Hello Everybody, I am going to
share my trekking Experience of Gosaikunda pass, as per I can remember all the
moments of trekking I will try to share.
After completion of our big
festival Dashain, we decided for an adventurous trekking towards Gosaikunda
pass, on this trek we were 4 people, Aashish Raj Dali, Gaurab Pradhan (me),
Mukesh Maharjan and Rupesh dai. We had limited time and limited budget, so
according to our time and budget we had customized our trekking route. All of
us were excited for this trekking, we decided to move on October 16, 2011, we
took bus ticket from Machapokhari, Balaju, Kathmandu, 3-4 days ago because it
was tourist season.
Duration: 6 Days
Budget per person: Around Rs. 5000
Max. Altitudes: 4610 M
Starting Point: Dhunche
Ending Point: Chanaute
Short Description about Gosaikunda
Gosaikunda is located at an
altitude of 4,380 m (14,370 ft.) in the Rasuwa District, which is a part of
Langtang trek, one of the famous trekking routes in Nepal. Gosaikunda is also a
religious site for a hindu religion. It is popular among tourist as a Frozen
Lakes.
Day 1 (16 Oct. 2011) Kathmandu to
Dhunche
On First Day of our trip we had an
adventurous local bus ride from Kathmandu to Dhunche along with Trishuli which
took about 8 hours ride, where we experienced the thrilling narrow rough roads.
During our ride, we had a company of locals as well as some foreigner people in
the bus. Interacting with the foreigners during the bus trip definitely added
some good time in our trip. During the interaction, we came to know that one of
the foreigners had lost his wallet on the bus so all the passenger inside the
bus started to look for his wallet but unfortunately no one found. After that
incident we were also aware and checked our stuff. But unfortunately, Ashish’s
wallet was missing so we started looking for it. All of us were in a tensed
situation because we lost about Rs 10,000 which was definitely a huge amount to
lose before starting our trip. So we started looking for it but we didn't find
the wallet. I was collecting money before we started out trip except Ashish
everybody gave, ashish was planning to give his money to me in Dhunche, but he
lost his wallet, all of us were worried about his wallet and the trip.
As
the road was rough and it was a hilly road with lots of turning and bus was
full of passengers which made me motion sick. By the time we reached Trishuli
for lunch and I directly went in front of the bus and start looking under seat,
at the middle row of bus between seat there was some luggage so I went near
that luggage and checked on the side of luggage I found Ashish’s wallet every
one of us was happy and we went to take a lunch, as I was not feeling good
inside bus so I and rupesh dai decided to go on the roof of the bus, we both
had good and bad experience on the roof of the bus. Road from ktm to dhunche
was really danger, before reaching dhunche we have to cross a place called
Ramche, road of the ramche was completely off, and it was a landslide
area, after crossing ramche safely we had an minor accident.
Finally
we reached Dhunche, and we started searching hotel. We stayed at Dragon hotel,
where we took one room with 4 beds, after taking rest we went out of hotel to
walk around Dhunche. We enjoyed the beautiful views there. We had a great time
where we click some pictures and had a mustang coffee for the first time.
Mustang coffee is hot local alcohol with ghee and Lovage (Jwanu in nepali),
Then we had our dinner in a local restaurant which was great. And back to the
hotel for night stay where we exchanged our feelings about first day trip with
each other and made plans for next day trip. After that we went back to bed
early because we was tired from the long bus ride as well as we have to wake up
early in the morning.
Day 2 (17 Oct. 2011) Dhunche to
Laurebinayak
With all the excitement for our next
destination, we waked up early in the morning about
5:00 AM and prepared
ourselves for the real trekking as we were about to walk whole day. It was our
first trekking to all of us, we were excited. Our destination was to reach
Gosaikunda. After our breakfast we started walking at 6.30 AM with full energy,
I was carrying two bags one from back and other from front, after few minutes
later we reached at the entry point of our trekking, there was a hoarding board
by Langtang National Park where
there were information about Altitude Sickness. From last one
month, before starting our journey I have done few researches on Altitude
sickness so I was prepared and aware as well as I made aware to others as well,
for more information about altitude sickness you can check my previous post click here.
