26/09/2010 Saturday Day 7 Chyamche to Timang

River side town on Tal

We left Chyamche at an early start of 0720 to try and make amends to not achieving yesterday’s goal of Chame. We also needed to do a lot of bike carrying in morning as the map indicated several steep drawn out climbs, which certainly lived up. 

Ollie corssing under a waterfall

We had lunch at the end of a swing bridge at a place called Karte, and once again enjoy great cuisine for little cost. The dish consisted of beans, potatoes, vegetables and also came with very yummy corn bread, which is a type of sweet flat bread.

Karte

We literally pushed on for a short while and then to our relief the track became very rideable.  We made good progress and soon reached the next check point at Dharapani.  The track climbed upwards at a gentle consistent gradient, allowing us to make progress in both altitude and distance.  At Bagarchhao we came across an Austrian Civil Engineer who began to give us a lecture on the difficulties he was facing with the scoping of a 150MW hydropower station in the valley. One wonders why one would need that amount of power half up the Marsyangdi Nadi River. 

Once again we failed in reaching the elusive Chame, but Timang presented itself with a few nice hotels, the first of which was full.  This little village seemed to be undergoing a boom, as numerous new buildings were being built with great care and detail in both the stone and wood work. 

Climbing up the hill to Timang

At the hotel I had a cold shower only to find out that Ollie somehow got a warm one. Tonight was also the first night that we would actual need to unpack our sleeping bags, though I still simply used my bag as a blanket. The hotel was located just below the evening cloud base so no views of the surrounding mountains, hopefully the in the morning it will be clear. 

Still nursing my hip today from yesterdays embarrassing fall, but it feels much better compared to last night, where every time I would cough pain would shoot through me abdomen.  My back today was a little sore, most likely due to the hours spent carrying my bike over my shoulders.

Just ordered Yak curry for dinner; looking forward to this, as I thought about eating yak earlier in the day.  The scenery was once again amazing, the dense jungle has now thinned out to grasses and pine forest, with other plants filling the spaces in between.