Day 14 - Dana (1446m) to Chitre (2316m)

Toby Diary

From well before first light mule trains started passing to and fro below the balcony we had slept on.  The houses in Dana are all very grand old merchants’ houses that have fallen into disrepair.  Jules had had the worst night as he could not sleep through the canine noise that seemed to set off around the village. Ablutions very basic so under the village tap was a better place for washing etc.  I had slept well and felt even better after some apple porridge and some delicious corn bread with jam on.  Jules was complaining of a strained lower thigh muscle which kept him very slow on the trip down to Dharapani.  This stretch seemed to pass quickly for me.  On arrival we met one of the Spaniards who we had met at Thorong Phedi.  They were spending a day relaxing there and enjoying the hot springs.  I think we were all quite jealous of this but our schedule is just not that flexible. We had to carry on to get all the other bits in before Pokhara.  A short while later, having police checked out below Tatopani, we crossed the Kali Gandaki River and said goodbye and good riddance to the Gorge.  It had been more of a grind than fun in some ways but I would not have missed it even then. Another police check point over the bridge – views of Niligiri South up the Gorge – and then up the ridge towards the villages to Chitre with Jules now on Ibuprofen and gradually improving.  Marhis and Tensi discover a group of Mustang people on migration to Pokhara for the winter who have stopped for a brew up and a meal.  Buffalos and paddy fields characterise this agricultural section of the climb.  Eventually we get to Chitre and stop for lunch.  Service painfully slow and corn bread disappointing – just a ............Hotel California.

Then onward to Slinka where we fail to find the Army training centre (it must be down the valley) and Phallate, a village that seems to go on forever, just a collection of farm buildings and lodges that keep labelling themselves as Phallate until suddenly, having broken well into rhododendron forest land we find one labelled Chitre.  It seems to be the best in this small village so we go in.  Dhaulagiri View is the name and it’s not kidding.  Thorpey and I get a room with a fab view of this impressive mountain.  Some good nosh, beers and diary before bed.  My toes are aching but generally feeling fine.  Everything pretty smelly!  Laundry at Ghorepani tomorrow a must.  Landlady at this lodge obviously quite a business woman – master of all she surveys and very self confident.  Rooms just separated by planks belying the slight grand exterior.

Mark Diary

After yesterday’s long day today was a late start.  We got up at 7am.  I had slept deeply, disturbed only by an insistently barking dog and two donkey trains that had passed in the early hours, their bells clanging.  After a quick wash under the communal village water pump, just down the path from our lodging and ice cold from the river, we had a quick breakfast and left.

We walked through the whole length of the village, the usual narrow stone flagged high street and small, narrow fronted buildings.  Soon it was behind us and for two hours we followed the path up and down along the right bank of the river.   To our right lay small plots of corn maize and bamboo carved out of the hillside and rising upwards on the slopes. Another two hours and we passed through another large village and crossed the river on a high suspension bridge.  From here began an ascent of nearly 4000 feet to the village of Chitre where we would spend the night.  The ascent started off easily; although steep, our fully acclimatized bodies and the stone steps that defined the path made for a steady climb.  A stairway of stone with the exception of short stretches of bare path where the route flattened took us upwards for two more hours.  We passed through the terraced plots, abundant greenery and small villages which were effectively no more than a few shacks clinging to the hillside.   As we climbed upwards out of the valley the white peaks of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri appeared behind us over the hills surrounding us.  We lunched in a small open sided hut under the sun with the green terraced hills to our front and behind us the high white peaks of these great mountains. 

Forty minutes more and we passed through the last major village on our route, Slinka.  Chitre was about the same distance again so even with the height gain we reckoned another 40 minutes walking.  For half an hour we continued up; through thin woods, across small streams and all the time the peaks of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri rising higher and higher above the surrounding hills.  We eventually climbed out onto a clearing on the ridge that we had been ascending to find ourselves on one side of a wide sweeping valley.  The far side lay half a mile away, terraced and dotted with small houses.  Our guide told us that we were still an hour and a half from Chitre; not for the first time was our map inaccurate.  We followed the path, sweeping round to the right and up and continued for another twenty minutes to some houses, a small dot on the map called Phalatte and the last village before Chitre.  Half an hour later, after having walked through the few houses that were Phalatte, and we arrived at more houses only to find that we were still in the same village.  On along the path and the more houses and yet still we were in Phalatte.  We were wondering when the village would actually end.  Chitre, according to our map, lay two kilometres past Phalatte.  Another climb, another gap on the path with no houses, more houses coming into view and more hopes dashed as hand painted signs on lodges proclaimed we were still in Phalatte and not Chitre.   When you are tired from a full day’s walking and when you expected to reach your destination an hour previously these knock backs really affect you.  It would be another late day.  We walked on, not raising our hopes as the houses seemed to peter out.  Maybe we had at last reached the end of the village?  Maybe the next dwellings we reached would be the beginning of Chitre.  And then strangely, only a few minutes after the houses had ended and once again another building proclaiming to be in Phalatte, we come across a lodge, alone and neat and tidy and better than those around it which has on it the magic words ‘Chitre’.

We had bare wood rooms but the views across the valley that we had spent the last few hours ascending, with the south face of Dhaulagiri rising high behind us, were superb.  An early dinner by candlelight, some cards and then bed.