Mukesh and I was leading the road, Rupesh dai was slow because he had a problem
with his leg so ashish gave him a company, finally after few hours I don’t
remember the exact time we reached at the Deurali, in front of us there was
Deurali’s Uphill (Deurali ko Ukalo), it was straight uphill and we heard from
lots of people it is one of the tough part of trekking.
After Deurali, we reached at
Dhimsa(3030 M) in the mid-day, to reach Dhimsa it took 4 to 5 hours for us from
Dhunche, we decided to take our lunch over there, Dal Bhat (Neplai food) Power
24 Hours, we ordered our lunch, until lunch was ready, we were enjoying views
from Dhimsa , clicking some pictures, looking the map and calculating time to
reach our destination, by the time our lunch was on our table without wasting
time we ate our lunch and then took rest for a while and again we was ready for
our destination.
After 2 hours we reached ChandanBari, it is also known as shin gumba,
Chandanbari is a beautiful place which lies at 3330 M. There was very few guest
houses and all of them were full by Foreigners, in Chandanbari there is a cheeses
factory it’s a yak chesses, we purchased cheeses and enjoyed it, after that we
again start walking. Suddenly there was a change on climate and we felt
something falling from the sky that was our first snow fall. After that we
reached to Chyolangpati and it started raining, it was heavy rain fall with
hailstones, we could not walk on that rain so we took rest on Chyolangapati
there were only 2 Tea House with limited rooms, we entered into the first tea
house, tea house was full of Foreigners, guide and potters. We was feeling cold
so we went near fire and ordered teas, we were waiting for rain to stop and
continue our trek, but there was no sign of that so while waiting we had conversation with guides, One of
the guide was sharing his experience of trekking he looks like Sherpa, while
chatting with him we asked are you Sherpa or Tamanag? He said no, I am Newar,
then we were shocked, he said I am Shrestaa not Shrestha , and then we asked
are they different we know only Shrestha we have never heard about Shrestaa
then he added yes they are different, environment was getting more friendly by
the time, after 3 hours rain fall was over and we decided to continue our trek,
Mr. Shrestaa said today you guys cannot reach Gosaikunda, you guys can reach up
to Laurebinayak, after few hours it will get dark and don’t walk in dark, it
may be danger. He said us to stay there, although on that Tea House all rooms
were full he said you guys can sleep on the dining hall. But according to our
time and budget limitation we decided to continue our trek at least we could
reach to Laurebinayak for night stay. Now all of us was ready to walk again, we
said good bye to all of them, and we stored that lovely moment of 3 hours in
our mind, although we were out of schedule by 3 hours, but that moment was
best.
