Annapurna: The highway

Jan. 6, 2009

These are images of the three day walk from Kag Beni to Naypul, a walk that normally takes five to six days. I was running out of money and anxious to get back to Pokhara to get a hot shower and some good food.

It was amazing to witness the extreme changes in climate in the quick walk. In one day I moved from the windy, chilly town of Marpha, the so-called apple capital of Nepal, to almost tropical Tatopani, lush with orange trees.

Though the scenery is still phenomenal, the walk along the Kala Gandaki river is not as interesting as on the other side of the pass because the trail has been developed into a road. The innkeeper of the Red House Hotel where I stayed in Kag Beni told us that her husband had hired a motorbike to make the drive down to Pokhara. Instead of rejoicing in the convenience of the new road, she lamented the jeep tracks.

"It used to be a six day walk out of these mountains," she said. "Now it can be done in a day."

I found this attitude echoed by many of the villagers around the Annapurna Circuit. On the other side where I started out the trek, scores of men work each day shoveling into the side of the ridges, slowly chiseling away boulders to create a road over there as well. In a few years time, the Annapurna Circuit will no longer be the old mule trail that it has been for hundreds of years. Soon it will be transformed into the Annapurna Highway.