DAY 145 - SARANKOT

145) SATURDAY, 19 NOVEMBER 1977 : 0KMS. - SARANKOT

 

It was full moon last night, the moon shone dimly light though. Something very exciting happened about 8.00 p.m. when we came back after having dinner (noodles) from a Tibetan restaurant. 

I was sitting on the driver seat in front and noticed a man walking around the area.  Suddenly he took something from a tent (of a British tourist), which was not far from where we parked our campervan, without the owner knowing it as he was too busy with the repair and replacement of tires of his motorbike. Later on, I heard that his carnet de passage, a film camera and other valuables were stolen ……

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So this was how it happened ..….

Because of my curiosity, I sat on the driver seat in the front and looked at the tent of the British tourist not far from where we parked our campervan for a while. Then I saw a man wearing dark clothes came to the tent. He suddenly ducked into the tent and walked back toward the back of our campervan, which was a fence next to a village. After a long while, the man walked back and went inside the tent  again.   

When he came out of the tent, he bent to look under the parking motorbike and walked around like wanting to find something. Then he walked back behind our van again. I suspected that something might be stolen. But at first I thought he was the owners of the motorbike. As I was thinking about what had happened, I turned my head  to look backward of our campervan. Unexpectedly, the man came up very close to the side of our campervan where I was sitting and  looked through the window of the driver seat. His eyes met mine, and he realized then that I had been watching him. He broke away and ran very quickly to the back side of our van. 

 

 

Fishtail under moonlight - Photo :  aramcoexpats.com / Google images search

I was shocked and called Tilo to take out two flashlights to look for him and the area. From the moonlight with average cloudy sky, I believed that  the man was a European with light-colored hair, unshaven beard  (like for a week long). I was confident that the man was the thief.  We still sat in the front inside the van.  A short while afterwards, we saw the torch light aiming at the tent and  people walked to the tent. We understood  that he was the British owner of the tent. Few minutes later a British (European) and a Nepalese went to find something near the fence on the back side. The British wore a light colored jacket and he rode his motorbike away from the lake. He might go to report the case to the police.
 

In the front inside of our van, we sat still for about half an hour and continued to gaze up at tents and the fence.  Immediately a man in black ran to the tent to place something in front of the tent and rushed back. We could realize immediately that the thief came back to return the stolen articles. Until I asked Tilo to take out flashlights to have a clearer look again, the thief already disappeared. I was so excited and a bit frightened having witnessed everything.   

We learned in the morning that everything in the bag was returned except  the camera. But in the late morning a Nepalese boy came with  the camera, telling that it was found in the bushes at the fence behind.  He claimed that it was stolen by a Nepalese. But it was contrary to what we saw last night.

Fishtail (Machapuchare) - Photo : mountainkingdoms.com / Google images search

In the morning at about 11:15 a.m., we went out on trekking to the hill of Sarankot to walk up to the top to view the Machapuchare peak of the Annapurna range of the Himalayas, which are always covered with white snow. We walked through villages and into the fields, the forests, following  up existing trails still in used.  I had to stop periodically as I was so tired due to not having much exercise enough. I felt lack of breath  just like the first day  in the hospital after the late operation of my left lung  in Germany before our long journey took place  that I had to rely on oxygen bottles to help with my breathing.

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On the way, I saw cobwebs stretched between branches and many on very large trees. Those spiders were also big with many different colors including black and green. On the trees, we saw growing wild orchids as well as sticking up parasitic plants.  Before we reached the top, it was 2.30 p.m. in the afternoon but we could not see the peak as the sky was very cloudy. We waited for the peak to reveal but it did not show up. It was getting late in the evening and the temperature became lower so we thought to stay overnight at a simple tavern on the mountain top. It was a clay house offering a comfortable bed to sleep in. We paid at NRS. 5.00 for each. The food was more expensive than the price down below.  

At dawn it was very cold, I felt that the blanket was not thick enough to keep me warm…..