After planning our trip to Mardi Himal for more than 5 months, with the dream to play in the snow, it so happened that there was a rainfall instead of snow.  It was almost 9 PM when we took a bus from Kathmandu Bus Park. We arrived at Pokhara Bus Park at 5:00 am the next day. We had very short time to send the time in Pokhara according to our 5 days plan. We had some breakfast to boost up and boarded to Dhampus by Jeep. The jeep ride through bumpy off-road was totally a thrilling experience I had. We almost learned a local song which kept on repeating every time.  When we reached Dhampus at 1 pm, I understood why dhampus was so famed among trekkers. The scenery around was so amazing that it could make you feel like you are in heaven.  It was the perfect weather for gorging on the delicious thakali meal.

After spending almost an hour, we started our trek from Dhampus. We asked the villager about where we can reach before the stars could show up, and we thought of staying that night at lumle-7. As we moved uphill, we could see the small villages at the bottom of the other hills. Pokhara looked so small in front of that hill. It was almost the end of monsoon, there was a light rainfall during our trek. As we entered the dense forest, we could feel leeches sucking our blood. Luckily, I had a packet of salt to get rid of those blood-sucking mammal. When we reached Deurali, our destination for that day, I felt that Nepal was indeed one of the most beautiful countries in the world. It had a great view. We could have a top view of the beautiful Ghandruk and this place also revealed magnificent Annapurna Mountain Peak. This place was very windy, so we had to order two cups hot black tea within an hour.

On the very next morning, we started our uphill hike at 7 am. The whole scenery was changing so rapidly, the beauty of the environment couldn’t be captured though the cameras. Slowly the fog started to cover the whole area. For me, slow-moving fog engulfing hills make it almost impossible to say no to uphill trek during the rainy season. The trails were so slippery that we fell quite often into the mud. The green jungle didn’t allow us to feel tired, we kept on pushing ourself with a curiousness to see the first view of Fishtail Mountain. We had the very first view of Fishtail Mountain from Badal danda. We refreshed ourselves by taking in a hot soup of noodles. We had to reach the height of 3900m so we rushed to reach our final destination i.e  High Camp.  As we moved on, we found our trail with small grass, there were no more big trees which would cover the scenery of the other hills. We took loads of photos as if we were never coming back to the same and with the same view. After 2 hours, we finally reached our destination. There were only three hotels. We luckily got accommodation in one of the hotels. At the hotel, after freshening up, we sat near the hot fire and started to talk about the plans for the next day.

The next morning was really amazing. The mountain for which we have been waiting for this whole trek was clearly visible. We immediately rushed to the high land to capture some amazing pictures without even freshening up. We had some local breakfast and headed towards the view tower for the closest view we could get, leaving behind our trek bags in the hotel. We found some Yaks grazing in the sloppy hill. We finally reached the view tower after 2 hours of uphill hike, by then all the mountain range was covered with a thick fog. We stayed there and prayed to god for the fog to go away. Sadly, it was just opposite. The fog was getting denser, for which we had to return to high camp with some limited pictures. We had our lunch by 12pm and set our mind for trek to  a heaven like place known as Sidhing. It was out speed that we managed to reach Sidhing before the time we expected. It took almost 4.5 hours to reach Sidhing. The hotels in Sidhing had service. We could easily get a Taxi for Pokhara from that Hotel (Trekkers Home ).

Overall, I’d say the trek was very short. The best time to go mardi is after mid-September. I don’t suggest you to travel in mid monsoon. If you want then go prepared to face the leeches.