
What makes a Himalayan trek an unforgettable experience?
The right choice of the trek? The region? A good preparation? A good physical condition? Yes. Yes. Yes and yes.
But there is also one thing that should not be underestimated: The right choice of trekking company.
Keep in mind that you'll spend 7 to 21 days with a guide and a porter. This can be a long time if the chemistry is not matching. We were lucky. To be precise, we were extremely lucky in many ways with our choice: Tembas Nepaltrek.
Since we are from Germany we of course took advantage of the fact that Sabine and Temba speak German. Especially when you do such a tour for the first time, there are many questions that want to be answered. So we met in our hotel in Kathmandu the day after our arrival and spoke about everything that was on our mind.
We also met our guide Mingmar who appeared very young and shy. Temba and Sabine did most of the talking and especially Temba gave us a good view on his ultimate trekking experience and his attitude towards organized tourist treks. There was also a package handed on to us with a detailed description of the trek, permissions, maps etc. We talked about our selected trip, the trek to Annapurna base camp and Poonhill and we felt that everything is in good hands. There was nothing we had to take care of except sending passport pictures in advance.
The next day Mingmar picked us up with a taxi to take us to the bus station, the beginning of our trip. He still was very shy but he really took perfectly care of us. He was always there for us and seemed to read our minds. The selected bus service seemed to be one of the better ones, but that’s a hard thing to judge.
Arriving in Pokhara we had one day to rest and to get a feeling of the lake village. Our hotel "Lakeview resort" was also a good choice.
Unfortunately Birgit became sick so we were unable to leave the next day. Mingmar immediately showed us where we can save time during the trip, so that we neither had to extend the trip nor miss or cut anything. After a 36hrs sleep Brigit recovered and we could start the following day. We met our porter (with a name I will never remember (badressin??)) who never said a word except Namaste but who was a wonderful character with a lot of warm-heartedness besides his amazing strength.
And then we were in! 12 days with joy and pain, lots of hot lemon, headaches and moments of extreme enthusiasm. Unbelievable views like never before, cold nights and hot showers. Through real rural villages, all kinds of forests, over hundreds of suspension bridges, up and down trillions of handmade steps. Since I'm German I always compared the day trips that were chosen by Tembas Nepaltrek with the ones described in lonely planet. I must admit that we felt much more comfortable with Temba’s selection. The estimated times fit perfectly to our needs. The lonely planet recco would have been too tough for us some of the days. Mingmar was the perfect guide for us. He left us enough space when we felt like it. He knew the trek by heart. He took good care of us and always double checked if everything was ok with us. We spent some long hours playing cards, laughing or talking nonsense. "Friend" is a word that should be used with care, but these 12 days glued us somehow together and we learned a lot about each other.
To sum it up. The Annapurna base camp trek with the Poonhill extension was THAT unforgettable experience.
And we are very grateful to TEMBAS NEPALTREK TEAM for all the energy, hospitality and deep friendliness that we received all the time. We say THANK YOU especially to MINGMAR and BADRESSING??? and we hope to see you someday soon for the MUSTANG trek!