A beautiful detour, Phoksundo

Finally, the day arrived to leave Jajarkot. I had never planned to go to Phoksundo. But a junior from college who also worked at Khalti, Rushab, and his teammates from Verisk had the same arrival time and leaving time as me. So I just joined them and decided not to miss the beautiful Shey Phoksundo.

And the beautiful thing about not planning was that I had not contacted any schools, and I was not yet invited to any of the schools to teach. In Tallubagar, I got the number of the headmaster at Crystal Mountain School and set up a meeting with him in Dunai. So before leaving for Phoksundo, I had to reach Dunai before it got too dark and meet the headmaster.

Here, I met the headmaster and, to my pleasure, he had already informed the school about me arriving at Crystal Mountain School.

With certainty in my heart, I continued on the trek to Phoksundo.

Phoksundo

Ohh, Phoksundo. I think this was the most beautiful out of the 5+ treks I had done. The trail was the best part. The trail in itself felt like a final destination.

Walking among the alpine trees, with the uncannily blue river from Phoksundo, was a sight to behold.

We reached Chepka by 5pm. Stayed there. And early in the morning, at 6, we left for Phoksundo.

We reached Phoksundo at around 5pm. It had already gotten dark, so we couldn't see the lake well. But oh my, what a view it was in the morning. A blueee lake below white, snow-capped mountains, surrounded by alpine trees. It was beautiful.

We only went to Viewpoint 1 because we needed to chill by the lakeside. After having our breakfast, daal bhat, we chilled for a while and then carried our snacks, burners, noodles, coffee, and the hammock and went to the lakeside.

We set up the hammock, then made our coffee. And relaxeddd.

Then we mixed 2 Current noodles, 1 Rumpum, 1 Wai Wai, and 1 Rara. And enjoyeddd the feast. A 10/10 moment for all of us.

The next morning, Rushab, Samarpan, and Diku Dai left to reach Chepka. I decided to stay and camp in Phoksundo. But the national park rangers saw my tent at 6, and me being cheeky and hiding the tent didn't work very well.

Since I had already carried the load of the tent all the way there, I just camped beside the hotel and slept there.

Early at 5:30, I left for Chepka, wanting to meet my friends there.

I reached Chepka by 11am and joined my friends to go back to Dunai.

Back In Dunai

The next day, my friends left, and I moved to the guest quarters at the Dolpa District Attorney's Office. There, I decided to stay for two days to rest. My legs were hurting, and I was limping everywhere.

Then an officer at the office and I decided to go to a Gumba school a little further up. There, the kids were playing football. I joined them and played for a straight 2 hours.

Only after returning did I realize I was limping again. I was limping in the morning, stopped limping after playing football for two hours, and then started limping again after returning. Lol.

I also met a very interesting 56-year-old Russian guy, kiril. He had a bike in Kathmandu, India, and Thailand. He worked fully remotely from Thailand and visited Nepal for one month every year to ride around the country. He once did a whole India circuit to Nepal and back to Goa.

He showed me his camera gear and also offered to sell his DJI Action 4 to me after I told him how I had decided not to buy one because of the storage prices. I might buy it if I meet him again in Kathmandu. It was a blast having him around for the day. We also played some snooker. The next day, he left for Phoksundo.

For another rest day I went to the phoksundo river to read a book and chill. I read about 100 pages of 1984 there. It was a fun day

Stuck again in dunai

Now I was planning to leave for Dho, when again the forecast didn't want to be on my side, and it decided to remain cloudy and rainy for 3 more days. So I am stuck here till October 11th. After which, I would leave for Dho.

At least, I got time to update my journal and the website for this Motorcycle Diaries project. Also to follow up on cactustech, a software company, me and my friends started in the buffer zone between me leaving my job and leaving for Dolpo.