Day 3 - Manaslu trek

After a decent night's sleep, we were up and packing at 6.30 am to have breakfast and be out promptly. Cecelia and I shared porridge and some Tibetan bread. She also contributed some Skippy peanut butter and cinnamon which we sprinkled on the porridge and smeared all over the Tibetan bread which, with some jam, was a fantastic treat.

We began the trek feeling really good, our legs strong and our energy up. Just outside the town, I remembered I forgot my phone charging at the teahouse so James jogged back to fetch it, which was a lot faster than I would have been. The start of the walk was on the unused road and then we crossed our first suspension bridge of the day; we got onto some proper walking paths. This trek has had us pass through a lot more villages with women and small children going about their usual business and men on the trail either with their mules loaded up or just walking between the villages.

We had to share a few of our suspension bridge crossings with sheep, being shepherded across the valley which was quite funny as most of them would freeze in the middle probably from sheer panic at the height until the shepherd got them to move on.

We stopped for lunch early at 11 am as there were no good lunch spots further on. After lunch as we rounded a corner of the path, a guy told our guide that we'd better move quickly because they were going to dynamite the mountainside opposite our path to build the road. I haven't hiked that fast before in my life. We did not want to be anywhere near an explosion that could have caused a landslide on our opposite slope. After 20 minutes of fast walking, we made it to the next sentry where there were quite a few trekkers and locals with their flocks being held back, waiting for the explosion to proceed. We continued and 1 hour later we heard the boom echo through the valley, very thankful we were nowhere near it.

After crossing our highest suspension bridge yet, we got into some more wooded area which was very picturesque and tranquil.

With about 45 minutes until our final destination, I began to run out of energy. James said it was like watching someone in slow motion. I still had good spirits though and felt ok, just moved very slowly. We had been walking for 9 hours by this point, about 18 km, and I later saw I'd done 34,000 steps.

Our teahouse for the night is in Deng, which is at 1870m. SO cute! It's got a large front garden area with seating and then the rooms are arranged into a kind of courtyard. The main dining room was very large and laid out almost like a proper restaurant. It even had a TV playing animal documentaries!

We ate some delicious Dal Bat again and Cecilia had a pizza; all the food looked particularly delicious here. We had some of the local wine which put us all in a jolly mood and we laughed about one thing or another until we all got sleepy and headed to bed.

We have another long day tomorrow but I'm optimistic as I woke up stronger and had more endurance than the last day, so hopefully, this will repeat for tomorrow.Read more