friends welcome to Nepal, the hiking and trekking
capital of the world. in today's video we want to bring you along on a journey as we attempt to hike one of the best long distance hikes in the world and we are gonna try to make this journey happen
on a shoulder season which means that there's probably not going to be any crowds so it's gonna be as pure as possible but at the same time the monsoon season is just around the corner which means that heavy rainfall and landslides can end our Trek at any given time. and just as it is with every great story, let me start by introducing you the main characters of today's Journey. German music starts playing this is Julius an engineer and a brave traveler
from Germany and in our team he played the role of lead engine and a Pathfinder. second up Liisu. being a doctor she took it to herself to look after our health but just as important was her role as a model making this video much more pleasant to watch for all of us GO, LIISU, GO! and lastly as the beautiful and mesmerizing main character we have the world famous Annapurna circuit
Trek almost every list of the world's best hikes includes Annapurna. this diverse and amazing journey through Himalayas that goes up to almost five and a half kilometers of elevation. Has for long been in our bucket lists oh and I, the dude whose voice you're currently
hearing, I'm Joe my job in the team was to make bad jokes so you might be hearing quite a few of them What sound does a sad hiker make? but now let's start from the very beginning
to give you a whole picture what it takes to hike one of the world's best trails. step one of the hike - preparation. we have made it to Pokhara but now we're gonna go and get permit for the track we're gonna do. first part of this meant paperwork. many of the hikes here in Nepal require permits and passes 10 minutes later... we got two permits, the ladies
were super nice and they cost us 3000 Nepalese (Rupies) so like 22 euros and well the
second part of preparation was packing this was actually surprisingly easy, the whole
route of Annapurna is actually quite well equipped shopping is the best cure for a bad
day all kinds of goods and stuffs and there was toilet paper and cola. So the only things you really need to bring are warm clothes, head torch, water filter to defend yourself from
diarrhea on the mountain and if you worry as much as we do then snacks to feed a small family for at least a week I guess this is the end of preparation. it's about six in the morning and now second leg of our Journey Begins which means that now we have to somehow get to the beginning of the hike. I know step two might sound easy but if you have ever been to Nepal then you know that
traveling from one place to another is one of the most stressful parts of visiting this country and this is kind of how it went first we took a taxi to a local bus stop, secondly from the bus to the city we needed to go Besisahar. how much is the ticket? 800 NPR then we almost got kicked out of the bus because we had the audacity to ask the bus driver why we had to pay almost double the price of a ticket compared to others Just asked the ladies in the back and they said the correct bus price is 500 NPR. I don't really want to pay extra just because we're white next up followed probably five most uncomfortable
hours of my life. can anyone count how many people are in the bus? there was twice as many people as there were seats I guess when there's 26 people on the bus just the pressure on the tires is too big so we're just airing up the tires for the rest of the journey and I literally had to sit cross-legged as my legs did not fit side by side of course the bumpy roads didn't help either
and honestly I was so happy when this part of the journey ended we have made it to Besisahar
it was over five hours cramped up in a small bus then follow the quick drink to celebrate
the fact that we were still alive and then another three hours in a local jeep
through winding mountain roads and roadworks and then we were there so we made it uh almost
like eight hours of traveling in buses and now Jeeps this is gonna be the guest house we
spend our first night but how it works here on the track is that if you eat dinner and breakfast at your accommodation then the room will be free. the place we ended up in was much nicer than what I expected before the hike fancy private bathroom, beautiful views - TV,
the best kind of TV, good food and we even had time to walk a few steps to kind of prepare ourselves for the next part of the journey Just coming up few steps up the hill and I'm
realizing that I might not be ready for this hike I'm not ready either as the last thing of this
day a happy accident and we got a friend Julius he just walked in, he's doing the same track
as well, we'll see maybe we hike together tomorrow oh no tomorrow it's gonna be Julius starting -> SPEED well just like this we had made it to the
third part of the journey the part where we finally started walking, the day started with a big breakfast and then we were off Let's go! for us a big day Julius has already done one day before so
he doesn't really care it's just another day on the track but our journey starts from here and I guess at least for the next seven days probably a little bit more we're gonna try to hike around Annapurna mountain range first days of such big hikes are usually magical it's a when you haven't yet realized how heavy and uncomfortable is your backpack just needed a small break for my shoulders and I saw locals doing it and even your shoes haven't yet realized that it's
about time to make some new blisters on your feet and around this time we slowly started to realize the positive side of visiting this track at the end of May between hiking and rainy season the track is not crowded at all as well, completely empty. we haven't seen any other hikers Even yesterday I did not see a single hiker little did we know that this shoulder season would soon enough also bring a lot of trouble.
