“A Mish a Day” #155 Adventures in Nepal – Part 2. Megang Danda to Charangge Phedi. 9.11.2018. An early-ish start had the bro Luke and myself following the road in the dark to hopefully watch the sun come up on the eighth highest mountain on the planet. This time we were up before the roosters, and as we wandered through the mountain pass where the village of Megang Danda is located, it looked like the mountain haze was going to spoil the early morning effort.
We hung out for a while and watched the transition from dark to day, and just as we thought we weren’t going to see anything, not only Manaslu but also the Ganesh Himal Range appeared out of the mist. The snow on the Himalayan giants went from dull grey to every shade of pink, before a burst of orange just before the sun appeared on the tips of the highest peaks. We returned to camp with a special experience tucked away into the memory log, and then we set to our first challenge…a Nepali sized breakfast. The days hike from Megang Danda to a small village near Marpak is one of the most incredible walks I have ever hiked. We had views all day of the Ganesh Himal Range and the Manaslu Range, and also at points we could see all the way to the Annapurna Massif far away on the western skyline. We arrived at camp and were immediately informed that the local volleyball team was up for a game, but due to the long day hiking in the sun we opted for a more relaxed afternoon resting the legs and enjoying the peaceful atmosphere of our camp.
An early-ish start the next day had us climbing up a steep moss covered staircase, which at times had us sidling above cliff edges where a fall would be very nasty and would result in one less mouth to feed at camp that night. As we carefully and slowly negotiated the tricky steep ground a call came from the back of the group to let a young mother in sandals carrying a baby, and also with a baby wrapped up on her back pass us! The Whanau was happy to arrive at the road at the top of the steep section, and thankfully we followed easy roads to the next camp site in the small village of Charangge Phedi. The days hike was a long one, so it was well into the afternoon when we arrived at yet another stunning camp site, and we were keen to load up on some good old Nepali cooking. After dinner the crew took part in a Bhai Tika ceremony, were the ladies in the Active Hearts Whanau blessed all the Nepali brothers by applying tilaka to their foreheads. We could tell this was a big deal to our hard working crew, and we were all very lucky to be involved in such an important occasion in such a stunning location. We partied hard that night, with the chants of “C-dog,C-dog” booming out of the mountain side village and of course some crazy dancing, and maybe one, two, five… too many mugs full of Raksi(Nepali rice alcohol).
