The Future is Now! (wait a minute... no it's not, it's in THE FUTURE)

Short Version:
We walk from Larjung to Tatopani. Hot pool action!

Stats:
Total Walk Time Day 17 = 7:45
Cumulative Total Walk Time = 88:30
Beer Time = 39:30

Long Version:
Larjung Morning, Take II:
Another early start, and once again friendly lodge staff bustle about as we sterilise water and eat our delicious eggy breakfast.
The two highest peaks of Dhaulagiri are catching the first sunlight as we set off.


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Our preference for not-road walking meant that instead of heading south out of town down the road we went east, across the valley and the river's several branches, and into the forest, where we meandered our way along, and up, and down, and and up, and along, and etc throughout most of the early morning.

Mid-morning saw us back on the west side of the river, perched on stone walls outside a lodge, eating cookies and listening to two Nepali women arguing inside. We'd been asked if we wanted to go in for a cup of tea, but the disagreement was quite vehement, and the day was nice, so we stayed where we were, feeding bits of biscuit to the chickens, and the occasional whole cookie to the retarded man who wandered over to join us.

And then we were off again, through villages large and small, wealthy and not, crossing and recrossing the river, which had dropped away from the long wide upper valley and into a steep gorge filled with cream-and-green boulders.

We stopped for lunch at a lodge near the base of a huge waterfall that poured over the western cliff and into the gorge, and sat in the sun beneath a tamarillo tree as a waiter in a Misfits t-shirt took our order. Kind of idyllic, until the sun dropped behind the lip of the cliff, and the cook came and stood next to us to conduct a shouted conversation with her friends on the other side of the river, and the "potato rosty w egg" arrived with no egg but with extra rubberiness. Nene's egg drop soup* was good though, and seeing the old bloke getting his gnarled and twisted legs massaged by younger women was a neat peek into the future.

We walked the sunny side of the river all afternoon, past schools and temples and lodges, past oranges and buckwheat growing, past millet and beans drying, past beehives made from hollowed logs with mud-cemented endcaps, past a petrol-powered rice-mill machine - vastly different from what we'd seen way back in Bahundallah! - and past villages of all shapes and sizes. One village had the main trail winding right past the doorsteps and through the front yards of the homes, which was kind of odd.

We learned how to say "lizard"**.

And then we were crossing the river on one last rickety bridge, and making our way down the main street of Tatopani*** to our lodge, where we spent just enough time to stare out our room window at the massive group of identically-clad East Asians - including a dwarf - who'd overrun the lodge across the street and to get ourselves prepped for our eagerly- and long-awaited trip to the Tatopani Hot Springs.

Unfortunately, the asshat Israelis reappeared not long after we arrived.
Fortunately, they got into the other pool, which put them out of earshot, and hidden from view by the central fountain thing at which various porters and guides were bathing; lots of suds, some undies, occasional nudity. One of the undies-clad ones looked like a cross between Stop-era Perry Farrell and modern-day Lote Tuqiri.

We lounged for a couple of hours, drinking beer and enjoying the soak, then dried off and walked home, past the Bob Marley bar and past the men watching old pro-wrestling footage of Andre the Giant on a tiny TV in a semi-closed grocery store.

Cheese-bean burrito and salami pizza and early to bed.


Beer Stats:
Beer Drunk = 1
Beer Time = 31:30
Time to Next Beer = 0:00









* = Soup (tomato, this time) with an egg cracked into it.

** = Chaparro

*** = "Hot Water"