Langtang Trekking

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I was thinking about doing this trek for a long time, but due to some reason, I was not able to begin this.  Finally the time has come that I was about to do this trek.  It was a perfect month or October to trek.  It is considered as a nearest and shortest trekking route.  So all bags packed and I, along with few other friends are prepared to trek.  After final checkup, we reached our station where we catch a bus to reach Syafrubesi – starting point of this trek.  It took us almost about 8 hours to reach there via on an off road tracks.  All were pretty excited to start the trek.  As we choose a local transportation, we were experiencing some local passengers too – must say, they were loud, very very loud and their luggage were everywhere in the bus, must say it was a most memorable ride.  The bus went through Balaju following the route to reach Nuwakot, then to Trisuli bazar, Dhunche Rasuwa, and then to Syafrubesi.  We had our lunch in the beautiful Trisuli bazar.  Travelling long distance in the local bus is a hectic thing to do, but the view of the surrounding hills, rivers, and mountains diverted my mind from all the hassles.  In about 8 hours we reach Syafrubesi – a small town with few settlements.  We stayed in a local guest house and roam around the place in the leisure time.

Second day, our trek started early in the morning.  We packed our bags, finished our breakfast, and then started our trek.  All green is what we saw.  We entered our name list in the check post near the bridge and crossed the Langtang river over the suspension bridge and the trail continues to follow beautiful Tamang village.  In both sides of the trail, we saw beautiful traditional Tamang houses and people doing their daily household activities.  Following the trail and taking some photographs, we crossed different rivers in a suspension bridge as well as small wooden bridge.  On the way, we passed through different forests and villages.  Taking rest in few places enjoying the nature, we stopped in Bamboo for our lunch.  It is a small place build next to the huge river.  We almost spent about an hour there for lunch and again continued to walk.  Trail is easy uphill, downhill as well as plain lands.  Some of the places have narrow steep climb where we had to be more careful.  Our destination was to reach Lama Hotel, so in about 6 hours, we finally reached Lama Hotel, and checked in the lodge there.  It is a small village where there are few hotels and lodges to stay in.  Since it was the first day of the walk, we felt little tired and thought of taking some rest and then explored around the place.  As we are trekking in the national park, it is obvious that we will see different kinds of birds, flora, fauna, as well as wild animals during the trek.  We saw monkeys, different birds, and vegetation.  It was a beautiful time to trek in this season.  

Next day, we planned to reach Langtang Valley, so we woke up early, finished our breakfast, and prepare to hike up.  Morning view is beautiful in the forest area.  You can almost feel the nature.  Trail passes through roaring river bank.  You can almost hear the roaring of the river in distance and throughout the trek.  On the way, there are different small teahouses where you can take a short break for the tea, coffee, and warm water.  We also took a break for a tea there, rest for a while, clicked loads of pictures too.  After that, we ascend to reach Upper Rimche and Lower Rimche.  You will see different species of plants and also a glimpse of mountains can be seen while walking.  After few hours of exhausting walking, we now reach Ghora Table, where there is a small hotel for a snack break.  We had a snack there and rested for a while.  As we are climbing in the altitude, the vegetation thinned and we saw very few green vegetation from this point.  After that, we continued our walk.  The trail was plain so, it was not so difficult to walk.  There was a small army check point where we enlisted our names and continued further to walk.  We crossed a river on a suspension bridge and walked uphill and plain lands to finally reach Langtang valley – a beautiful valley in the lap of mountains.  It was almost an evening when we reached there.  The beautiful village had many hotels and lodges to stay in.  We choose one hotel and rested our tired body.  A warm dinner in the cold weather and tired body is all we needed and that is what we got there to recharge our tired body.  The meal was good enough to refuel us.  Our tired body needed a rest, so after finishing the dinner, we rushed to our rooms to get a good night sleep and in no time, we all fell asleep.

Early morning, we woke up early to get a beautiful view of mountains in front of our eyes.  The mountains were so close enough.  We never saw mountains that close to use.  All were quite exciting to see the mountain that close.  We took some early morning photographs and went to kitchen for breakfast.  Warm tea, bread and a soup is a perfect combination of breakfast to start our trek.  After breakfast, we prepared to reach Kyanjin Gompa.  It is about 2 hours of easy walk.  Prayer wheels, stone inscriptions, and prayer flags can be seen throughout the trek.  Not to mention beautiful snow covered mountains in distance and in front of us.  A flock of birds can be seen flying, yaks grazing in the pastures and transporting daily needs can be seen.  Enjoying the view, we finally reach a beautiful village in Kyanjin Valley.  This valley is located in the lap of beautiful mountains.  Monasteries, lodges, guesthouses, teashops can be found in this village.  A quick visit to an old Kyanjin monastery near to valley is what we did as soon as we reach there.  Beautiful well preserved paintings, idols of Buddha and sculptures were there inside the monastery.  We spend some time there and had our lunch in the guesthouse.  Rested for a while and then we prepared to reach top of Kyanjin Ri, which is about 3 hours of uphill walk.  So all prepared to walk uphill, we left our bag packs in the same hotel and continued our walk uphill.  It was somewhat difficult to walk, but upon reaching the top, the view of the valley, surrounding mountains like Lantang, Langtang Ri, and other, and glacier was beautiful.  There are prayer flags at the top where we spend few time and then returned back to reach Langtang valley.  It is a quick walk to reach Langtang valley.  We reach there in the evening time, and stayed in the same hotel.  

We were so happy that we reached our destination without any casualties.  Early morning after breakfast, we prepare to descend to reach Lama Hotel.  It is an easy uphill as well as downhill walk.  We took the same route back to reach Lama Hotel.  It was an easy trail, so everyone was happy to walk the plain trail.  Trail passes through Ghora Tabela, Upper and Lower Rimche to Lama Hotel.  We reached Lama Hotel earlier than we expected.  So, we changed our plan decided to trek further up to Bamboo, so that it will be easy for us the next day to reach Syafrubesi.  With agreement of all friends, we packed and rushed to reach Bamboo.  The decision we made was not bad and we reached Bamboo just before evening.  After about 8 hours of continuous walk, all muscles were tired and as soon as we finished our dinner, we went to sleep.

Next day, we woke up early to reach Syafrubesi.  We finished our breakfast and started our trek.  The trail was mostly downhill and plain, so it was almost easy to walk and we reached Syafrubesi.  We reached there in early afternoon.  Nothing much to do there, we had our lunch and planned to stay there and wait till next morning to get a local bus again and get back to Kathmandu.  We planned to stroll around the place nearby.  As we were preparing to check in to hotel, there were a group of 3 people going back to Kathmandu on a private jeep.  They were looking for people to share the jeep and price.  They asked us if they could join the group, we were happy to reach the Kathmandu as soon as possible, so there is no chance of ignoring the offer.  As soon as we got the offer, we grabbed our bags, and got in the jeep.  It was a comfortable ride up to the Kathmandu.  The other group was also happy to share the jeep with us and we shared our experience all the back to the Kathmandu.