the weather forecast doesn't look too good it shows a lot of rain and rain in a mountain
literally means trouble. it can cause landslides, it can block off roads. of course everything
around us felt new and interesting as well we Trekked through small Mountain
Villages full of smiling locals Hiked on grasslands, Cliffsides
and even tropical bamboo forest it was a true privilege being able to enjoy nature
in such manner looks like the whole village was included in building this part of the road over there but it quickly became clear that maintaining such routes requires hard labor of hundreds if not thousands of locals it doesn't matter man or woman, locals just carry everything on their backs on those mountains dear first day of the hike why
oh why do you need to end so soon I guess that's Gonna Be Our
Guest House for the second night it's the same thing that if you order food
from here then the accommodation is included 5:30, second morning of walking no six o'clock actually. on longer hikes
second and third day are usually the ones that that set the Rhythm for the whole journey it's almost like you start developing a routine for the coming days and weeks. for us it meant heavy breakfast, then filtering water for the coming day and a bit of complaining before we could start with walking I'll be honest with you the shoulders are hurting
that's why all of this here and the legs are hurting a little but I guess that's all part of the fun. a regular guide on the track costs 25 dollars a day but if you have a guide like us you can only pay in scratches and Cuddles yet when talking about the track itself then those early days are what make Annapurna circuit such a diverse Journey the track at
this point still runs on quite a low altitude and so in a matter of hours, the trail can go from a
warm and tropical forest to Barren Riverside and then again do something totally different. the leafy trees are gone and evergreens are just dominating the ecosystem it's quite awesome, all the pines and spruces and after a day of walking there's the evening
routine which consists of finding a guest house I guess tonight we have something more fancy again
it's called The Royal Hotel and the views from here just incredible. then eating a lot of food. when you're hiking and especially in the altitude it's just you can go and go and go and the food here looks amazing then eating a little bit more. apple pie with custard. and occasionally taking a shower before heading to bed around 8 o'clock just as we were getting ready to take a shower
we heard that only few hundred meters that way there's natural Hot Springs. not sure how it's gonna look like because they gave us a bucket so it's probably not the big pool but we're
gonna go and check it out. Natural Springs, guys! this here used to be a whole Hot Springs complex
but the recent Landslide had destroyed the whole thing landslides are just part of life here and
luckily there were still few places in the ground where hot water was coming out. one of the holes
was too cold, the other one way too hot so for the first 10 minutes or so I played the role
of a bath boy delivering hot water to Julius and cold water to Liisu but finally I got my
share of the hot and relaxing bath as well you can probably tell it by the hat
but on this elevation it's getting a little bit colder. today we're gonna
cross the elevation of three kilometers we're at 2.7 at the moment and in
the evening we want to be at 3.3 in my own personal opinion I would say that the fourth and fifth day on this hike are probably the most beautiful but also the hardest. exhibit A - two people who are not afraid of heights exhibit B - one that is was it the best part of the trail so far? by far! the best part of the trail, you missed everything! I heard the view from there is better than from Everest bestest of views! these are my friends guys it's the time when you slowly start to feel the
altitude. yet it also seems that after every hard climb there is something amazing and gorgeous to be discovered it seems to be one of the most common jobs around here. they're breaking rocks because everything is built out of those rocks. houses Roads, all the fortification. these guys, they were all like 13-14 years old so still teenagers. for our group Upper
Pisang was one of such special places I would even say that this was the place where we truly realized that we are in the Himalayas. amazing! I can't believe it! over there inside a cloud, first
view on Annapurna II. it's almost 8 000 meters and like we thought those
were high but then you look up there almost impossible to put in words how amazing
it feels to see those giants with my own eyes their size, Beauty and elegance just makes
it hard to concentrate on anything else so hard to eat, just the clouds are playing over there. Then Annapurna IV, Annapurna II are showing itself one by one. yet there is one more thing that changes as soon as the mountains begin and this surprisingly is the religion. although Nepal is mainly a hinduistic country than in the mountains Buddhism seems to be the dominant theme and honestly the calm and preserved Buddhist ways
actually go together very well with these Majestic mountains every morning all the locals light up
this evergreen tree and it smells so good I think it has to do with shooing away bad spirits but it makes the whole village smell amazing it almost feels like Buddhism was designed for such unique places but well Buddha was born in Nepal after all so yes this part of the hike is truly magical
but as I said it was also most challenging rain covers on, shall we? Go, Liisu, go! suddenly just after passing one of the many beautiful mountain Villages it's starting raining. not a huge fan
of the rain but the scenery today.. The whole has been absolutely amazing. at first it didn't seem like much but bit by bit it got worse and worse I don't even know what falling out of
the sky anymore, it's not rain because it hits you differently and it's not snow
because it doesn't stay on the ground for hours we kept on fighting the weather
through cold grasslands and muddy Mountainsides that honestly scared the living crap
out of me. I hate those places the most! you can see that there's been a landslide and it's
all mud thanks to the rain now until we got to this point in the evening. everything I own is wet and I basically have clothes that are on are wet and clothes that were in the bag, the warmest
clothes that I have, they are also wet but because the bag leaked somehow and and the next point we're gonna hike is gonna be over 4 000 meters so everything that's even slightly wet is
gonna freeze. things really were not looking good but we will decide what happens next once the
sun rises again so see you in the morning. Bye! last night was rough and we're heading
back but luckily not in a bad way. just the things didn't dry and so we redid our plans a little and today we're just gonna spend the whole day hiking up to an ice Lake it's like 4 600 in elevation so it's gonna be a hell of a hike but it's very good for acclimitization and
also it gives extra time for our things to dry many Trekkers take time off in Manang
before going further to higher altitudes hike to the ice Lake was a really fun adventure
but for the sake of the story I will summarize it first we saw a dog with a leg in his mouth really
not sure if that was a good omen. that's a leg! luckily it wasn't a hiker's leg it was a cows.