Slowly it was getting dark, we did not have enough torch light so it was
difficult to walk, Mukesh was giving company to Rupesh dai so they were
slow, me and Ashsih increased our speed, in front of us there was uphill road
we climbed it as soon as possible even though we were tired we did not take any
rest and continued walking, finally we saw some lights coming from and went
over there that was a lodge and we were in Laurebinayak at 3910 M and it was
7:00 pm, completely dark, Ashsih just threw his bag and took rest, I went
inside the hotel before I entered one Israeli guy opened the door and spoke in
Hebrew, he thought I was Israeli too, I said him I am nepali, then he said oh
Sorry !! come inside its cold out there, I entered into lodge, inside lodge on
a dining hall there were lots of foreigner, few Nepali trekkers, guide and
potters, I directly went to counter and asked the owner whether there is a room
for a night stay for 4 people?? Hotel owner said we have only one room, it will
be enough for 4 people, then I asked for the key, by the time Ashish, Mukesh
and Rupesh Dai came inside the hotel, we went to our room and then came back to
the dining room, we were also involved in that group, we also shared our whole
day experience, Nepalese trekkers group were surprised that we came from
Dhunche to Laurebinayak in one day, those people were senior than us. We
ordered food for dinner Nepalese trekkers group offered us Yak Dry Meat (Yak ko
Sukuti) without feeling shy we enjoyed our rice with yak dry meat, and later on
they also offered us Hot Rice Alcohol. Well drinking alcohol at high altitude
is not good, you get altitude sickness, but we thought single glass will not be
a problem and it will make our body warm as well so me, ashsih and rupesh dai
took one of those and went to bed early, all of us was too tired and it was
freezing cold. It was too cold we could not sleep well. It was first night at
3910 M.
Day 3 (18 Oct. 2011) Laurebinayak to
Phedi
It was 5.00 AM when we waked up,
outside all the tables and chairs was full of snow, by seeing those snow and
beautiful Langtang we forget our pain, with this excitement we got ready for
our next destination.
At the beginning Due
to cold it was little bit difficult for us because we did not have any good
trekking gears, we had no gloves, no good shoes etc. Anyway we managed with
what we have. After climbing uphill we reached to the temple. There was a
religious belief that we have to leave laurow (Wooden Stick) that we have used
in our trek on that temple and go without it upto Gosaikunda. And we did same
things. We enjoyed good view of Ganesh Himal (Mountain) and Langtang from that
temple. You can imagine the combination of White Mountain with morning sun rays.
There was narrow
road, so we start walking more carefully, after few hours walk, we saw small
lake on the way, that lake was saraswatikund, and then next to saraswatikund we
saw another lake, it was BhairavKunda, which was black and it looks scary. And
after walking few distance we saw small part of lake, well that was Gosaikunda,
all of was happy and paused for a while by seeing the beautiful lakes, we
reached to Tea House, ordered tea and we gave our noodles to cook and took rest
by enjoying surrounding. Gosaikunda is on 4380 m, there were only 3-4Lodges. In
Gosaikunda area there are 108 lakes altogether, it was not possible for us to
see all the lakes on short period of time. After eating our noodles, we went to
Gosaikunda for a holy bath, Gosaikunda is not only tourist place it is also a
religious place. Although it was too cold we did not cared about it and took
fast bath on the side of lake, after taking bath all of us was feeling good, it
was like as if our energy was recharged. We spend few hours in Gosaikunda, took
few photographs from normal digital camera, we wish if we had a DSLR camera we
would click more beautiful pictures and then again we were ready to move, our
destination for day was phedi.
Now our challenge for
a day was Laurebinayak pass which is at 4610 m, we had to climb up to reach
Laurebinayak pass and it was a rocky trail. On the way to phedi from Gosaikunda
we saw few more lakes. Among those lakes I remember only some lakes Surya Kund,
Buddha Kund and other beautiful lakes. In between Gosaikunda and Phedi there
are no tea Houses and lodge. We had carried enough dry food like noodles, Flattened rice also known as beaten rice
(in nepali Chiura), Gundruk’s pickle (fermented leafy green vegetable),
snickers, mars etc. With the beautiful view we enjoyed our
food and started walking.
At 3 or 4 pm we reached to our destination phedi, at 3730 m. We booked
the room and ordered food for lunch. After that we went to our room for some
rest, by that time we asked a bottle of hot water for which we have to pay
about RS 300 per bottle but as we are Nepali so the owner provide us free and
we made coffee from that and enjoyed that evening with some good hot coffee. It
was same menu in Phedi as well, so after our lunch, we took some rest in our
room and were planning for next day trek and I was calculating the expenses
till now and remaining budget.
Day 4 (19 Oct. 2011) Phedi to
Mangengoath
As usual we waked up early and got ready for today’s destination,
according to map we had forecasted about today’s trek and came to conclusion
that today it will not be tough trek in compare to before, form the place where
stayed for night (Phedi) we could see some roof of tea house on Ghopte which is
at 3430 m. We planned to take our day lunch over there.
