Nepal (October 2023): An Unplanned Mini-Trek South of Simikot

5. Palsa to Humla Karnali Nadi and return to Kathmandu

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Click here to see the map of the trekking route (yellow dotted line) in a separate window.

Village (probably Kargai) lit by the morning sun on the west side of the Galpha Gad valley seen as we descended from Palsa to the valley floor.

Ruin of a house at the start of the road. Everything around it had been washed away by the flood of a small tributary of the Galpha Gad.

View north from the road. A section of the trail we hiked the day before is visible near the center of the photo.

The photo below was taken shortly before reaching the village of Lauthi. It shows the horrific, almost irreversible scars left by a now non-drivable ˝road˝ on the eastern slope of the valley. I would not be surprised to learn that the road we were walking on had been built due to the failure to complete or maintain the previous road.

We then reached the beautiful and very friendly village of Lauthi. The building with the square pyramidal roof is the village's Hindu temple. The white and yellow pagoda-shaped tower is where cremation rituals take place.

Left: The village's priest at the entrance of the temple.

Some people of Lauthi.

Houses along the road between Lauthi and Budheli. Note the small chicken coop and rabbit cage hanging from the balcony of the house on the left, and the steep slope on which the house on the right is built.

Houses with hay drying on their roofs. Note the communist flag planted on a roof. Years ago, this region of Nepal was a hotbed of the Maoist rebellion that led to the fall of the monarchy.

Hindu temple overlooking Budheli, the last village before the confluence of the Galpha Gad and the Humla Karnali Nadi.

In Budheli, we took a steep trail much shorter than the road leading to the bottom of the Humla Karnali Nadi valley.

We set up our last camp in a dry rice field next to the house below.

While walking down from Budheli, I saw new roads not marked on my map built on the mountain slopes south of the Humla Karnali Nadi. I had no appetite to continue walking on roads or on trails close to roads. So, I decided to end my trek here. The next morning, Dawa and I took a Mahindra jeep to Kolti (a 4-hour ride), where we hoped to catch a flight back to Kathmandu (via Nepalgunj). We said farewell to our porters, who returned to Simikot.

Dashain in Kolti:

This was my third visit to Kolti. I stopped here briefly in 2008 during my traverse of Nepal (see here) and again in 2017 at the end of a trek from Simikot to Kolti via Mount Saipal (see here). But after two full days of waiting, there were still no flights scheduled for the next few days. So, we shared a jeep with two locals and went to Dhangadi, a town in southern Nepal with daily flights to Kathmandu. Local people had told us that it was quicker to get to Dhangadi than to Nepalgunj.

Kolti is built in a pleasant valley, but the town itself is not particularly interesting. Fortunately, we were there during the 15-day-long Dashain festival, Nepal's most important Hindu festival, which honors Durga, the Universal Mother Goddess. This festival is a time for various celebrations, family reunions, and exchanges of blessings.

Procession in the main street of Kolti on the 8th day of the festival. On this day, devotees walk long distances in the valley on foot or on horseback and bring offerings to successive temples. (Strangely for me, while Dashain honors the Universal Mother Goddess, there were only men in the procession.)

The 10th day of the festival is the most important. It culminates with family tikka ceremonies, where elders give their blessings to younger ones, by putting tika (a mixture of vermilion, curd, and rice) on their foreheads and placing jamara (barley grass) behind their ears, while giving small amounts of money. As I was walking around Kolti, a family kindly invited me into their courtyard to join their ceremony and eat the food they had prepared. Two of the elders gave me their blessing, even though I was the oldest person around. Young adults were happy and honored to be blessed by their elders, while children were happy to receive some money.

Lunch stop in Martadi:

We left Kolti the next morning. We first drove to Martadi, a medium-sized town where we stopped for lunch. Nestled in a pleasant cirque, Martadi is probably representative of the transformation underway in the Nepalese hills: traditional houses (see left photo below) are being replaced by slum-like neighborhoods of corrugated iron houses surrounded by bland, multi-storied concrete buildings (pictured right).

Flight from Dhangadi to Kathmandu:

We reached Dhangadi's airport almost 24 hours after leaving Kosti. Luckily, we were able to fly back to Kathmandu a few hours later. The photos below were taken during this flight.

- The Karnali Nadi in southern Nepal.

- Peaks of the Himalaya.

[Machapuchare (6997m) at the center, with Annapurna III (7555m) on its left and Gangapurna (7455m) further left, and with Annapurna IV (7525m) on its right and Annapurna II (7937m) slightly further right.]

- Modern neighborhood of Kathmandu seen before landing.

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