It's always up, up and up.. Tikedungha to Ghorepani

Day 2 Tikedungha (1,480m) -> Ghorepani (2,860m)
Total time: 5hrs 30mins
Breakfast: 2 toasts, 2 boiled eggs/scramble eggs, fried potatoes, oat porridge/muesli
Lunch: Chicken soup, curry chicken with rice, hot ginger tea and hot mint tea
Dinner: Mixed pizza  & Grilled chicken with rice and fries 

Rise and shine to a sunny morning J
Maila had told us last night it will be a long day today. The trail will always be up and up and only up…. Sigh. From Tikedungha to Ulleri, we trekked up steep stairs after stairs, bistari bistari… that’s slowly slowly in Nepali. Yes, slowly, 1 step at a time.

Up, up and up

The scenery around me was fantastic, I just have to stop and turn around and the view will always be different. We passed by little villages, even a swing which I had a replay of childhood.

Childhood memory @ Ulleri

Me @ Ulleri

I am amazed with the varieties of flowers at Annapurna, there's also peach blossoms along the trail! or was it a breed of rhododendrons?? not really sure.. anybody knows? Heard rhododendrons is the Nepali national flowers.. along the trail!

Peach blossoms??

Me & Kenn under the peach blossom tree

Trekked through forests of oak and rhododendrons where we reached Banthanti for lunch. It will be another 1½ hr to our destination, Ghorepani. All of a sudden the sky darken.. cold wind blows, is it going to rain again? It was quite a demoralizing trek after lunch. Probably it’s cause of uphill and to higher altitude, it was so tiring. There’s no nice view, just constantly going uphill, when will we reach?

There's lots of waterfall at Annapurna Santuary

Finally we reached a village with a signage “Ghorepani”! “Nope.” said Maila. This is the old Ghorepani. We are going further up, better for tomorrow as well when we go Poon Hill. K

There’s a checkpoint at Ghorepani where trekkers need to register themselves there. More stairs up and we finally reached the lodge for the night – Hungry Eyes Lodge. We had a room with great mountain view! J nice!

Lodge for the night - Hungry Eye

Our room with view of Annapurna II

We went out for a little walk around the village. More shops here selling groceries, there's even bookshops there.  Not long later, it’s late afternoon drizzle again….

Another early night, tomorrow is early morning climb to Poon Hill for sunrise... *yawn*