Bhratang 2850m to Nawal 3660m (17km)

As our lodge was in an valley that stretched east to west, the sun right away hit the porch where we had our breakfast. Following the river up the valley brought us around the corner though and it was a bit shady. But along the way we got a climps of the snow covered peak of Annapurna II (7937m). It looked beautiful light up by the sun in front of the blue sky. During the day many more snow covered mountains made an appearance. We were still hiking in the lush green valleys with forests and little creeks but we could also feel that the landscape started changing as we got closer to 3000m.

At lunchtime we were at Upper Pisang already (3300m - by far the highest I have ever been. In fact we passed that point probably in Timang already). Upper Pisang sits on the southfacing slopes of the valley (just above lower Pisang) and is the starting point of the upper trek while the road (if you want to call it that) continues through the bottom of valley. We chose the harder trek as we heard it allows beautiful views of the Annapurna range south of it, which you don't get when walking in the valley.

While walking along the path local kids approached us and asked "Sweets?", it was literally impossible to deny the this request, so we gave them some nuts and a snickers to share.

It was quite an easy and relaxing walk until we reached a very steep climb just before the town of Ghyura. With in a distance of maybe 500m (line of sight we certainly gained about 400 or 500m altitude. Switchback after switchback of steep paths were the first painful experience along the path. It took us a good hour and 15 minutes to get up that mountain, but we got rewarded with a wonderful view from a bench right in front of a big white stupa, decorated with many prayer flags. The snickers I ate up there may have been the best snickers I ever tried!

Nonetheless we decided it wasn't time to turn in for the night and continued along the cliffs to the next town of Nawal. Just after leaving the town of Ghyaru we the most wonderful view of the picturesque town with all it's prayer flags and stone buildings and the magnificent North face of Annapurna II in the background. It was as Nepalese as it gets.

We also got rewarded for our daring decision to continue to the Nawal by the fact that the lodge there had the first hot shower on our trek. It cost 100 NRP to use but this was probably the best 100 Rupies I spent so far.

We spent the evening with two elder Aussies mates from Perth who took the trek extremely relaxed and just walked 2 or maybe 3 hours a day but had a great time and an Israeli couple.