Distance - 5 miles
Time - 4 hrs
Elevation - from 6,397 to 7,414
Equivalent flights of stairs = a blessedly small 100 flights
Out of the twelve, this was my favorite day. We departed the "trekking trail" which follows the river and turned onto the "pilgrim's trail" which climbs from the valley south, towards the sacred lake of Gosaikunda. What made this day memorable was our destination - the beautiful village of Thulo Shyafru. I would've happily stayed there for the rest of our journey.
We slept well in Bamboo, despite the roar of the nearby river and a hoard of winged bugs staring down at us from the ceiling of our tea house. I took a video showing how close we slept to the river.
After an hour of climbing our destination came into view. The arrow points to Thulo Shyafru, a narrow ribbon of houses perched along the ridge of a terraced mountain. It was close if you were a bird, but we would be taking a winding trail up and left, skirting the nearby mountain, then descending to the river between them, across a long suspension bridge and up again.
On our way up we caught our first clear view of some monkeys. They were sitting high in the trees and squawking freely until they heard our footsteps. Here is a video of them:
A view of Thulo Shyafru from the neighboring mountain. The entire hillside was terraced and planted with corn, wheat and barley. A bright white stupa adorned the lower edge of the town with most of the houses balanced on the ridge above it. Tomorrow we would be climbing up through the forested mountain behind it.
I was momentarily confused by a rumble of thunder, being that there was nothing but blue sky. MB and Naresh stopped, whirred around nervously, looking at the heights above us. It wasn't thunder but a rock slide - they sound exactly the same. They pointed out the resulting plume of smoke behind us and we moved on.
The suspension bridge looked like a shoestring from this angle.
In this video I trace our remaining walk across the bridge, down along the trail and up through the terraces to the town.
I was the last one across. I noticed this bridge was less well maintained than the others. Large swaths of the side netting were missing and many of the bolts in the floor planks were sitting up, exposing their threads. I bounced along nevertheless.
On our climb up, we were treated to wild raspberries.
I had to goad the Dodo into trying them, she is used to these coming out of a pretty box.
Most of the corn on the lower terraces was still young though there were a few plots with tassels.
This was the first real village we'd seen in our trek, the previous were seasonal - set up just to serve trekkers and abandoned during the low season.
The clear difference showed in the variety and abundance of the cropland surrounding the village. Nobody carries food here, it is grown on site.
Barley and corn drying on a tarp in the sun. In the neighboring yard two women were threshing long clumps of wheat by hand, taking turns beating it against a wooden fence.
This is the view from the bottom of town looking south east.
Looking east.
Compared to the houses in the trekker villages, these were more ornate and decorated with flowers.
Our tea house felt like an opulent mansion. We had a tiled bathroom, a regular flush toilet, and airtight windows.
It's all relative - we were so happy with so little.
It didn't hurt that the owner was an excellent cook.
After lunch I did some toe inspection. I had a blister covering one of my pinky toes.
After some quick surgery I felt a lot better.
We read in the lounge.
Dodo focused on her Nepali, which was way better than mine.
I did laundry and hung it up on the roof. The views were amazing.
This is a town that is two houses deep with a narrow stone staircase that follows the ridge line. We took a walk up and saw the town's school and army post.
We sat in the shaded courtyard and watched the owner's daughter go about her chores.
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