Tamang Heritage Trail

Trek number 3 was a wonderful trip. It took place in two different places. The first place was an area called the Tamang Heritage Trail and the second was the Langtang area. Both were amazing and I loved every minute of the trip. My first entry will be about my time in the Tamang Heritage Trail.

We left Kathmandu at about 7:30 in the morning. It took us about 45 minutes just to make it about a mile down the road. We happened to be leaving on the biggest holiday in all of Nepal. We didn’t have a ticket prior to leaving so we showed up that morning ready to find a bus. Well all the insides of the buses were filled so we had to sit up top. We hoped on the next bus headed to Shaphru Besi. That was the beginning of a very long day. We had to ride on the back of the top of the bus. My butt was split by the bars I had to sit on. I had no cushion. At one point I had to stand on the back of the bus just to give my butt a rest. We started out with some cool weather before the sun came out. After the sun came out it began to get really hot. We baked in the sun for a few hours. Then came the dirt road. It started out with yellow dirt and changed to white dirt. After about 7 hours of riding the bus it broke down. Luckily I had my hammock and was able to take a nice nap for about 2 hours. The kids on the bus had never seen a hammock before and were intrigued by it. After I had put it up they began to swing it for me. After the bus got fixed we hoped back on top and headed on towards our final destination. Right when we hoped back on the bus it began to drizzle, that drizzle turned into a light sprinkle, that light sprinkle turned into a heavy sprinkle, and that turned into a rain. It was absolutely miserable. For 2 hours we rode on top in the rain and got completely soaked. After that 2 hours we were able to move into the bus for the last 2 hours. Come to find out that a dog was able to get inside before I was able to. We were on the road for almost 15 hours. The next day got a lot better. We headed from Shaphru Besi to a small village called Gatlang. We arrived in the late afternoon and discovered a wonderful surprise. The point of us being in the area was to do research on the Tamang people group. Anything we could find out we wrote down. One of the greatest things we were able to find out was that in the Gatlang area at least 80% of the people are Christians. We were surprised by the amount of Buddhist things in the village. We asked the owner of our lodge and he said that most of it was for show. It was pretty crazy. From Gatlang we headed to a nice little placed called Tatopani. Now if you know anything about the language of Nepal you would know that Tatopani means hot water. This nice little town had hot springs that they had had pumped into some pools. They were natural hot springs. We took a nice little bath after we had walked in the rain for a few hours that day. We were able to hang out in the kitchen and warm up. The best part was being able to dry out our clothes that had been soaked that day. After Tatopani we headed to Thuman. We walked through a lovely little village called Gayang. This village is on the top of a “hill” that has the most wonderful view. To bad the clouds had rolled in and the view was obscured. What should have been a beautiful view turned out to be nothing. The great thing about Thuman was the brand new lodge we got to stay in. We were the first ones to stay in the lodge, which was great until the next morning. There were about 60 people that decided to come to the lodge to bless it at about 6 in the morning. It was a great wake up call. Although we did wake up to a beautiful view. We could see the mountains in full view. After breakfast we made our way to Briddhm. We took a les direct path instead of going the normal way we went the Nepali way. Straight down and straight up. At the bottom we decided to go fro a swim/bath. I had a great little fall. Well it actually wasn’t that small. I rolled about 10 feet or so down some rocks. I cut up my ankle a little, banged up my bag a little, and cut open my pants. After that we took a nice cold bath in straight glacier melt water. It’s some of my favorite water to swim in. The cold water does the body good. We made it to Briddhim late in that afternoon and stayed in a great lodge. When we got there we found a man who had been bitten by a snake and his arm had begun to swell up. He prayed for him and paid for him to be portered to a American doctor that was doing medical clinics in a nearby village. So that is the end of our adventures on the Tamang Heritage Trail. The following day we would be heading up to Langtang. The first half of the journey was incredible, except for the rain and the falling down. This is one place I would like to return to in my life. Maybe next time I will bring my family.