For the upcoming new year of 2018, we decided to go on our first trekking in Himalayas. Being our first trek, we chose a trekking route that can be completed within few days and also near from Kathmandu as we have tight schedule. After few searching, we chose Gosainkunda. Holy lake of Gosainkunda is near from Kathmandu and very well-known as it is also popular pilgrimage spot for the Hindus. It is also the origin of Trisuli river.
The lake of Gosainkunda lies inside Langtang National Park. It is situated at the altitude of 4350m (14271.65 ft) from sea level. The trek highlights are picturesque view of Himalayan Mountain range including famous Mt. Langtang (7,227m) and Ganesh Himal. There are believed to a total of 108 lakes in the area. For trekkers planning to make whole circuit there is a reward of crossing Lauribina La (4610m) pass.
According to Hindu mythology, Lord Shiva swallowed poison to save all of living beings and to cool his throat from poison burn, he thrust his Trishul into mountain to extract water. In the due process the holy lake of Gosainkunda was formed.
We took bus from New Buspark in Kathmandu at 6:00 am. As the road was in poor condition we reached Dhunche at 4:00 pm. We decided to trek for one or two hours and spent night at the tea house along the way. Prior to trekking, we contacted the lodge in Sing Gompa to know about trekking conditions and found the route was OK. After we started trekking from Dhunche, We found out that most of tea houses along the way had been deserted due to the off-season and later found out the only lodge/tea-houses still being opened were at the Sing Gompa. We had already trekked for 2 hours, instead of returning back to Dhunche we decided to trek extra 3 hours and reached Sing Gompa. We reached Sing Gompa at 9:00 pm. The owners of the lodge were at Kathmandu due to off-season and had left the lodge to caretaker. The caretaker greeted us at the village entrance and showed us to our rooms at the lodge.
Morning view of Sing Gompa (Chandanbari)
We started our trek at around 6:30 am. We reached at Cholangpati after 1.5 hours of trek and had our tea. After few hours of trekking we reached at Lauribina (3900m). We had lunch there and for the trekkers having lunch or staying there can enjoy free wifi. We enjoyed some time there clicking photo and posting photos on facebook. After some rest, we resumed our trekking to final push to Gosainkunda. Due to rapid push from low altitude to high altitude, there were some signs of altitude sickness which made trekking a bit more difficult. At around 3:00 pm we reached the holy lake of Gosainkund. We enjoyed the view and after around 2 hours there, we decided to head back to Lauribina to spent night. We reached our hotel at around 7:00 pm. In a sense, we trekked whole day.
Holy lake of Gosainkunda.
We started our journey back to Dhunche at around 7:00 am. Along the way back we had our tea at the same lodge we stayed at Sing Gompa. We bought yak cheese as a souvenir to our close-ones. We reached Dhunche at 12:00pm. After reaching Dhunche, we found out the last bus to kathmandu depart at 11:00 am. Though we planned to stay at Dhunche that day when we started our journey from Lauribina, we decided to head back to Kathmandu if there is any possibilty. We did get back to Kathmandu after few bus reserves and hitch-hiking and reached Kathmandu at around 10:00 pm.
Lodge at Lauribina.
Mountain of Himalayas
Morning tea at Cholangpati
Bhairav Kunda
View of Himalayan Mountain Range
Mountain path to Gosainkunda
Heading towards Gosainkunda
Himalayan mountain view
