Annapurna Based Camp Trek - September 2024 (Autumn Season) - 13D12N Trek

 Magical Nepal - Annapurna Based Camp Trek - September 2024

Magical Nepal – Trekking through the land of gods & snow peak mountains

Nepal in its own are uniquely special and magical– a place where Mother nature rewarded her with abundance of natural wonders and where Father time himself took special interest to craft over the longest period in creating his masterpiece of tallest mountain ranges and deepest valleys in the world.

The Annapurna Base Camp Trek or more popularly known as ABC Trek is a multi-day high altitude trekking across mountain’s ranges of Annapurna’s massif and categorized as medium to difficult trail to trek on. ABC is situated at an altitude of 4130m (13,550 ft) whereby from here hikers get the front row view of some of most spectacular and tallest mountains in the world:  Annapurna I (8,091m), Annapurna II (7,937m), Annapurna III (7,555m), Annapurna IV (7,525m), and Annapurna South (7,219m).

In September 2024, my wife and I decided to take the plunged and book ourselves for a 13D12N hiking trip for an all-out epic adventure on the Annapurna Base Camp Trek in Nepal.

At Kuala Lumpur international airport - ready for boarding

DAY 1: Kuala Lumpur to Kathmandu

From Kuala Lumpur, we traveled to city of Kathmandu via Malaysia Airlines and arrived slightly 4hours plus later. 

Arrived at Nepal airport - with a new friend that travel together with us from KL

The whole process of getting the visa application and payment sorted out was a real breeze. It takes us only 10minutes to pass through immigration checkpoint and to proceed for the baggage reclaim areas. The baggage reclaimed however, took a bit longer that we expected, almost 30minutes. 

We traveled to city of Kathmandu via Malaysia Airlines to meet with our local guide (Mr Sujan from Tidy Himalaya https://tidyhimalaya.com/) and begin to sort out our logistic and plan for upcoming road trip to Pokhara city (200km away) which act as the gateway to the mountain’s trails. 

Meeting our guide at the Kathmandu airport

Our pickup car at the airport then drove us through the city to the Thamel central district to our hotel. 

Street of Kathmandu - full of life and activity "Organized Chaos"

I must say it quite interesting to see the traffic and how the people and the vehicles managed to maneuver through such "traffic maze" and narrow road systems. Also, I didn't see any traffic light whatsoever to control such large numbers of vehicles.

Our cozy hotel for the day in Kathmandu (The Kathmandu Garden House)

As we are staying overnight here before traveling out to Pokhara the next morning, we decided to take this opportunity to use the spare time we had to explore the Thamel busy shopping district to do some light sightseeing - shopping and to try out some of the famous Nepalese cuisine here.

Shopping alley in Kathmandu - "shopping paradise" for hiking gears

One thing that I really like about Kathmandu is the shopping though. You can do your last-minute shopping for almost any kind of hiking gears or medication from shops within this shopping alley. (Note: However, do take note most of the branded gears are copy version)

Nepalese Cuisines 

We choose a local restaurant called The Local and decided to try the famous street food - Kothay Momos with buffaloes' meat and some vegetarian fried rice and local beer to go with.

DAY 2: Kathmandu-Pokhara

The next morning, our guide pickup up from the hotel and we walked to the local bus stop for the road trip to Pokhara.

I must say the road trip to Pokhara were quote a challenging and not for the fainthearted one. It took us almost 9 hours to reach as we need to snake go through bumpy asphalt, dirt as well as muddy road throughout the journey.

Even though we felt tired after the long bus ride, our feeling changes completely when we arrived at Pokhara. The town is clean and is located next to the famous Lake Fewa, which offers a very scenic and is very popular with backpackers before they head toward the mountain's areas.

Pokhara town /Lake Fewa (with the snow peak mountain at a distance away)

 (Picture of Lake Fewa with the rain color boat)

Our 4WD at our hotel lobby - loading our trekking gear for the trip to Nayapool

DAY 3: Pokhara-Nayapool-Birethanti-Ulleri

From Pokhara, we hired another vehicle, this time an 4WD to take us to the village of Nayapool and subsequently to another smaller village - Birethanti but this time through very rugged mountain terrains and start of hiking. The ride from Pokhara to Nayapool take about 2 hours.

