

And looked back:

 

 

The trekkers crawled out of all the lodges and started hiking. And there were so many of them that I was amazed. I actually met some of the people in this photo more often, for example Sofi, who is walking in front of me. She is a 33-year-old Vietnamese woman who had also lived in Berlin for a year. She was walking alone, slowly, persistently, meditating and had a great will to master everything.

 

 

And also I was photographed by chance:

 

 

You walked on the road track for a long time, but this was not so bad as there were few cars on the road.

 

 

At some point, I got annoyed by the crowds and simply took a longer break. And then I was almost alone until noon.

 

 

 

 

As you can see, quite a bit has gone down the slopes. They say that more has been coming down since road construction. But maybe it’s also climate change and thus at the same time. Anyway, I enjoyed the sun and the walking (the backpack wasn’t too heavy either) and of course “Walking on sunshine” by Katrina & the Waves settled on my lips.

 

Soon I came across an apple farm in Bhratang and was able to look into the factory building.

 

 

 

 

The landscape was fantastic, the mountain formations varied, the vegetation too, huge mountains all around you – and I actually didn’t get it photographed the way I saw it. Grmpf.

 

 

 

Up to midday it was more of a narrow valley, after midday the landscape widened and there were beautiful trees.

 

 

 

You could decide whether to continue on the track to Lower Pisang or branch off to Upper Pisang. I did the second and hiked up a little more and had a great view from there. In the meantime it was getting cloudy. I found a place to stay and went to explore the village. There were some nice old stone houses and a newer monastery at the top.

 

 

 

 

 

There were no or hardly any monks in all the monasteries. They all spend the winter in Kathmandu or so and only return at the end of March. Until then, someone else takes care of the necessary rituals and visitors.

 

There were only six of us in the lodge: 1 German couple plus guide + porter, 1 French Swiss and me. It was, in retrospect, the non-nicest of the accommodations despite the kitchen looking so cosy. There was also a stove in the restaurant/common room that was turned on in the evening. But when it threatened to go out soon after dinner, no wood was added. We looked hopefully at the guide to see if he could ask. Oh no, he wouldn’t dare, it would be better if I did it. So I asked for another piece of wood. The grumpyness on the woman’s face as she disdainfully brought it into the stove, scowled at us and left without a look was quite something to behold. And no, compared to other accommodations, we really hadn’t wanted an undue amount of warmth.

 

 

And so we all went to bed soon, eagerly awaiting the next morning and the next day’s hike.

 

The fact that the pictures don’t really reflect the landscape the way I felt about it really pisses me off in retrospect. So: it was better than on the photos!