Trek: Tatopani to Nagthali

I woke up tired. Worse still, my guts are not quite right. Was it the water from the spa, the yak cheese, the Tibetan muesli or those kids in Gatlang. Anyway, a runny tummy is par for the course when travelling, even when travelling in Australia I cop it sometimes. The dogs last night were having a party. They would run around the entire town and bark in each sector, for a seemingly endless period of time.
The ascent to Nagthali is truly workout, reaching up over 3100m we were working hard. Oxygen is getting a bit rarefied at this level especially compared to our home in Melbourne. I was getting a slight headache.
At the high altitudes I get a steady pain in the head, sort of like you are squeezing your head in a vice. I do not take anything for it as I believe you need to know what is happening. It's fairly easy to relieve the pain by heading down to lower altitudes. I have a general rule to drink plenty of water and restrict alcohol and tea over 3000m. It goes away if one takes one's time ascending and descends when necessary. Plenty of references are available on the www eg. webmdd.com.
As we rose, the vegetation gives way to stunning views of the mountains. Some of the rhododendrons were still around though, to embellish the mountain vista.
We visited an old monastery. It was in need of a bit of tender loving care. With artifacts many hundreds of years old, there is little or no finance available for their upkeep.
Also we stopped for a drink. The lady had her own shrine and Katie took a Polaroid instant photo and gave it to here as a gift. Unfortunately the film was probably affected by the heat or airport xrays and was not high quality. Nether-the-less the lady was very happy for the photo. The people here are quite poor, and simple things like this can mean a lot.
Today, fortunately the walk was short. We left at 8:30am and arrived at midday. Upon arrival, we headed for bed and slept soundly for a couple of hours. After our snooze, Katie manages to cadge another ride of the horse: the owner of the lodgings was the same guy who we saw yesterday ! Our guide, Nara, also has fun riding as well.
We gifted our finger puppets to the kids hanging round at our lodgings. We started with tow, but like flies to the carcass we soon had 1/2 a dozen ! The kids were great and very polite in the selection process between each other, where the youngest chose first.
Our stay here was very pleasant, we are entertained with some music, the heat of the fire and a few card games. The Nepalese game of dhumbal is our favourite, it is quite an addictive game.


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