We slept well on our first night at Shangrila. Rikzin and Kushiman greeted us when we came out of our room and quickly delivered our coffee and breakfast. It was cloudy and misty so we did not have great views of Fishtail. I had oatmeal and Wayne had an omelette and we split some Tibetan bread. It is chapati (kind of like a thick tortilla) and it is fried and puffed up. It was delicious with honey.
After packing up we started our 2nd day of trekking which was pretty much uphill again, waking up our legs. We entered an enchanted forest of birch, giant rhododendron, mountain oak, maple, and hemlock. The blending of colors was gorgeous. We hiked under a thick canopy and really didn’t see much of the mountains today and we did have to break out our rain jackets for a short while but it was not very cold. Given the thick canopy of trees, the rain jackets were more of a precaution than necessity, as we did not get very wet. (As we would find out later, further up the mountain experienced heavy pea sized hail that remained in piles on the ground to be found by us the next day.)
We were slow today as we stopped a lot to rest, take pics, hear about plants, cultures, ethnic groups, religions, have a power bar etc. We stopped for lunch at a tiny little hut where a father and his little son of about 8 years old served cold, hungry trekkers. There was no tea house here, just a simple hut along the trail for cooking with one table inside and a picnic table outside. There was also a place for camping outside. I had fried rice with egg and Wayne had some noodle soup. After the order was placed, the little boy would disappear down a path to a nearby hidden garden in the woods and return with the vegetables for the order. Can you say “fresh”? Such a hard working little fellow. It was so tasty and warmed us up after trekking in the rain. We had fun during lunch taking pictures with the locals and chatting.
We arrived at Forest Camp after about 6.5 hours of trekking and checked into the Rhododendron Tea House. We stayed in the dining hall for a lot of the evening and sat around the fire because it was cold and drizzly. We talked with Rikzin and Kushiman about our family and showed them pics of our kids and some of the trips we have been on. We also met a couple from Poland and chatted a bit. It was a fun, challenging and relaxing day.