The Weather app on my silly hand device shows a potential temperature of -17 degrees Celsius in Mardi Himal. Half of the blood cells freeze just by looking at that. Very concerned, I keep asking Maniram, our guide, if we need extra layers, gaiters, micro spikes...basically all the jargons that I have managed to add to my dictionary by now.
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| Good Morning, Pokhara! |
Maniram just smiles. He smiles if the Sun is shining, he smiles if the sky is overcast. So even though his smile teaches me a lot of wisdom, it doesn't pacify my tense mind.
We make a visit to a trekking gear shop in Pokhara to pick up a few micro spikes for our shoes. Maniram suggests something to save cost, ‘Maybe just take one? Can you walk with spikes on one shoe and use that support to move the other feet on ice?!’ Sadly, the answer is no. I have got no real talent for trekking other than my addiction for mountains. So, I let go of some money and rent the spikes.
After this, we get our trekking permits done and then hit the road. We see a shape of a mountain on the way which the locals refer to as ‘sleeping buddha’ (not to confuse with The Sleeping Buddha i.e. Kangchenjunga we know). It looks a bit like the side face contour of a person.
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| Can you spot the face? |
We drive for an hour from the Pokhara lake side to get to ‘Kande’, the trail head. It’s almost mid-day. The Sun shines high, automatically infusing a positive energy around. A little gap in the road makes way through the houses and farms and very quickly, we are on to some hilly steps.
Time to fuel the legs now!
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