Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Day 517 - Pisang - Manang (3540m)

Just as we were getting ready for breakfast this morning, absolute terrifying disaster struck. Liv was walking back from the bathroom and saw smoke billowing from the hotel 2 doors away from ours. At first she mumbled to herself "there's something on fire", but then when she saw flames leaping from the windows, she grabbed a porter walking past and pointed and shouted "fire". At once he started yelling and running and soon people were coming from all directions with buckets of water to try to put out the fire.

With the wind blowing fiercely in the direction of our hotel we hurriedly packed up our things and got outside as soon as possible where people were running wildly around us. We stood in shock for a few minutes not knowing what to do as we watched a whole family's life quickly burning away. Locals and trekkers were coming and going with buckets, pots, pans and anything else full of water to throw on the flames, while Adam joined others running into the home right next door to drag out things worth saving just in case their house caught fire. It was a sad realisation of what was important to those who live in this harsh mountain environment - in New Zealand we wouldn't risk ourselves for the basket of cabbages and dirty clothes Adam dragged out while embers dropped onto his clothes.

It was so hard to leave the devastating situation but we'd reached the point where we were probably in the way, and the locals had it well under control - even though it was such a sad event it was wonderful to see the community come together to help one of their neighbours.
As we made our way out we stared in awe at the huge glacial-carved rock face sweeping down behind Pisang that had welcomed us the day before. As we hadn't managed to get breakfast in Pisang we stopped at Humde for cinnamon rolls and porridge, before continuing on to Manang. We were expecting Manang to be a big unwelcoming town, but were pleasantly surprised at the simplicity of it - though the bakeries were far from simple! We ended up finding the best hotel with the best kitchen and host in town and we'd recommend anyone going to see Mavis if they ever do this circuit!!!

Adlibing a lesson in life's value.

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