Our 4WD parking beside the rest areas

Our guide buying some local produce from the street vendor- fresh fruits

Crossing the bridge to Nayapool 

Our 4WD passing through the rugged mountain terrains

Arrived at the drop-off site for start of the hiking (At Birethanti)

Photo of our team just we before we officially take our first step toward ABC 

The first day itself was quite challenging and tough as we need to climb upward to the village of Ulleri (2070m) which includes ascend of 3300 flights of stairs  

Passing through beautiful mountain villages and farmland as we trekked toward our first stop at Ulleri

Arrived at our first guesthouse at Ulleri

After 4hours of uphill trekking, we reached our first guesthouse slightly over noontime. What come as a big surprised to both of us was the condition of the guesthouse itself - it is quite new (recently renovated), nice and warm and the room is super clean. 

Our room for the night - sparkling clean and cosy

Power lunch at our guesthouse - Dhal Bhat " 24 Hour Power"

After cleaning ourselves up and did some quick laundry, we came down to the dining area for our lunch. Trying out the famous Nepalese dish name "Dhal Bhat"

First peek at the beautiful Annapurna snow peak mountain ranges from the rooftop of our guesthouse

Beautiful morning view of the mountain's ranges

DAY 4: Ulleri to Ghoperani

Even though the month September is the official start of the hiking season (Autumn season), it is still susceptible to the tail end of monsoon season - raining day during the trekking day.  Usually, from what I understand is that most hikers prefer to come late September or early October instead.

So, lucky for us, we found that there is just the two of us in the entire guesthouse. Hence, the got the whole place for us to enjoy - roomy and quiet.

Having breakfast at our guesthouse in Ulleri

Having a quiet English style breakfast - toast bread, roast potatoes, egg, honey/fruits jam and black teas

A quick water break - at one of the trail guesthouses stop

Signage pointing toward to Ghorepani

Lush forest trail ahead

Arrived at Nangge Thanti (2430m) - Stopping here for our lunch break

Hikers backpack - getting a quick rest at along the trail guesthouse

Arrived at Ghorepani - altitude 2874m (9429ft)

DAY 5: Poon Hill and Ghorepani-Tadapani

Our very first interesting stop was on the 5th day was the hike to the famous Poon Hill (3210m). Our hike starts at 430am and took us about 1 hour to reach the viewing area at the top of hill. At such elevation, Poon Hill allows us to get a first-hand sunrise viewing experience of the majestic Annapurna massif and its snow peaks capped mountains.  

Hiker start arriving at the summit of Poon Hill

Some of the hikers start to arrive to the summit in order to catch the sunrise view 

Anxiously waiting to catch the sunrise view

At the summit of Ghorepani/Poon Hill

Poon Hill: Beautiful snow cap mountain peaks of the Annapurna's massif 

Poon Hill: Golden sunrise view appears on the far horizon

Stunning view of the mountain ranges from Poonhill viewpoint.

Next stop at Tadapani village

Over the next 4 days of trekking, we passed through many mountainous villages including Tadapani, Sinuwa, and Dovan, Himalaya, Deurali, among others. We passthrough various local villages, lushed farmland, a myriad of fairy tale like misty forests and many stunning waterfalls. 

Be cautious - Lots of leeches

Due to recent monsoon rain, the trails in this part of the trek are still very wet and quite muddy and we found ourselves a magnet for leeches. All of us got many leeches attached to our shoes, legs and even crawling up to our bodies. 

We had to do couple of stop-n-check for leeches - where we took our shoes and socks and removed any leeches that managed to cling and suck our blood.

Important note: Do regularly check as it will help to prevent unnecessary bleeding and later became a terrible itch on your body after few days.

Hikers approaching Thapla Danda hillside areas

Beautiful view of surrounding misty mountains (at Thapla Danda)

Along the trails we meet various other hikers around the world including fellow Malaysian which was a surprising welcome since we’re really at such a remote place and so far away from home. We greet each other using the local word “Namaste” and many gives us many words of encouragement and for good luck for our ascend to ABC over the coming new few days.

 The trails took us through mountains’ peaks and valleys, and which requires lots of hard work and not forgetting sheer will power to steer us through those difficult periods. As we ascend to higher elevation, we also noticed that the earlier lush forest areas begin to change and turn to small grub/bushes and eventually to alpine like grass meadow. Day time temperature become much colder and mountains mist can engulfed the trails without us getting any early warning.

