Nepal: Trekking in Annapurna Mountains (18-23 Dec)

Flew into the disastrous Kathmandu airport on 15 December - a bad omen, the luggage conveyor belt was not working so we had to make a chain of people down the luggage chute & around passing the bags up manually. Laughable now, not so much at the time.

Headed out west to regional centre of Pokhara (Crazy ride on bus en route there! Tiny mountain track filled with goats, chickes, cows & bicycles - barely wide enough for two bikes to pass.)

Then 4 days trekking (later learned the route was normally done over 6 days - no wonder we're tired!) in Annapurna Mountain range [Naya Pul > Tikkedhunga > Ghorepani > Ghandruk > Naya Pul & home]. Absolutely gorgeous! Crisp snow capped peaks of 7,500m+ towering above & drawing your gaze from any angle. Divine. Reached peak of 3,210m at Poon Hill to watch sunrise.

The landscape is incredible! Steep, precipitous valleys with most hills terraced and actually farmed. Amazing! Most of the way the path was a virtually a little road of slate stones, through villages full of guesthouses & shops. Didn't make the walk up thousands of stairs any easier, but we were amazed people could live so self-sustainably up there.

We shared the path with some tourists, but not heaps & the regular mountain traffic: donkey trains carrying all kinds of load & Sherpas carrying what looked like 2-3x their own weight on their backs!