Indian Samurai इंडियन सामुराई

I contacted a few agencies, to find out the feasibility of a trek in August, with two 20-month-old babies and a pregnant woman (I voluntarily did not mention the granny with her fucked-up knees). Two of them recommended me the Annapurna Panorama (Poon Hill) trek with the advantages of: a relatively low altitude (3,000 mt), short (on top of everything I only had one week off) and “fairly easy”, with a bonus: tea guest house to sleep in and not tents. Perfect, isn't it? However my father didn’t seem to think so and started asking around, worried about the rain in this season. Fortunately he found the blog of a French guy who said it was quite possible (and nice) to trek! I immediately booked the tickets.

My friend decided to do without the opinion of her doctor, but to get Dr Google’s. She looked at what other trekking women had to say on the subject on French forums and found out that pretty much everything in Nepal can be a problem for a pregnant woman: altitude, hygiene, access to medical care, the state of the roads.  

With tow super active babies and another one in the larvae state, the idea of a 7-hour bus ride to get to Pokhara on the Nepali road (which I had done once) was not particularly thrilling.

So I thought we could fly! A little reluctantly because my plane was once hit by thunder during a flight to Kathmandu and left me shit scared of flying in the storm (or in the rainy season)! And of course, I happened to talk about thi idea of flying to a friend who immediately warned me: “Be aware and do your homework: planes tend to crash in Nepal. And indeed, after two severe crashes at the beginning of the year, French tourist agencies in Nepal have stopped domestic flights.

In the end, what worried me the most about the trekking in Nepal option, were the turbulence on the plane and my friend’s nausea – as my pregnancy had been rather ruthless, where trekking from the living room to the bedroom was often beyond my strength the first months! Regarding the hygiene concern, I had made up my mind that living in India, she was a little bit accustomed, a step ahead if you want. You can also see the glass half full and say that after all the Himalayan Nepali women also have babies. Except that, the Himalayan Nepali woman who is a few weeks pregnant and who has never left her mountains, you immerse her in Gurgaon road madness, a miscarriage, if not a heart attack, is (almost) guaranteed!

And then, heavy rains, landslides and mudslides in Nepal made the headlines. And I gave up... At this stage, I asked my husband to take over. Too much is too much!