Day 4: Ngawal via Gyaru

10.7.08
7:45 am

Morning in Upper Pisang:
---------------------------------------------

Bright sunny day,
chasing away morning clouds.

Annapurna II towers above,
looks formidable,
"Himalaya" - abode of snow.

A wall of snow and ice,
rising behind green mountains,
prominent and chiseled features,
as if sculpted by hand.

Exposed patches of rock,
too steep or protected,
for snow to accumulate.

Ridge between east and north face,
sharp as a knife,
beautiful chutes and gullies,
descend from the ridge.

A work of art
expressed on the canvas,
a great variation in form and texture.

Does someone actually climb this?

------------------------------

- enjoyed a scrumptious breakfast: cornbread, buckwheat bread, honey, tsampa (so good!), apple porridge.

The hike from Upper Pisang to Gyaru to Ngawal is beautiful. We took a break at a nice little teahouse in Gyaru. An older lady served us tea, she started conversing with me as I obviously looked Nepali/Indian. She didn't speak much hindi but we communicated nonetheless. Her son spoke English; I left him my novel by Chetan Bhagat. He had moved back from Kathmandu 7 years ago. He was a tattoo artist there, but since his father passed away he helps his mother run the teahouse. He likes Gyaru, it is beautiful but very boring for him.

In Ngawal, we are staying in Kailash guesthouse. It is another very nice, simple, family run establishment. Maya, our host speaks good hindi and english. We invited ourselves to her kitchen, instead of sitting in the dining area, and chatted with her as she made our meals. She was born here and loves this area, it is beautiful. We're eating `thenthuk'; it is a type of stew with lots of vegetables and some dough cooked in it which tastes a little like noodles.

A lot of food grows here, like wheat, buckwheat, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, radish.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Try, try, try again till you succeed ...

or something breaks. I saw a guy trying to fix the tape player on the rooftop terrace. I was curious so I started working with him. He was only too happy to share with me his diagnosis of the problem. He meticulously took the pieces apart. After poking and looking at it, I too understood why it was not quite working - mechanical problem. We used cardboard to fix it, we thought we have a clever idea and were excitedly implementing it. But my friend lost a small piece in the process of pulling things apart. Plus it got cold; as we were engaged in our activity, the clouds had lifted. My friend points out Annapurna II (7555m). Magnificent! We decided to go inside since the sun was disappearing and it was getting cold. There was no light inside - I can help with that with my headlamp. He put the tape recorder back together but we are disappointed as it does not work, or rather it is inconclusive because the missing piece has broken something else. Here we had to stop as we couldn't improvise the missing piece. Sonam is a teacher at the Tibetan school below and also an electrician, up here to set up the electrical system on the lowest floor of Maya's guesthouse.