Trekking, what is it like? And why is it different from hiking, or even tramping? Fundamentally it's not so different. You throw a bunch of garbage in a backpack and you walk up and down hills. The difference? For one thing, there are porters walking around with packs that are several times larger than yours, and they're walking barefoot! At our lunch stop today we learned all about porters from the owner of the hotel. For a trip from Dumre to Manang, which takes them 12 days, they are paid 60 rupees ($3) per kilogram. They can carry as much as 100 kg., for a total payment of $300 dollars. In Nepal this is a huge amount of money, enough to sustain a trekker for about a hundred days. But, he said, the porters tend to eat and drink a lot along the way, sometimes spending all the money by the end of the trip.

The loads they carry are immense. The heaviest loads are carried by the strongest men, of course, but the women and children carry huge loads too. I haven't seen any women porters, but they gather and carry huge bundles of plants and sticks, which they carry back to their villages.

Everyone who carries a significant load loops a tumpline around his or her head, to bear a part of the weight. They don't use backpacks: women tend to use large baskets that are narrow at the bottom and wide at the top to carry their loads of plants. The porters just stack together a bunch of boxes and use some burlap (or sometimes plants) as padding. I think they have shoulder straps too. I'll have to look into the construction of their loads more carefully.

Food available

So that's the first difference. Secondly is that you don't have to carry your own food, at least in this part of Nepal. Around the Annapurna loop there are hotels in just about every village, and villages around every turn. The hotels all serve food, of varying quality and variety. In some of the larger villages the "finer" hotels are quite deluxe! The one we stayed in last night had a billboard advertising it just outside of town. It had an outhouse and a separate "bath" (an outhouse without toilet) for private bathing. Not only that, it had padding on its beds (1/2 inch foam), separate rooms (with slat boards separating them, but with locks), and they had 10 meals on the menu. Because of all this they also had a good crowd of people. Lesser hotels offer only one meal (dal bhaat), sometimes with egg (omelette), and tea (tea).

It saves a lot of time compared to backpacking, where you need to light a fire, gather wood, cook the food and clean up afterwards. When you're trekking you can spend all this extra time walking or talking to people, or even taking pictures. It makes the day's hike more relaxing. Especially since you don't have to carry food or stove or pots and pans. But that doesn't exactly mean the packs are light.

Traffic

Unlike camping, trekking passes continuously through populated areas, heavily populated, at that. As you walk along you pass a fairly steady stream of people walking between villages; or sitting in or around their houses, which face the trail; or working out in the fields (and occasionally hidden in the branches of trees). When camping, this crowd of people would be a serious annoyance, serious enough that I would refuse to camp there. For some, unidentifiable reason, it is not an annoyance to meet the Nepali people along the way. They are all pleasant, any who know English want to talk, and so do some who don't know English.

Children

Most amazing of all are the Nepali children (ketaketi). They are absolutely intrigued by strangers (at least large white ones), and they run up to say hello (Namaste = I salute the God in you) with their hand together as if in prayer, and a big smile on their faces. Then they'll as for something. Literally a hundred children in a day will say, "Namaste. Gimme a pen." If every trekker brought a hundred pens it wouldn't begin to satisfy the demand. Others will ask for sweets (mithai). In the lowlands many would beg for money, but not much of that up higher. They seem happier here. Frequently a child or group of children will spot us from a distance, a hundred yards or more, and should out "Namaste." Some of the shyer children won't initiate the "Namaste," but when we say it they always respond. Today a woman's youngest daughter (age 2?) didn't "Namaste" us, the mother grabbed the girl's hands, placed them in the praying position, and said it for her. The mother didn't say it herself, although we didn't direct it at her. At a certain age the children stop being so friendly. Up to 7 or 8 (maybe 10), they will always gleefully respond, and usually initiate. Very few above that age initiate the greeting, except for older men who are generally very friendly too. The others who initiate are often trying to sell you something.