Nov 25 Wed - Around 5am all our members are ready and we left our hotel into the cold darkness to start our morning hike to Poon Hill. We put on all our warm clothing and switched on our torch lights and followed Jangbu who was in the lead. Finzu walked in the middle and Ang Gelu stayed at the back of our single file assembly up the steep stone slabs to Poon Hill.
Halfway we stopped in the total darkness to gaze at the sky. It was full of stars and they looked so much nearer.
It took us about 55 mins to reach the top. It was 5 mins to 6am and still dark. But in 10 mins or so, the first light dawned on us, we started to snap away with our cameras. It was like a UN convention up there, with people from every nation as you can hear so many different languages being spoken. We are all there for the same thing, to watch the sunrise over the Annapurna Himal. The tower is already crowded with people. There is no way and too late to climb up there. The Annapurna range and Dhaulagiri peaks were very clear but until now I still cannot name all the peaks correctly. The golden rays started basking on the mountain tops. It was a solemn and breath-taking sight. And so very cold as our fingers are freezing and painful from being exposed for taking photographs. After one hour, when the light brought sanity back to us, we started to take our group photos.
We spent 2 hours on Poon Hill. Then trekked down back to the hotel for breakfast and get ready to move on to Tadapani 2700M which will take 5 hours to trek down a 510M descend, long way down. We had fried noodles for lunch at Banathanti’s Sunrise Lodge and stayed at Fishtail View Toplodge (2630M). That night some of us had pizza and spaghetti and some of us had fried potatoes with cheese and eggs. There was at least 3 hot pans beneath our dining tables which were full of red coals to keep us warm around the tables. Every hour the people from the teahouse will come with more hot coals to fill the pans and we kept our feet out of the range. We are beginning to laugh as well, which is a sign that we are adapting and enjoying it.
see next day... Tadapani to Ghandruk
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