10 December 2008
We had a reasonably comfortable sleep, surprisingly enough, considering how thin all the walls were. We arose early as you couldn’t laze in bed and listen to all the coughing and spluttering of the locals and the sharps and guides.
We all mustered at the guest house cafe for breakfast, and then headed off.
The trek today was supposed to be about 4 hours of walking through Nepal flat terrain. However, by the end it was only a couple of hours. Most of the trail was pretty sedate, rambling through the countryside, watching the local villagers watching us as we passed through. At one small village, our trekking party picked up a hitchhiker, a local man who was purportedly a maths teacher. The man followed us along the trail and rested when we rested, this wouldn’t be so bad except this guy was just freaky! He followed the girls quite closely but didn’t talk to anyone’ he was wearing long trousers and a leather jacket (despite the heat, we were all sweating profusely) and carrying a laptop computer (well a laptop bag anyway – we had no idea of if he actually had a laptop inside).
Eventually the nepali flat countryside gave way to a long rocky climb to the day’s destination. This was the first “test” for the group – the racers raced off in the front, the plodders set their pace in the middle and of course there was the rear echelon (Tracy and Kathryn). Despite how far the group spread out we all arrived in Bahun Danda within about 15-20 minutes.
We spent the afternoon wandering in the town and sitting in the wonderful garden eating and drinking and got in some washing and hot showers.
After a simple but lovely dinner we received our briefing for the next day and with the time fast approaching 19:30 we retired to the night.