Mustang Trail Race 2017 Day 1

A five thirty start to re-pack and get to the airport for our 8.20 flight to Pokhara. We were delighted to be put on an earlier flight which in true Nepali fashion ended up arriving in Pokhara an hour after our original arrival time. We were met by our guide Suba and his boss Tek who took us to a smart looking jeep for the drive to where our warm up walk to the start of the race was to begin.  I recognised some of the places we drove through but things have changed a lot in 31 years.  The major change has been to road access with the metalled roads and tracks making impressive journeys up hillsides.  The Lumle agricultural centre was still there and we passed it in 90 minutes instead of the day's walk it used to be. 

En route we saw some monkeys eating winter barley and had a stop to show our trekking permits and buy some fruit. We are at out start point at 1.30 ready for what Suba told us would be a 3 to 4 hour walk.  Our route took us throughout the familiar and much developed Ghandrung village where we had lunch and into the wonderful rhododendron forests where we saw an impressive white headed monkey. However all the rhododendron flowers had gone here but later on they were in evidence. The route was quite busy with tourists of all nationalities, ages and sizes.

 By 5 we had arrived at our destination of Tadapani (meaning far water 2,600 metres) which was very busy. We had a room booked for us which was ok but not the cleanest. At least we had a shower and a decent dhal bhat with a nice warm fire in the dining room. We were in bed by 8pm.