Day 17- The Finish

Our journey involved ten days climbing to a pass then six days descending from it. We seemed to be very lucky to have had perfect conditions on and around the day of the pass as the last week has seen poor visibility and bad weather in the region. Our final day was not a particularly glamorous finish, we first descended on a dusty road to the river where a 900 mega watt hydro scheme is under construction and we walked to the sound of pneumatic drilling and earth moving machines.


Eventually the river Arun will be dammed and a new lake created upstream, fortunately most Nepal villages, like Gola, are built on ridges so maybe they won’t be directly affected. After this we then ascended for two hours, with some respite from the sound of building work, to our finish at the rather shabby town of Num.


Distance 9km 4hrs


Bizarrely, the highlight of the day was the jeep drive to the airport at Tumlingtar to spend the night in a hotel before flying back to Kathmandu. The road was incredible, cut out of the high ridges in the forested foothills, it’s surface resembled a turbulent sea with huge humps and troughs causing us to pitch and roll like a dingy adrift on the ocean. In the process of laying the road, the construction company had the foresight to bury a large water pipe. This would have been fine if the top surface had been finished soon after the road was made, but many of the water pipes lay exposed due to erosion. Several pipes had been ruptured by the passing traffic, the result was great fountains of water gushing into the air and a quagmire to add to the complexity of the road surface! The driver did a great job at negotiating all these obstacles.

Our hotel in Tumlingtar was much the same as any concrete cells that the budget traveller in Asia enjoys and to add to our ‘joy’, we learned that no flights had left our airport the day before. There was some discussion about the merits of a 14 hour bus journey in preference to another night here but the following morning looked promising and, after a 3 hours wait, we finally boarded for Kathmandu.

I sometimes wonder if the pace of change in Nepal matches the movement of the glaciers that have carved the high landscapes but it is strange how, in spite of the noise, pollution and chaos, we still find an affectation for the place. This may be the last trip to Nepal for a while but part of me wishes for it to be not too long.

Namaste Nepal.




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