After clearing the entire bill, we slowly left
phedi, after few hours walk, we took rest and had some snack, chocolate bars
and continued our trek enjoying the beautiful views on the way. On the way, we
met a boy who was walking alone, his name was Shashi. He was travelling with
his father and some tourists. We took some rest where the boy was sitting and
had a conversation with him, he was studying in Kathmandu at grade 9 and
coincidently his school was near to our college. Then we walked together sharing
all the experience we had during pass days. Finally after we reached Ghopte
(3430 m) and took some rest and ordered potato momo for our lunch, we spend few
times at ghopte and started walking. On the way, my bag was torn, so I shifted
all the belongings to another bag and friend’s bag, and then I threw that bag
on the way, anyway I was more comfortable with one bag.
We were climbing up to reach Thadepati 3690 m; it
was on height than ghopte. After reaching Thadepati we took rest and enjoyed
tea and chowmin, after few minutes we met Sashi’s family, Sashi’s father said
us to stay at Thadepati and continue trek with them through helambu trekking
route which will take few more days to reach Kathmandu. We had very limited
time so we did not join them and continued our trek. After few hours we reached
our destination of the day Mangengoath (3420 m). We took 2 rooms to stay, after
taking rest we started planning our next day trip, our plan was to walk up to
sundarijal but rupesh dai had problem in his leg, so we made changes in our
plan, and according to our new plan tomorrow we have to reach Chanaute village
and we will stay night over there and take bus to Kathmandu on next day. At
night we had a great time with the other guest, talking with them, sharing our trekking
experience as well as listening theirs too. By that time, our dinner was ready,
after having dinner we went to bed early.
Day 5
(20 Oct. 2011) Mangengoath to Chanaute
Today was our last day of trek, as usual we
waked up and did our daily routine stuff and got ready for trek. At 7.00 am we
started walking from mangengoath. As we were climbing down slowly altitude was
decreasing and we could feel differences.
After
3-4 hours we reached Kutumsang (2470 m), that place was our turning point, form
kutumsang our plan A’s and plan B’s routes get separated. We had our lunch over
there and spend few times there. We collected little information about our way
to Chanaute with the locals and we were ready to go ahead. We were walking by
the help of local people because it was quite confusing route, there wear lots
of linked road. We were walking through a forest. The forest was quite dense
and we felt like we were lost in that jungle, but not worried, there was simple
logic because our destination was at lower altitude so we should climb down.
After few hours of walking on the forest, we saw few clothes throwing on trees,
by seeing that we were little bit afraid and alert and continue our walk more
carefully. Finally we crossed forest safely, and reach a village. From that
village, we headed toward chanaute village. At that time we took wrong route
but fortunately we saw one school boy, we took his help to find our to chanaute
bazzar. For that help, we gave him a packet of wai wai noodles and some
chocolates. After walking few hours, we saw water pipe line, which made us
happy, we followed that pipe line and after sometime we saw a beautiful river
flow near the small bazzar, we met some people and asked them the name of that
river, they said that was Indrawati but that was not the right name of that
river. Then we move down to the village which our final destination was called
Chanaute village (1360 m). We were stranger at Chanaute, everybody was looking
at us. We were in search of hotel to stay, and we found one from where we got
the correct name of the river Melamchi, we took 2 rooms on that beautiful
cottage. There was electricity so all of was hurry to charge cell phone and
camera. As today was our last day of trek so we decided to celebrate, we went
at bank of Melamchi River and order beer and enjoyed it with beautiful Melamchi
River. We had really wonderful dinner at Chanaute with local chicken. We asked
local people about the bus to Kathmandu, they told at 7.00 AM you will get
first bus to Kathmandu. All of us were too tired so we went to bed early, and
tomorrow we need to wake up early to catch first bus.
Day 6
(21 Oct. 2011) Chanaute to Kathmandu
Last day to trip, all of was sad to be back in
regular schedule. As usual we waked up early and got ready and we went near
bridge and wait for the bus. Finally Bus arrived and went inside the bus. It
was 3-4 hours bus ride to Kathmandu and we finally reached Kathmandu back to
home sweet home.
6:48 AM
Gaurab
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