Today's big decision was whether to take a rest day after our ordeal at "the pass", or to press on. If we continued on, then the possibility of visiting the Annapurna Sanctuary remained, otherwise there would not be time. We went.

The walk from Muktinath to Kagbeni was one of the most interesting so far. First of all, we dropped another 3,000 feet, getting down to an altitude that was reasonable for human beings. I can't describe why I liked the scenery so much, but it was a symphony in shades of reddish brown.

Muktinath is a destination for pilgrims who flock there at certain times of the year (not now). For their purposes there was a fairly wide road that led up the hill to a long wall of prayer wheels, behind which was something that resembled a graveyard, but which probably consisted of a large quantity of chorten, the stone towers which are commonly found at the entrances and exits to towns. Along the road to Muktinath, from as far away as Kagbeni, there werecountless piles of rocks left by the pilgrims.

But I was talking about the scenery. The pilgrims had planted a lot of some sort of deciduous tree (birch?), very out of place in this arid landscape. There was a set of large old trees, and another set that was only a few years old. Everywhere there were stone walls winding through the barren fields, which nevertheless were being plowed by an occasional farmer (with the help of a couple of yaks).

The most interesting town was called Jarkot, which was built up on a small jutting hill. It had the remains of a large fortress around which the rest of the town had been built. The most interesting aspect of the town was that the fortress and a number of other buildings had been built from mud bricks. The combination of the rounded, hilly terrain, the fences surrounding the oddly shaped fields, and the mud buildings with such dramatic mountains behind, made a subtle, but attractive sight. I took a lot of pictures.

So we followed the little piles of rocks, like pilgrims returning home, down the hill to Kagbeni, which lies at the junction of two rivers, one of which is in a deep valley leading into Tibet. Brad says that this area, which I have been praising so lavishly, is geologically part of Tibet. Its sedimentary deposits are distinctly different from the other areas that we've been in.

Kagbeni was another interesting town. It too has been built around a decaying mud fortress. Like the cities at Pisang and Braga, it was highly interconnected, but here there were many covered passages so it is possible to get from one place to another without going outside. We tried to go into the Gompa, but were chased away by a couple of kids who told us we couldn't go in, and then locked the door. We also searched in vain for a monastery, which people kept directing us to, but which we never found.

In this particular valley, stretching from Tibet down to Tucche, enormous windstorms arise every afternoon, blowing huge clouds of dust down the dry, wide river valley. This make travelling quite unpleasant in the afternoon. So we stayed here for the night. The French couple from Chamje were at this hotel. Also here was a New Zealander who I had met in Muktinath, as well as another Israeli group.