Walking among the clouds. Trekking Manaslu, Tsum Valley.
From the very first moment walking into the Trekking Planner office, we felt very comfortable and knew that we’d made a good choice. Dipak sat with us and we discussed what we had intended to arrange. He was very knowledgeable due to his extensive experience guiding all over Nepal. We were doing this as part of a world trip, so due to our long term travelling, and not wanting to take unneeded items, Dipak kindly allowed us to leave our excess baggage in the office for safekeeping.
We planned to do the Manaslu circuit and link up to the Annapurna circuit directly after. The plan was recommended to do the Tsum valley on the Manaslu trek to assist in acclimatisation prior to attempting the high passes. It was a fantastic recommendation as was far less busy than other sections and the scenery was magnificent from the top of the valley. We arranged to have our guide with us for the Manaslu trek (18 days) and then when we finished and prepared to leave from Dharapani for the Annapurna, we planned to continue on our own.
Our guide, Ramesh, met us at the office on the morning we left for the beginning of the trek. Ramesh was such an awesome young guide. Always cheerful, smiling and singing along the way, he was very knowledgeable on the mountain ranges and always happy to answer any questions we had. Having spent some time trekking the Tsum valley before attempting the the Larke Pass (5106m) definitely helped with our acclimatisation. The company takes this all very seriously as we were one of the few groups that had their guide monitoring the oxygen absorption and pulse of an evening to ensure we were in good physical condition to continue higher the next day.
We arranged to have the accomodation and food as a package and it worked very well for us. There wasn’t any issues with limiting food options from the menu, as we’d heard some other guides had imposed. Our food and drink orders were made well within reason, though we had some allowances made for us on occasion. Everything was very well organised and explained what the trekking plan would be for the following day.
Even though we had planned for Ramesh to return to Kathmandu as we continued on our own, he was ever helpful in giving us some fantastic information and assisting us before we parted. He has a lot of experience in his years of guiding and it was such a pleasure having him along with us, that we intend on having him guide us again when we return to Nepal to do some more trekking in the future.
Based on our personal experience, and the reviews of many other satisfied clients, we would highly recommend Dipak at Trekking Planner, and also Ramesh to guide you, to assist you in tailoring your trekking requirements in Nepal.
