Nepal Final Phase pt. 2

Here are some pictures just for a little taste of Nepal: Walking to the base in Kathmandu, Patan Square, The typical hammer and sickle symbol for the beloved Maoists, Sitting on a hill overlooking Pokhara valley, and the building of the god monument for an annual Hindu festival. More pictures later, on to the 2nd half of yestrday's story...

After our hot spring bath, we walked back down to the bottom of the valley to our guest house in Thambuchet. We worked with the children at Pastor Balkrishna's school again and did some open air evangelism very similar to what we had done in Butwal. We didn't have much time left here so we figured it would be best to utilize every second for last minute relationships. It ended up being a pretty good program we did on someone's front porch for about 95% of the villagers.

The next morning we woke up at 5:30 to take a bus over the ridge to our starting point for our hike. We totalled about 30 hours of hiking for the whole two weeks and most of these hours were spent in the last 5 days on the way to and from Gosai Kunda lake. It took us three days of hiking up, up, up, to our final location at the lodge on top. Our first stop on the way was a village called Thulo Syaphru, where we stayed with a Sherpa pastor and attended a church service with him before we hiked to the next village the second day. The songs the Sherpa people were singing were the most beautiful harmonies I have ever heard. It took us two days of hiking many hours to get to the top but it was worth it after we fought ourselves so much about whether or not we could get to the top. One the way up there was such an intense cloud cover that our visibility was only about 10-15 feet in front or behind us, if even that much. This was the most beneficial thing that could have happened since if we had seen how far up we actually had to go, it would have been a whole lot more discouraging than it was. When we were almost there it was sleeting on the path. The frozen rain felt like it cut through our faces. We sat at the top in the lodge eating garlic soup, to help fight the altitude sickness that we all had a bit of a taste of. Our South African leader and one of the teammates of our group actually had to walk back down because of the level of their altitude sickness. We began to pray for them as they started walking and the frozen rain was turning into heavy snowfall. About 10 minutes later, the snow stopped and everyone of us felt like a million bucks. Our teammates were on the way down and we were getting warmed up and drying off and hadn't really enjoyed the lake any. We sat there in the lodge for an hour or two and I decided to go walk around before the sun set and take some pictures. In that two hours of time after we prayed, the snow stopped and the clouds had left the sky above us. We stood at the top and realized that we were above most of the clouds as we were at 14,400 ft. This was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

We spent the night in the lodge that had no heat more than a wood burning stove in the middle of the dining area where they mostly burned coconuts and yak patties (yes I do mean poop). I had to sleep in a full thermal suit with socks, gloves and a hat with a stitched on scarf that you may see more of this coming winter. I almost froze to death and only slept about 2 hours the whole night. The next morning I was very ill with nausea and a headache and didn't feel decent until I yakked up (no pun intended as there were no yaks in the mountains this time of year) all of my rice and potatoes from the ngiht before. I walked down to the lake and we prayed a little, but I walked back up because I felt sick again. The lodge owners were cooking our breakfast and I couldn't even stand the smell because it was making me sick so I packed my things and started to head down the mountain by myself because I knew that the altitude was affecting me and I needed to go lower and lower until I felt better. I left before everyone else and they caught up with me and passed me because I had to stop many times due to the nausea. We got to the half way point down the mountain in a village called Chandanbari where there was a yak cheese factory that I didn't get to enjoy since my altitude sickness had spawned into a virus of sorts. I laid in bed all day with a fever, headache, and nauseous feeling but a bowl of tomato soup and a good nights sleep perked me right up for the other half of the mountain down the next day. Our porters were drinking Nepali homemade millet liquor called rhaksi the whole 5 days, but this day one of them got particularly beligerent and we are not really sure how he didn't fall off the mountain. I didn't agree with paying him for the days work because the other porters had to carry his load to make up for his drunken stupor, but we paid him when we got to the bottom at my disapproval.

We hiked off the mountain to a town called Dhunche. We were all so ready to get back to Kathmandu so we ate a nice expensive meal, which in Nepal is about $4 worth of food, and went to sleep with 7 AM bus tickets in hand. We were almost sweating blood praying for safety for the bus ride home and I actually think at one point I prayed "God if it is possible let this cup pass from me." I learned a bit about the power of prayer as we woke up and carried all of the luggage to the bus and the bus driver said "No buses running today." It was the first day of Nepal's new title as republic instead of monarchy. It became the first annual celebration of this brand new, two-day holiday. Nepalis everywhere were celebrating and we were stuck in Dhunche for another day. I spent 5 hours in my room that day playing games on my iPod, considering the worth of pulling my teeth out for entertainment. We tried to move our flight back so we wouldn't be pressed for time but Thai Airways didn't have another flight running all the way to Penang for another week. We "had" to rent a jeep to go back to Kathmandu (Praise the Lord!). We piled up in a jeep the next day and made it to Kathmandu in a safe vehicle. Our prayers were answered. We made it to Thamel, the tourist district, for one last night of souvenier shopping and good food before our flight the next day and now here we are in Malaysia killing time until our trip to KL before our flights home.