Oct 8. Arughat Bazar to Lapu Besi. Manaslu trek, Nepal.

We were treated with sweeping views of the valley as we walked up it. It was adorned with many waterfalls and a beautiful green rural scene. This will be the theme of the trek until we get closer to Manaslu. Today we ascended from 550m in Arughat Bazar, 200m higher at 750m for Lapu Besi. We will continue to ascend steadily over the next few days to 5000m at the Larke La pass. There is plenty of time to acclimatize.

I have this gadget called a Spot , it sends out GPS signals which are collected at a website. Every now and again I can send an 'I am OK' message via email. It can also hookup to Facebook and a few other message services. A couple of down side of it are that they only keep the track data for 30 days so I will need to collect it all when I get back pronto, and that they try to trap you into a recurring subscription. I am not sure how well it will perform in these mountains, but probably better than trees, it really depends on proximity of satellites and how cold it is - we will see.

We said goodbye to our camping friends, and again I marvelled at the volume of gear to be carried. I tried to heft one of the carrying baskets on to my head and only just succeeded.

As were were walking out we admired the kids playing table games in the street. This game is also played in India, it is called carrom . The idea is to sink your opponent's disks into the pockets by using a striker disk flicked with your finger.

The scenery was vivid green with the grain fields. Not being a horticultural expert, I was told it's mainly rice, millet and maize. It was again quite humid and hot. I do not quite have the right clothes expecting the cold dressed, I was overdressed in long trousers and long sleeved shirt. I did appreciate the added protection I had against insects and the sun though.

There are quite a few suspension bridges, many donated by international bodies. Much more comforting to have steel bridges than the old photos of rope and log assemblies ! The bridges carry persons and beasts, being yaks, donkeys and mules.

We did, however cross the river in places to avoid big detour walks to get to the bridges. I admire the staidness of the Nepalese as they traverse these rock strewn streams with their weighty cumbersome loads.

I made a mistake showing the others how my camera is waterproof. Indeed it is (Olympus Tough TG-1) and has gps built in, a great camera for this purpose, but the water went between the rotating components of the polarising filter, so I had to take the rest of the pictures of the day without a filter.

It was getting rather hot so I went for a bit of a dip. A young lady from the local village came along and was talking to Rajesh saying that she wanted to swim and was nervous about doing so with me in there. I said I do not bite very hard, so with that encouragement she entered the pool.

Eat what the locals eat is a good motto for travel. Dahl blat is a popular meal, it is vegetarian comprised of lentils, rice, some greens and hot pickle with a soup. Maybe I should establish a dahl blat rating for guest houses and restaurants, though I think the taste will be a matter of how tired or how much work I did on the day. Today's meal passed the taste test.

I learnt that the meal offerings throughout the length of both Manaslu and Annapurna will be a more or less common offering depending on availability of ingredients and a price listed menu will be supplied. I suppose this is to stop cruel bargaining efforts by ignorant tourists who don't know the baselines. Also I believe they have to attend some sort of schooling in hygiene and cooking. Good water is readily available here.

I was amused by a note in the hotel menu, asking that accommodation be paid for. It was perhaps created as a result of penny pinching tourists trying to take advantage, without consideration of the people living here.

This was a good start to the trek, a bit humid but tempered with a couple of immersions in cool water. I am pleased. We had a good introduction to the trek with some challenging sections to ascend but overall not too much that it was going to wear us out. We slept well overnight in a basic but comfortable and clean room.