Last week, me and my two cousins decided to go on a small trek which would last a few days. Our first decision was to go to Gosaikunda, we had been to Gosaikunda last summer and it turned out to one of the finest trek we had ever been to, so in a sense we did want to relive that moment once again.
But after continuous disapproval of our families the plan changed on the very day we were heading to Gosaikunda, so right then we decided to trek to Kurintar - Manakamana - Gorkha trekking route, which had come up quite few times in recent past. It isn’t the traditional route that people used to take, it is a fairly new one which is right below the route of the cable car from Kurintar.
We wanted to leave early but our family decided we eat first, so it was about 9 by the time we left home. We hopped on a bus from Baneshwor to Kalanki. And about 10, we were on a bus heading to Kurintar. It was a short trip and around 2pm we were in Kurintar ready for our trip to Manakamana and Gorkha.
It had been few months since I hadnt been on a trek and it soon became evident by the way I was panting in the first 15 mins, uphill. It was a steep climb and the camera and the tripod didn’t make things easier along with my other backpack. As we climbed higher and higher we could see people going to and returning from Manakamana. We had fun teasing the people in the cable car. :)
We knew we would get there easily before dusk, so we had fun along the way, took long breaks and basically had fun on our way up. Soon we were at a significant height and the mountains and hills looked wonderful in the evening sun.
There were around three hills we had to overcome to reach Manakamana and each one was higher than the other. The picture above and below are the view from the top of first hill. The station seen in the picture below is the cable car station in Kurintar.
Then at around 5 in the evening we reached Manakamana, it was already getting dark so we booked ourselves a room, kept our belongings, took some rest, had some noodles and headed towards Manakamana Temple. We stayed at around 5 mins distance from the temple, and by the time we got there it was late evening. I had also taken my tripod so I took this picture of the temple at around 6.30pm.
We wondered around the temple premises for sometime and then headed towards the hotel where an old man was waiting for us with a some finely cooked chicken and a bottle of whiskey. After we finished the bottle and had our dinner we called it a night.
The next day we woke up pretty early at around 6 (?), ordered tea and went on doing our morning chores (toilet and brushing). It was my turn to go to the toilet. I went inside, it was a small toilet, little more space than a man's width. There was also a small window, I looked outside if the sun was up and was greeted by this magnificent view from the toilet's window.
We then had breakfast at around 8, some fine parathas that the old man made and headed towards our next destination - Gorkha.
We knew there was a new motor way that had been made from Manakamana to Gorkha, so the trekking route wasnt used much. So it was difficult to navigate around the route. Only few people used that route and we asked around and finally made our way to Gorkha in the evening.
The next day, we climbed the hill to the Gorkha Palace, which took us about an hour.
Below are some of the pictures taken during the trek.