then we filled up some water from the stream had yak cheese and fresh bread for breakfast and then casually climbed about 1.2 kilometers of elevation what's the goal for the day? keep positive and
keep moving! yeah a lot harder than it sounds I don't know what it feels like to be on
cloud nine.. we're currently on cloud one and it feels cold and wet, just like somebody's breathing on the back of your neck and yes finally we made it to the
lake, we have made it to 4 600 meters oh I was actually expecting a bit more ice and
since we made it up, celebratory piece of yak cheese for you! but still totally worth it when returning from the lake we scammed by a
tea salesman walked by the restaurant before and they told us that come and support the locals and buy at least one tea. we got three teas and it's like the most expensive tea of my life. rookie mistake! but the sadness didn't last long. it was nothing a
good piece of cake could not fix Lake&cake? the most important thing of trekking
and mountaineering is planning your route day number six and it's a little bit
weird because first time it's like clear clear in the morning. all the mountains are showing themselves. there's four of us now it's fascinating how easy it is to make
friends on such Adventures by this time Julius had almost become as close as family and Charlotte our new friend from France also became part of the team very quickly. with new friends and interesting conversations next days almost seem to fly by and the Trek truly blessed us for those sixth and seventh day as well. for the first time it was clear skies without a hint of rain Liisu! What's today's goal! to be positive and keep moving! Stay strong! also the landscape up here was quite
different at around four kilometers of elevation there is no more trees. we took breaks on beautiful grasslands saw herds of yaks grazing on the Mountainside I actually thought they would be bigger but they are like small and super hairy cows with weirdly big horns and after relatively short hiking day even
climbed more to adjust with the altitude At 4.2 kilometers of height, all of us felt
light-headed and we were afraid that this feeling was far from over. the road
after all kept only going higher from here Seventh Day on the track what's the goal for the day? Keep positive and keep moving! Make it to high camp healthy! on the next day we needed to climb another 600 meters in elevation to reach the high camp the one big surprise in this Camp was that although we started quite early then before us hundreds of locals went on the mountains to look and scan for a special kind of caterpillar. it's a little bit weird but it's used in Chinese medicine (it's endangered and expensive) and so they go up there in the morning and they spend a whole day digging up the mountainsides and looking for this one animal to sell them. yeah not sure how do we feel about it. most of the time we walked on a narrow path on the side of the mountain in some places landslides had wiped away the roads on others the rocks were still falling. holy
crap, I couldn't film it but of that wall a few quite big rocks came loose and
they flew between Liisu and Charlotte that was lucky! on such altitude every moment
requires effort and I think it's the first time in seven days when even Julius was struggling to catch his breath. nevertheless by afternoon we made it to the high camp. it felt like a calm before the storm. we all knew what was coming the next day yet still try to be positive and stick to our routine. welcome to 4 900 - view point of high camp we woke up at four and started our Ascent at 4:30 in the morning. room is just full of positivity! there's nothing left! everybody just grunts in silence 4:30 in the morning and and the
main part of the adventure begins heading to Thorong La pass. the track led us through
steep Rocky Mountains, beautiful snowy valleys and this here is the part of the journey that
really makes you appreciate the team you're here with we cheer to each other! you can do it! few more steps, few more steps! you did it! and try to motivate ourselves through
this, the hardest part of the hike (incomprehensible singing) first sun of the day! but in a weird way the hardest part of this journey is also the one when you realize why people love hiking so much up here it doesn't matter if your hat looks funny or glasses don't really fit, it's a place where all worries and insecurities vanish and what remains is almost like meditation, just
one step after another and then you arrive 5 400 meters of elevation
perfect weather and realization that the people you accomplished it
with now almost feel like a family then breakfast on top of the world and from there it's just downhill and then after walking hours downhill it all becomes clear the whole experience comes back to you and for me
that's where I realized that there's no doubt this track deserves a place in the list of world's
best hikes. it's diverse and beautiful in nature rich and interesting in culture.
challenging for the body. and if anybody asks then end of May is absolutely
the best time of the year for this hike yes at times it might be a little wet but hiking one of world's most beautiful treks without crowds of people is truly humbling and an amazing experience friends thank you for joining us on this
adventure to such a beautiful and unique place of course special thank you to Julius and
Charlotte for making this such a wonderful experience and we hope to see you all
back on the channel next Thursday in a little bit less than a week with some new
adventures from Nepal! take care and bye
