Day 6 Lamagaun to Lar
I left the hotel ahead of Krishna but he soon caught up and handed me 300 rupees. There was no hot water yesterday for showers and I had mentioned it to the owner and so he gave me a small refund. The Nepalese are extremely duty bound.
We moved quickly up the valley that has broadened providing magnificent Himalayan views arriving in Chule early so the two of us just kept walking up to Mu Gompa, our end point in the valley.
The place seems deserted but a single monk pops out and said that all the other monks are in Kathmandu or Chumling for the festival.
When we ask if there is any food available he says he only has soup as he escorts us into his tiny wooden kitchen with barely enough space for the 3 of us. We have a delightful visit as he shows us the Noodle soup package which came from Tibet.
After a tour of the Gompa(monastery) which has a strong spiritual feel we head back down.
Back in the village of Nile I struck up a conversation with two women. The younger one was smiling and boisterous and busy braiding the older ones hair. She stopped chatting and braiding and told us to sit and returned momentarily with two piping hot cups of Tibetan apple tea. A typical wonderful visit which seems to occur regularly when trekking in Nepal.
I asked if they were Tibetan or Nepali first. She said, “Tibetan”. Nile, and the Tsum Valley, is surrounded on 3 sides by Tibet. The people here look Tibetan, eat Tibetan, and I suppose are Tibetan with the political borders not meaning a whole lot out here in the middle of nowhere.
Crossing the Shyar Khola River to Chule, it turned out the tea houses here are closed but I am tired so I suggest we ask some locals for help. We are offered more tea and have one more nice visit, but there are no beds available so we continued on to Lar where a woman, Serapa, comes up to Krishna and invites us to her guesthouse. I am tired so nod a quick yes. Her guesthouse is separate from her home and we are the only guests. Knowing she will be preparing our food in her own kitchen and having to bring it to us, I offer to come to her kitchen to eat and she readily agreed.
After showering and changing we walked amidst snow flurries a 150 feet or so to her old house going up a step ladder to a typical all wood Tibetan kitchen with a wood burning stove. It was quite clean and comfortable. Her 5 year old son, Loposama was there watching TV. She put out some khapeche chips. Buckwheat and potato based. Also some hardened Yak Cheese. Nice with some hot lemon ginger tea. Wonderful evening sitting in Serapa’s kitchen and watching her smile and go about her normal chores while playing with Loposama. Her husband is away in Kathmandu.
Later she served us 2 huge servings of Dal Bhat. Not only is Dal Bhat great trekker’s food, but they always make extra and you can have two or more servings if you are hungry which is often the case after a tough trekking day. The day and night were special which was not unexpected here in Tsum Valley
