Pokhara (820m) > Phedi (130m) > Pothana (1900m): Steps, steps, and steps

This proved to be our route... Circled villages were camps

A short bus ride from Pokhara (820m) to Phedi (130m) and we’re away.

May I ask though… why are there so many steps?

Big, stone steps, meandering out of sight. What a start… this blows, haha.

In all seriousness, this was a fkn hard morning! Even I’ll admit that …A gentle start would have been my preference, not a continuous staircase for several hours. T was having her doubts at first… mainly because our two trek buddies, Eric and Christina thought it was a race and set off like all hell… You’re on holiday guys, relax… What you gonna do when you reach camp? Read a book!

Slow the fk down!

I’m not going to blow my trumpet here, but being a moderately accomplished athlete that competes at a pretty high level… physically and mentally, the trek as a whole posed no problem for me and I could keep up with the porters if need be.

Had a good time playing ball games with this kid at lunch

Let him be I thought…

In any case, we survived the stairs and made it to lunch. Which, incidentally was at Dhampus (1650m)… our scheduled campsite?

WTF is going on here?!

Our Melbourne friends are giving us the hurry along, I’m trying to get people to slow it down so we can actually enjoy things as we go… Stop and take a photo when need be… Have a drink, a chat, sit down… Feel like we’re doing things of leisure, not back in recruit training rucking uphill.

In any case… we slowed it down a bit and still made it way ahead of time… So ahead in fact that we actually set off again after lunch for a truly enjoyable stroll of a couple of hours to nearby Pothana (1900m).

Dinner. Setup camp. Unwind.