Last updated on October 18th, 2025 at 07:46 pm
This was a huge point on my wish list for this journey – so I was absolutely thrilled when it became reality. And what shall I say, it was an incredible experience, even though it didn’t quite go as planned and we had a couple of rather uncomfortable days. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning.
We arrived in Nepal mid-August, so in the middle of monsoon season. After exploring Kathmandu for a couple of days, we decided to go to Begnas Lake and spent almost a month there at a beautiful little farm stay, waiting for the rains to stop. I’m talking gorgeous views, amazing food and nothing to do but work on ourselves, our journey and our own projects, many of which were planned and started during that time. Almost every day we’d have rain, often accompanied by power outages and instable internet – so slowing down was basically obligatory. Our kind hosts invited us to celebrate some festivals with them and we even got to go to a local school for their celebrations, which was a lovely afternoon. When the rains started getting less frequent and the sun dominated the weather again, we decided it was time to move on and take on our big quest for Nepal – the hike.
After a short stopover in Pokhara – a beautiful city by the way – we went back to Kathmandu to organize our trip. We wanted to do the Manaslu Circuit Trek in 12 days. Even though it is one of the harder treks, we felt that it was the right one for us, as there are less tourists on this trek and there is almost no road you have to walk on, as it is rather remote.
So, after doing some shopping (seriously, you can get everything there, and its rather cheap as well), we embarked on our journey. The first day is spent getting to the starting point (Machhakhola), by bus and car, which in Nepal is a tiny adventure in itself. Unexpectedly we had to walk the last bit on the first day as well, as the road had been damaged during the previous rains. But the real trekking started on day 2, as we took of into the gorgeous nature of the mountains. What really stood out to me was the sheer beauty of the landscape, with stunning green valleys and huge waterfalls, you occasionally have to cross. Sadly, on our third day, our luck ran out and it was pouring the whole day. Our guide Hari decided to make it a short day in the afternoon, as we were freezing, wet to the bone and it would still have been quite a bit to our planned stop, so we stayed at Nyak Phedi Hotel – this decision changed everything.
The next day we marched on – or so we thought. We started the day together with a group of locals wishing to go to the next town. However, we soon started seeing the true consequences of the rains the days before: landslides and rockfall had made the path impassable, a conclusion even the locals reached after balancing around giant rocks on the path and jumping over waterfall-like mudslides, which were still moving. So, naturally, we turned around and walked back, warning fellow hikers along the way. Two days later we were back where we started, and ready to continue our adventure elsewhere…
… so we took the bus over to Besisahar to do the Annapurna circuit instead, as it was not affected by the rains and equally beautiful. We stayed one night in Besisahar and even now, a year later, I remember the cutest little kitten we found there on the street (like literally, in the middle of the street, with cars driving past it and all – naturally we picked it up and brought it to the side of the road, where we asked a local shopowner, if she knew, where it belonged. They indicated that it lived with them and we dropped it off in front of the shop – which it immediately sprinted into.) Either way, the day after, instead of hiking again, we took the car to the furthest point you can go (Manang) – because we had already spent 6 days at that point, we wanted to only do the short version of the Circuit. We spent another lovely day there to acclimatize, including a short hike (up to a view point) going by a gorgeous glacier-lake (Gangapurna lake). We are at 3519 m at this point. What was amazing to me was, that even at that height, they were able to grow vegetables and not so far below we had even seen whole apple-tree plantations. Hari, our guide, informed us, that these were recent developments and that the highest villages in Nepal were profiting off climate change that way. Also, he told us how much the glacier had molten in the last years, as he walks these treks multiple times a year, he knows quite well, how they change.
The following day, we started trekking uphill again – and day by day experienced the raw beauty of the Nepali mountains. Fuelled by chai and Nepali Thali we reached the high camp two days later and spent the night at an incredible 4900m. Even though we were exhausted, we still went up to a stunning viewpoint there. It started snowing in the evening. That night, we didn’t sleep to well, so it wasn’t much of a problem to get up early – we left for the high pass around 5:20am! In the beginning it was still dark and we saw some stars, but soon the sun came and illuminated the snowy path. Around noon we had crossed Thorong La pass (5416m) and were ready to walk down into the lower regions of Mustang, reaching Muktinath in the afternoon. Later that day we went to the temple in Muktinath, joining a beautiful ceremony offering to the spirits and then running through the many springs to be blessed.
One thing, I haven’t mentioned enough is how lovely our company was throughout the trip. Hari guided us and explained everything we wanted to know about Nepali culture and the trek. Kishar didn’t speak much, but never failed to amaze us at what ease he carried our luggage, mostly in slippers, and sometimes even barefoot (e.g. After loosing one slipper to the mud of our last days on the Manaslu trek). And everywhere we went, we were welcomed warmly by local tea-house owners and had lovely exchanges with fellow trekkers, bonding over the shared experience, giving and receiving tips and learning a lot about the different treks you could do in Nepal. This left us with a deep desire to come back one day and complete the Manaslu trek, and I am sure, we will…
Our journey back to Kathmandu led us through Pokhara again, which was just as lovely the second time as the first. Finally, we said our goodbyes to Hari and Kishar over a lovely dinner, and took the bus back to Kathmandu to be re-united with our backpacks and all the things we had left behind.
Have you ever dreamed about trekking the Himalaya? Would you consider actually acting upon these dreams? Let us know in the comments below!
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