Day 3 of Langtang Trek

This was probably the hardest day of the trek. It started with a steep uphill, and then towards the middle of the day, it got flat, then went steep again, but when it got steep at the end, it became extra difficult due to the high altitude and reduced oxygen.

The scenery didn't disappoint, though. We continued hiking through the forest to begin with, me always thinking I might see a red panda at any moment, which I didn't (they're extremely rare to see), and then finally seeing the landscape change into open rocky grassland. When the view cleared, we had a magnificent view of the white peaks of the mountains in front of us, and roaming around were many enormous hairy yaks, who turned towards us photogenically every time we took a photo of them.

It was a relief to arrive at our teahouse, which was a beautifully painted three-story brick building with amazing views from the windows and rooftop common room. We climbed to 3,438m above sea level for 7 hours to the village of Langtang. This village was entirely destroyed in the 2015 earthquake which caused an avalanche and killed 310 people. The remnants of the avalanche are still visible, and we hiked over it to reach the newly built town where we stayed that night.

After an amazing hot shower, we had a warm tasty dinner and settled down for bed. We felt a little funny from the altitude, needing to take bigger breaths when going up the stairs, and we did have some unsettled sleep, which is also a symptom, but when waking up, we felt pretty good and a bit more accustomed.Read more