Indian Subcontinent – The Numbers

Ted — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 05:18:37 +0000

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.

Thorong La Pass

Sarah — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 18:36:41 +0000

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!

Oh, the Places We'll Go » Thorong La Pass

Indian Subcontinent – The Numbers

Thorong La Pass