Start of the Annapurna Trek - Besi Sahar

My guide for this trip was Padam, Kirk’s guide from my original Everest trip and my guide for Gokyo Ri. With his help dealing with the police we still had a little time to be tourists and he took me to the Pashupati Temple. The holiest Hindu temple in Kathmandu, it exemplified the “Circle of Life.” They have both cremations and weddings going on simultaneously. Both ceremonies were heavily attended, at least if you counted the wild monkeys darting in and out of the structures.

To get to the start of the trek, we took a local bus to Besi Sahar. It was full of all the pains of a local bus: bad seats, frequent stops, and delays caused by haggling locals negotiating a ride for a few kilometers. It reminded me of a larger version of the buses in Tanzania. We passed one non-picturesque village after another. As we got closer the villages got dumpier and dumpier. Although larger than the other villages, Besi Sahar looked just as bad.

The story continues...