Beautiful manmade rock stacking formation beside the river

Taking a short break with fellow hikers over a cup of hot honey lemon ginger tea

Trail marker to ABC

Enchanted misty Rhododendron forest 

Passing through misty forest to Tadapani

DAY 6: Tadapani-Chhomrong-Lower Sinuwa

Meeting with a new local friend in Tadapani

Next stop - to Chhomrong

Arrived at Chhomrong village

Meeting with a new local friend in Chhomrong

Our trusted and dependable water bottle

We used our LifeStraw water bottle extensively as we can easily refill water from either the many river streams or water tap available at all the guesthouses along the ABC trek. We never had to buy any filtered water nor use any water purification table during our 2 weeks hike in the mountains.

I guess this is one of best investment we made before we came over to Nepal.

Gathering drinking water from the local stream

Beautiful forest trail on the way to Bamboo

DAY 7: Sinuwa-Bamboo-Dovan-Himalaya-Deurali

Till day 7, our body is still strong and luckily enough we didn't experience any early sign of AMS sickness which some of our fellow hikers are complaining that they started to feel their finger tingling and nausea feeling. As a safety and precaution measurement, we start to take 1 diamox tablet daily from here onward due to the higher altitude hike we will need to go through over the next few days. 

Arrived at Bamboo (2145m)

Long away to go for ABC

Arrived at Dovan (2505m)

Beautiful cascading waterfall 

Arrived at Himalaya (2900m)

Excitement starts to build as we reached Himalaya and we can start to see some of the snow peak mountains hidden behind the lush green mountains in these areas.

Beautiful mountains view of the Himalaya areas

DAY 8: Deurali-MBC-ABC

We made Deurali as our place to rest and to recharge ourselves before making our final push toward the last strech of the trails which is toward MBC-ABC which is close to 4hours away. Due to higher altitude and little available sunlight, the place is a lot colder from what we had experienced over the past few days. We decided not to take any shower here due to the fact is colder and the shower area are located outside from our room. We just took a "napskin shower" instead.

Arrived at Deurali guesthouse

Our power breakfast at Deurali - Gurung bread with egg & potatoes

On our way from Deurali to ABC 

Hikers passing through Deurali 

Hikers passing through the deep valley

Deurali river bedrock

River crossing through Deurali 

Passing through Deurali river bedrock

Glimpse of Snowcapped peak of Annapurna behind the mountains

Arrived at MBC (Machhapuchhre Base Camp) - at 3,700m (12,139ft) 

Passing through MBC 

Hikers pushing upward from MBC to ABC

Stunning view when passing through MBC camp 

Stunning view when passing through MBC camp 

Hikers resting before final push toward ABC

Alpine grass meadow and trail leading up to ABC



Alpine grass meadow and trail leading up to ABC

Hikers approaching the final stretch of the trail toward ABC camp 

Finally arrived at ABC camp (4130m)

We arrived at ABC camp around noontime. The weather has turned to become windy and foggy - visibility was quite poor whereby we can't see the Annapurna mountains anymore from here.

Low visibility - getting closer to the guesthouse area

We reached our guesthouse (Annapurna Sanctuary Lodge)

To finally arrived at ABC and finding the whole areas covered with thick fogs and bad visibility., I must say we were a bit disappointed to be honest. Some say mountain weather is extremely unpredictable and there not much you can do about by to wait for the weather to get better.

Hence, we decided to unpack our hiking gears and cleanup up at our room before heading toward to the dining area to grab our lunch.

Meeting some fellow hikers from Malaysia 

At the dining area, we were surprised to get the chance to bump into our friend from Malaysia. Hence, we decided to do teatime together and catch up on our hiking experiences. We actually did couple of fun hiking together prior with the team leader (Turtle hiking group)

DAY 9: ABC Summit-Bamboo-Sinuwa-Bamboo

What a big surprise and wonders over the next few hours- just passed midnight, the weather condition has turned for the better with perfect visibility of the mountain's ranges.  Earlier the day before, we didn't even know the snow peak mountain is so near to our guesthouse as it was completely covered by the thick fog. 

Early morning view - next to our guesthouse - before sunrise

Gorgeous early morning view - next to our guesthouse - Annapurna's massif snow peak mountains

Sunrise picture with backdrop of Annapurna's massif snow peak mountains

Mesmerizing view of the Annapurna's massif snow peak mountains

Meeting up with our new hiking friends 

Meeting this folk by chance in Nepal and realized later that that both the friendly ladies actually stay near my home in Selangor/Malaysia.

