Charang (3560 m) to Syanboche (3800 m)
The next morning we were finally able to find someone who had the keys to the monastery and palace. Third time lucky! The palace was surprisingly intact on the inside despite being half collapsed on the exterior. We managed to explore three levels of the palace including the monastery room filled with golden buddhas statues and the museum room which contained the kings boots, masks, helmuts, armour and weapons.
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| Charang Monastery |
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| Monastery watchdog |
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| View of Charang |
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| Palace |
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| Dave trying on the kings helmut |
By 8:30 AM we were ready to hit the trail and began the climb up the plateau towards the mountains and the Ghar Gompa at 3920 m. In Mustang it was always surprising that a gentle walk up what appears to be a relatively flat looking valley equates to several hundred meters of gained elevation. Along the way we passed a large congregation of vultures perched along the ridge. One by one the birds took off across the valley, swooping low over our heads. You could actually hear the sound of the air moving across their wings.
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| Vultures |
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| Vultures |
We arrived at Ghar Gompa to find that it was closed for the winter but their were two ladies roasting buckwheat over a fire in the central courtyard. They happily shared a snack of roasted buckwheat with us and posed to have their photos taken.
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| Ghar Gompa |
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| Roasting buckwheat |
From the monastery we continued uphill crossing yet another pass at 4170 m before steeply climbing down towards the village of Dhakmar (3820 m). Dhakmar is on a meadow of lingering green with in an amphitheatre of towering red cliffs. A stark contrast to the shades of brown from the past four days.
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| Dhakmar |
Continuing on from Dhakmar we followed the high path to Ghami, where we once again stopped for lunch at the Rayu Guesthouse, and then headed up hill once again to the top of Nyi La pass at 4120 m. From the pass we stuck to the top of the plateau, taking the trail high above Geling, through the small villages of Jaite (3820 m), Chhunggar (3750 m) and Tamagaon (3710 m).
With the sun quickly setting, the trail took to the cliff wall for the climb up the last pass above Syanboche. By time we had dropped down to the village it had completely clouded over and cooled quite considerably. After a long day of hiking we were quite relieved to check into the Niligiri View Hotel and enjoy a lively dinner in the kitchen with the family running the guest house. Our guide even showed off his famous cooking skills by making us a delicious goat curry. We retired to our early but had a restless sleep due to the mice running in the ceiling above our bed.
Syanboche (3800 m) to Chele (3100 m)
For the first time in the trek, the trail began with a long downhill deep into the canyon below Syanboche. The canyon progressively got narrower and narrower until we eventually reached a fork in the gorge.
We headed up the equally as narrow intersecting canyon to the Chang
Gompa. The monastery was perched on a sunny ledge about half way up the
canyon wall and the monks had surrounded it in colourful vegetable and
flower gardens. The poppies, daisies and bachelor buttons were
surprisingly still in bloom and surrounded by butterflies.
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| Chang Gom |
The monastery
itself was built into a large cave and was filled with an eclectic mix
of buddhes, icons, prayer flags and yak butter candles. Every surface and stalactite was decorated in some form.
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| Photo of the Dalai Lama |
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| Yak Butter Candles |
Leaving the monastery the trail began the mandatory steep climb up to the top of the pass at 3940 m. It was gratifying to know that after 19 days on the trail we had finally crossed our last pass.
Unfortunately
Dave did not use his altimeter to track our elevation during this leg
of the hike because we were certain we far exceeded the 15,000 m we
clocked on the Annapurna Circuit. According to Lonely Planet the total elevation of the Mustang Trek is roughly
10,000 m but we took a lot of side trails that would have added to that total. I was quite proud to have done 25,000 m of elevation and 250 km of distance (best guess) and still be standing!
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| View towards Thorong La and Tilicho |
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| Niligri Range |
Dropping down from the pass, we reached the village of Samar. As we were entering town we spotted the locals with a freshly butchered yak so we splurged and treated ourselves to a lunch of yak curry at the Annapurna Hotel - our second serving of meat in two days, quite the luxury!
We completed the slow climb down to Chele by 3:00 PM and enjoyed a lazy evening of naps, showers, and laundry. We even watched movies with the host family - crazily enough most remote Nepali homes get full satellite television despite not even having permanent power sources. We also tried to play cards with our guide and porter. The only game us and our guide knew in common was Bullshit but it was a challenge to explain to our porter that the essence of the game was to lie!
