DAY 13 : NEPAL : Samagaon (3520m) - Samdo (3875m) - 4 hours

Our destination today was Samdo.

View of Mount Manaslu at sunrise from our teahouse.

Beautiful morning for walking. Heidi and a Serbian priest you might think but no, your faithful reporters. Satish has recommended that we do nothing to cause a chill to affect our breathing as we climb higher - which means washing our hair - so appreciate the new look - you'll be seeinga lot of it!
 

 Happy trekkers enjoying the views of Mt Manaslu - usually covered in mist.

 The spectacular views down the valley to Samdo.

The track seemed to stop at the Bodhi Gandaki River - some trekkers crossed barefoot but we made our way upstream and were able to finding our way across jumping over river stones.

 Yaks grazing. Amazing creatures - much larger than I expected - quite majestic.

 Our first sight of marmots. There are a patchwork of holes in many open fields and occasionally you are lucky to see marmots - the largest ones are as big as a tomcat.

 Our campsite in the small town of Samdo was spectacular. It was a town established in 1950 when the Chinese invaded Tibet and many refugees moved to Nepal. The Tibetan border is about 4 hours away.

 Our campsite looking towards the town, consisting of 4 teahouses and a maze of stonehouses with slate rooves. 

I asked a local lady about handicrafts and she invited us to her small dark home where she showed us some of her knitted goods. I bought a pair of gloves for $5. Samdo has electricity from 4 pm- 9am, powered by a small hydro-electric plant near the town.

 

Glenis and I did some washing at the communal tap until we were invaded by a group of mules who wanted to drink all our washing water.

A free-spirited mule grazing outside out tent.

M&M

mm_smith@bigpond.net.au