...and a Deep-Fried Snickers Bar

Short Version:
We sleep in, then walk from Marpha to Larjung.

Stats:
Total Walk Time Day 15 = 3:45
Cumulative Total Walk Time = 70:15
Beer Time = 37:15

Long Version:
Marpha Morning:
We're awake at 0630, but stay in bed for another hour. Luxury!
The clouds that threatened rain yesterday afternoon have gone, and the orchards and fields we can see from our window are bathed in sunlight.
When we finally drag ourselves out of bed and out to the conservatory for breakfast, we see locals galore going about their business outside; some are plowing fields with handmade implements strapped onto water buffalo*; others are on the road, travelling to school, or to a near (or far!) village with things to sell. Some of these people have huge bundles of stuff perched on their heads.
The conservatory is cold, so we go downstairs to a grand-looking open atrium area with a huge table that just happens to have a fired-up brazier underneath one end. Warm feets = happy us!

********

Most maps of the Annapurna Circuit show the route following the road for pretty much the whole length of the Kali Gandhaki valley run. That didn't really appeal - despite having had a crack at walking the road between Muktinath and Marpha and finding it nowhere near as bad as we'd feared it might be - and it turned out that there was an alternate trail on the far side of the river, untried by guide or porter, that led where we wanted to go. So, a step (or several) into the unknown!

We started on the road, but soon turned left/east, crossing a bridge and passing through a place that signs indicated was a Tibetan Camp and then turning south, downvalley, along unpaved and semi-paved paths bounded by stone walls. Water was abundant, orchards flourished on all sides, and the people in the villages we passed through looked happy and prosperous in comparison to their counterparts on the other side of Thorong La. We passed a seemingly well-provisioned school, devoid of children as it was a Saturday (who knew?!?!?), which is the one day each week that children do not attend**.

We saw a tiny musha, and a skink, and we climbed some hills. The terrain reminded us of Flagstaff, AZ, and Bend, OR. One hill was high enough that we were looking down on birds of prey circling in the thermal updrafts. Every hill we climbed, though, we descended again, returning each time to the river, which we eventually crossed next to a large bridge that would have spanned the entire river valley, back when all its sections were intact. As it was, we found a series of small, rudimentary timber bridges, each spanning one slender arm of the low-water-season river, and rejoined the road just north of Kobang, which was a mid-sized village beneath a cliff pockmarked with inhabited caves.

We arrived at our lodge in Larjung just as the wind picked up to unpleasant levels, and found Uzir waiting for us on the rooftop terrace. We also found that we could see down across the flat roof and into the central courtyard of the building next-door, which meant we got to watch a man hanging goat parts from hooks, as well as having a birds-eye view of the corn and chillies drying in the sun. We negotiated a tortuous path to our room via the dining room, which had been filled by a large group of Germans who didn't deign to get themselves or their masses of gear out of the way so we - or the people attempting to bring them their lunches - could get past. Wankers.

We ate delicious foods not near the Germans, then set off to explore the village. Unfortunately, that meant walking up, although not especially arduously. We passed water buffalo and chickens and cows, we saw corn and beans and buckwheat drying, we saw a truck that had rolled down a bank. We saw men plowing fields, women carrying hay, children playing on the flat rooftops. One did a cartwheel to impress Nene and lost his shoe over the edge of the roof. We saw a temple or three, and we saw a carpenter's workshop, which was interesting enough that Ganga stepped in a large cowpat while staring in through the window.

Oh, and we saw mountains, including the one we were planning to climb in the morning.

Then we ate delicious foods, and a deep-fried Snickers bar, and then we went to bed. At 7:30pm.







* = Byushi, which we variously misheard as mushi, yushi, and bushi before getting it right. If we got it right.

** = Early start half-day on Friday as well. Sunday to Thursday children from 6 to 18 are expected to be in school between 10am and 4pm