Langtang Valley Trek to Kganjin Ri
Langtang Region, Nepal
A back and forth hike up the Langtang Valley.
Genuinely the scariest bus ride of my life. I had the window seat, just next to the rear tyre, looking out and down I couldn’t see the road below us, I had no idea where on the road our tyre was sitting. Instead I could just see the drop off, trees and rock all the way to the river below. We were travelling on the only road to China from Nepal, bumpy, dusty and a road where it was not uncommon for buses and Jeeps to disappear off the edge. The road had only opened recently, before that, Sybaru-besi was pretty much end of the road, a place for trekkers and locals only. Our starting point was here. Old and new parts of the town separated by the road, the new, all big hotels, jeeps and people passing through, the old, poor farmers and small guesthouses, previously full of backpackers, but now struggling to draw people away from the new part of town. Our trek took us up the Langtang Valley, passing through small villages full of subsistence farmers and simple guests houses. The major town used to be Langtang, but the earthquake of 2015 triggered a landslide that flattened the town, killing 500 people, both locals and tourists. Now, the town is an expanse of rubble and rocks, still shifting and moving. Eery and surreal. There is one house that survived, the rest of the village is being re-built. At the top of the valley is Langtang’s new biggest town, Kyanji Gompa, sitting at the foot of Kjanjin Ri. A cluster of blue-rooved guest houses surrounded by snow-capped peaks.
By Matiya Marovic
2017