Stunning golden sunrise view appearing over the mountain ranges

 

Group photo of our hiking team at ABC viewing point

Getting ready to leave the guest and start our descend 

Beginning of our descend from ABC

Final photo stop at the ABC signpost before we start descending

Taking another photo at the signpost (with better visibility now and Annapurna mountains at our back). As you observed from our earlier photo taken from the same ABC signpost site, the mountains are completely covered by fog. We're super happy to finally get this perfect photo shot that we've been hoping to land even before our trip to ABC.

Our group photo with Malaysian flag

Beginning of our descend from ABC

Beginning of our descend from ABC

Our initial return descend plan was to Bamboo village which is about 6 hours from ABC and to stay for here for a night and then to Jhinu Danda village for the remainder night before traveling back to Pokhara town. We decided since our physical condition was good, we pushed ahead pass both Bamboo and Chhomrong and stop at the village of lower Sinuwa instead of Bamboo. 

I must say it was one of the most grueling days as we had to hike close to 12hours and even had to hike the trail in the dark as we reached out guesthouse almost at 730pm. But it was worth all the effort though - we get to have hot shower and a good hot meal for our dinner and a super clean bed to rest.

Steep stairways upcoming to Chhomrong village

Quick water break at guesthouse near Chhomrong village

DAY 10: Lower Sinuwa-Jhinu Danda

Our guesthouse at lower Sinuwa

Beautiful morning view - hillside village and farmland in Sinuwa

The next morning, after well rested night, we discussed with our guide and decided that we speed up our hike down and proceed to Pokhara town instead of staying in Jhinu Danda village. Thus, we had to hike almost 6 hours downhill and then proceed to our pickup point where the 4WD is waiting for us.

The local superman (aka porter) with his giant size loads

Jhinu Danda - The longest suspension bridge in ABC trek 

This must be one of the most beautiful and longest suspension bridge in the ABC region. We saw a herd of horses with their workload crossing bridge.

Jhinu Danda - Crossing the longest suspension bridge in ABC trek 

Jhinu Danda - Awesome suspension bridge across the deep valley

Once we crossed the bridge, we saw this goodbye sign " See You Again" - kind of nostalgic feeling as this mean our trip in the Annapurna Sanctuary region is about to come to an end.

Goodbye ABC Trek

DAY 11 to 13: Pokhara-Kathmandu

Group picture over an appreciation/thank you dinner we gave to our guide and porter Pokhara town

DAY 12: Flight Back to Kathmandu

We took a flight back instead of bus this time. We asked the kind hotel manager to help us to book a flight in the morning and managed to get our tickets. The flight back to Kathmandu took only less than 30minutes and it was a very comfortable ride and with beautiful view of the mountains.

This was a big contrast to a 9-hour bus ride that we had during our travel from Kathmandu to Pokhara. Lesson learnt - we'll definitely choose flight over local bus if we ever to travel here again - due to convenience, comfortable and the huge differences in the travel time required.

At Pokhara airport (ready to board the Yeti airlines)

Sightseeing in Durbar Square 

Lunch at authentic Indian restaurant in Kathmandu

Shopping time in Kathmandu

Dinner at local bar in Kathmandu

DAY 13: Kathmandu to Kuala Lumpur

All packed and ready to leave Kathmandu for the flight back to Kuala Lumpur

I must say this ABC trek is indeed a very challenging one in which test every part of us – physically, mentally as well as spiritually. I’m glad both my wife and me passed the test and make it through safely back home. This is all make possible the great care and support we received from our guide (Sujan) and our hardworking porter (Nikesh) throughout the past 2 weeks.

Big Thank You, Nepal for showing us how beautiful the country has to offer and what a wonderful world we still have here with us. The time and experiences we had here left us with an unforgettable epic adventure but also most importantly the opportunity to build an everlasting moment with our loved one.  

Till then - happy travelling and Godspeed to every one of you.

Note:

1. Please do checkout our YouTube videos below
• https://youtu.be/_RezLGCQtKQ?si=MXcGFGDu64_-fANa
2. If you need to reference/contact of the Nepal local guide, please refer to the link here
• (https://tidyhimalaya.com/)
3. Do refer to our link below if you need to find out more information on packing list for hiking in month of Autumn (September)
• https://cklcolin.blogspot.com/2024/10/abc-trek-packing-list-for-hiking-in.html
4. Do refer to our link for visa application process for Malaysian travelers to Nepal
• https://cklcolin.blogspot.com/2024/10/abc-trek-packing-list-for-hiking-in.html
5. Misc