Rimche in the rain

We spied fresh-snow covered mountains when Mithu took us to see some pretty little lakes on the other side of the river. We bush-bashed through a rhododendron forest before rejoining the main track. We love these little side adventures Mithu discovers for us.

We enjoyed our morning walk, nearly all downhill but even so I felt quite breathless for the first hour or so. Lots of tourists, porters and even a train of donkeys shared the trail today, which was pretty muddy and slippery after yet more rain last night. At our timely morning tea stop it rained again. We met a very intrepid Italian who was doing a round trip to Kathmandu, walking all the way. We bought glucose biscuits and had them with the delicious yak cheese we had bought the day before. Mithu spotted a bright blue bird on the cliff-face above Langtang – I saw it but Rob didn’t much to his annoyance. Mithu said it was the national bird of Nepal, the Himalayan Monal or Danphe. We later saw a white collared blackbird and some amazing long-tailed magpies, and had some great views of monkeys.

We were glad when lunchtime came around it - was about 1.45 pm before we ate and we were ravenous. Unfortunately not long after lunch it really started to rain and it didn’t stop. We reached Lama Hotel but there was no room at the inn, so we had to plod on to Rimche where Mithu managed to find us a room in Moonlight Riverview Lodge.  When we first arrived we changed our sodden clothes which we later dried at the hotel, and climbed into our sleeping bags for an hour, quite exhausted after more than 8 hours of walking. We still had more walking to do – it was 10 minutes down the hill for dinner!

The dining room was a league of nations, no spare seats, boots drying around the very hot fire, and the kitchen crowded with guides and porters. We had to strip down to t-shirts in the warmth of the fire, but had to pile everything back on again for the return to our lodging, in the pitch black and stumbling through mud and rocks!