Oh, the Places We'll Go

The numeric story of our time in the Indian Subcontinent:

• 35 – Days we spent in India
• 29 – Days we spent in Nepal
• 47 – Hours spent traveling by train
• 72 – Hours spent traveling by bus
• 0 – Hours spent traveling by plane
• 18 – Hours spent on our longest single commute in India (Jodhpur – Amritsar)
• 31 – Number of beds we slept in
• 1112 – Photos taken (and kept) in India
• 1621 – Photos taken (and kept) in Nepal (the most of any single country)
• 7 – Average number of times we had to say “no” before Indian people got the hint
• 2 – Elephants we encountered in the streets of India’s cities
• 3 – Yoga classes taken in Rishikesh, Ted’s first ever
• 11 – Days we spent hiking the Annapurna Circuit
• 90 – Miles we hiked on the Annapurna Circuit
• 14,337 – Vertical feet climbed on the Annapurna Circuit
• 15,912 – elevation of Thorong High View Camp, the highest we’ve ever slept
• 17,769 – elevation of Thorong La Pass, our highest hike in Asia
• $59.18 – average price per day in India (for both of us)
• $71.55 – average price per day in Nepal (for both of us)
• 100+ – Number of cups of delicious Chai tea

Be sure to check out our Best of India, Best of Nepal, and Annapurna Highlights albums to see some of our favorite moments of this chaotic land.

Our days and days of hiking along the Annapurna Circuit were inching us toward the big pass we had to get over. At 17769 feet (5416m), it’s definitely up there and the highest elevation most of our group members had ever climbed. We spent two nights in the village of Manang shortly before the pass to allow our bodies to acclimatize. We then had another two nights of sleeping at even higher altitude to get our bodies ready for the big day (including a night sleeping at nearly 16,000ft!).

The steep hike up to High Camp

Possibly the highest hotel in the world?

Unparelleled views from up here

In every direction

Prayer flags cover every peak

Though most of our group had mild headaches, and Chucky was fighting nausea, we set off for the pass from our guesthouse just before dawn. The darkness and wind made for a cold morning, but the rising sun bouncing light off the mountain tops and reflecting off the snow made for fantastic scenery.

Pre-dawn departure from High Camp

Pink peaks of sunrise

Sunrise shadows

Smile - we're almost at the top!

It's always a nice day when you're hiking above the clouds

The whole crew charges up the final steps

We arrived, with relative ease, at the top of the pass only a couple of hours later. Hooray for us! We celebrated with Snickers and Oreos while we took dozens of pictures at the prayer-flag-littered-summit-marker.

Bagged it!

Hugs from Shiba! Everybody got one!

Required boy-band photo

Since we were only 231 feet below 18,000 at the pass, the boys scaled an adjacent mountain just to make it up to this arbitrary altitude. The girls, not interested in hiking further uphill just to make it up to a round number, decided to stretch and laugh at the energy-wasting wasting endeavor.

Yup, that's them up there

According to Charles' watch, they made it

Smile, you're at 18k feet!

And then it was time to descend. Little did we know we had hours upon hours of downhill hiking in front of us that would prove to be more painful than anything we experienced going up (and would result in us limping for days). Over 1500 vertical feet down per hour, for 3.5 hours! However, ignorance was bliss and we were too busy celebrating and thinking about our beers at lunch to let such matters distract us at the pass!

The decent to Muktinath

And the beers we were waiting for!