Abode of the Gods. Kev Reynolds

at the entrance announces that the owner attended a course in lodge management. Some of the walls bear a wash of mottled paint, and threadbare curtains hang at the windows, but this is five-star luxury compared with many lodges we stayed at on the other side of the pass. There’s even an indoor shower in a cubicle with a door! On the far side of the Thorong La Nepali fare was still more or less par for the course. Here, the menu boasts a range of Western-style meals. We’ve entered a land of pizza and apple pie.

      The Thakalis are famed hotel-keepers, but then they’ve had lots of practice, for the Kali Gandaki is a valley of both trade and pilgrimage. For hundreds of years Hindu pilgrims from as far away as southern India have made the arduous journey to worship at the shrines of Muktinath, and traders to and from Tibet were passing through the valley with their pack animals centuries before the West had even heard of Nepal. So our circuit of the mountains has entered yet another phase. Not only is accommodation of a higher standard and the food less ethnic this side of the La, but the trail itself has more traffic and is not so demanding. For well over a week we were gaining altitude day after day towards the Thorong La. Now we’re heading downhill away from the raw cold of the high country, down towards a more equable climate. The challenge of the Thorong La no longer hangs over us.

      Leaving Jomsom we cross to the right bank of the river and once again have our permits checked at the police post. It’s a busy little town, with government buildings, a hospital, a military base and an airstrip, but I’m glad to be on the way out. Not that I’m anxious to end the trek, for we still have much to see and to do, but Jomsom reminds me of the outside world with its bureaucracy and sagging power lines reminiscent of a Third World shanty. Besides, this is a day to be out and moving.

      There is no wind, and the sun spreads fingers of warmth over the eastern mountains, marking individual features on our side of the valley as stepping stones on the journey. Willows without leaves wear orange haloes in their entwined topmost branches where birds twitter at the November sky; neatly walled fields are turned by the plough, and the barking cries of a farmer come to us as we pad the trail. Passing a small watermill built across a tributary stream, we wander through a kani to find ourselves in Marpha – and regret not having stayed here last night. White-painted buildings, paved street, attractive lodges and shops, and a view of mountains across the valley make this the finest village we’ve yet visited. So choosing a lodge at random we enter, order drinks and treat ourselves to chocolate brownies. (So much for my scorn for Western influence in the high Himalaya!)

      Beyond Marpha rows of apple, apricot, peach and walnut trees give rise to a burst of admiration for the folk who live here, for in this land of extremes, this ever-rising land of avalanche and earthquake, human existence itself is a triumph. That fruit can grow in this semi-desert is a miracle. The valley seduces us with wonder.

      Further on, the once-prosperous village of Tukuche is set in an open meadow where, before the Chinese invasion of Tibet, traders would gather to exchange Tibetan rock salt for Nepalese grain. What scenes would have been enacted here in centuries past! Yak trains with wild-looking Tibetans meeting strings of pack-ponies and mules from the lush south – two very different cultures coming together in this meadow in the mountains, overlooked by Dhaulagiri in the west and outliers of the Annapurnas in the east. I imagine the rise and fall of haggling voices, the occasional bellow of a yak, the jangle of bell-laden harnesses. But today there’s only a pair of crows bouncing across the grass and the shadow of a lammergeyer circling overhead.

      Our day is unplanned. We drift as each whim demands and find ourselves crossing numerous streams flowing from a small side valley at the foot of Tukuche Peak, with the notorious Kali Gandaki wind now gusting in our faces. Khobang is protected from that wind, its houses built close together for mutual protection, while the main street serves as a tunnel with doorways opening from it. One shows an inner courtyard smelling of livestock.

      South of the village the valley is distinctly alpine, the trail a switchback among stands of chir pine, with huge mountains crowding nearby as we enter the deepest gorge on Earth and descend into an amphitheatre dominated by Dhaulagiri, whose face is plastered with hanging glaciers. There is no bridge across the torrent, but as it’s been divided and sub-divided by gravel beds into a series of braidings, we scout up and down for the easiest crossings, pole-vaulting the deepest streams. Once across we locate the continuing path that leads to a suspension bridge high above the Kali Gandaki. It sways with each step we take.

      In the late afternoon we enter another geographical, climatic and cultural zone. A new world lies before us, and for a brief moment I feel a sense of loss. I love the wild aridity of that northern side of the Himalaya, with its Buddhist values and sometimes sterile wastelands, and wonder how long it will be before I can tread such places again. Then almost as soon as the moment comes, it leaves, and I’m excited by prospects of warm nights and abundant vegetation.

      We settle to a lodge in Kalopani after gaining a surprise view of Annapurna pink-tinged with the alpenglow. It’s comfortable and busy with a cosmopolitan crowd of trekkers, most of whom are making their way up-valley. Two dark-haired, dark-eyed Israeli sisters whose white, close-fitting teeshirts leave little to the imagination concentrate their attention on a pair of climbers from the US, who return that concentration without difficulty. After Alan and I turn in, we discover that in the room next to ours, and separated only by a plank-thick dividing wall, a passionate night is being enjoyed by all four. Almost deafened by their gasps and groans, by the time morning dawns I’m exhausted. How they’ll continue up-valley after all that exercise, I’ve no idea.