Trek up the Langtang Valley

Namaste.

The bus ride from Kathmandu to Syabrubesi and the start of the trek was  “the worst ever experienced!” according to my son.  A single track road with hairpin bends and switchback corners, huge ruts and muddy uneven surface, yawning drops down the mountainside with no safety barriers and half cleared landslides was extremely scary – it took the bus about 9 hours to cover 120 Kilometres!

The trek, which takes about 6 days of hard walking, follows the river valley of the Langtang Khola steeply up into the mountains and close to the border with Tibet (China).  At times we could see the snow-capped mountains of Tibet.

We began by crossing a suspension bridge over the river and then walked through forest for the first day, hearing below us the rushing of the river at all times.





We passed fabulous waterfalls and enormous boulders, the size of houses, suspended on the hillside where they had been left many thousands of years ago by ice, water or landslide.

My grandson sitting on top of one of the enormous boulders near Langtang village.

Surprisingly, a tea-house we passed mid-morning had a bakery selling croissants and delicious homemade biscuits – which gave us fuel for the steep four-hour climb that followed. We were tired and relieved to reach Lama Hotel, our accommodation for the night. That day we climbed 1000 metres taking about 7 hours. Well done to Solli, my nine-year old grandson for that achievement!

Next morning we left the forest and steep path, continuing through upland grassland with grazing yak and gently ascending all day. We reached the village of Langtang, that day’s destination, by mid-afternoon. 

Yak grazing

Towering around the top of the valley were snow-capped mountains, peaks ranging from 5000 metres to the highest Langtang Lirung at 7246 metres.  Truly awesome, in the correct sense of the word!

The inhabitants of the upland valley are mostly Tibetan and Buddhist, so we passed many strings of prayer flags, prayer wheels, mani stones and stupas.  I particularly liked the mani stones – long lines of flat stones, many hundreds of years old, carved with symbols and prayers arranged into a wall along the side of the path.  We had to be careful to pass them in a clockwise direction as is expected in this religion.   

Also interesting were the prayer wheels powered by the mountain streams tumbling into the valley.  Each had a small house built around it to protect it and every time the wheel turns the prayer inscribed on it is sent.  








All along the valley, often at conspicuous places, were Buddhist stupas.  Many of these were painted with gold tops and colourful decoration on the lower parts. Some had the boulders around painted with Buddhist signs too. Streams of prayer flags surrounded each one.

We stayed overnight at the topmost settlement, Kyanjin Gompa, and visited the small monastery there.

Despite the stunning mountains all around us, we were saddened by this village, which seemed to cater only for tourist trekkers and not the local inhabitants.  

Next morning the sunrise was worthy of the early start - by 6.30 a.m. we were above the village and watching the first shafts of sunlight fall on the summit of Langtang Lirung. Magic!

On the last day of our return we took an alternative high path instead of the one we had come up, and were rewarded with a walk through alpine type pastures, with interesting flowers and butterflies, and of course fabulous views back up the valley. We stopped for lunch in a small lodge high in the hills, which, we decided, would be an ideal place to stay if you wanted to get away from the 21st Century for a few days.  

As we descended back into the valley, to Syabrubesi, at the end of our trek, it was interesting to see a road snaking up the hillside on the opposite side of the valley - so many hairpin bends!

How far we felt we had travelled during our week of walking, and what great memories we had to take away with us.

(Many thanks to my son, Chris, for the use of his photos. I carelessly lost my camera on the last day, containing about 500 photos of the trek!  I was not happy.)