Nepal, Annapurna trek, Geo publication, "Die Strasse", the road...

Last July I went for 10 days to walk some of the Annapurna trek for Geo magazine, as part of a special issue on the Himalayas. It's one of the legendary trek of the Himalayan world. I had done part of it over 10 years ago but since then, a jeep road has been built in the western side of the circuit, reaching to the holy shrine of Muktinath - mostly bringing Indians believers, who flew into Jomson village, then took the jeep to the base of the shrine, then horses to the shrine itself... minimal walking involved (question: does that defy the idea of a "pilgrimage"?). They are building a similar road on the eastern side of the Annapurna circuit.
I went with writer Tom Dauer, who when not on assignment, lives in a beautiful farm house at the feet of the Alps, 40Km south of Munich - great place to read, write and chop wood!
Here we are, after a quick dip in the holy spring of Muktinath (which washes from all sins! thanks goodness...) this ended up at the beginning of the magazine, an interesting contributor picture.

Voici quelques images ainsi que l'article publié dans Géo allemagne, suite à mon reportage sur la route qui se construit le long du célèbre trek autour des Annapurnas. Ci-dessous, me voila avec Tom Dauer, l'auteur de l'article... Ici aussi, un diaporama fait par Geo.

Geo did a small sideshow piece, and ask me to lay some words over it. Here it is in English or German, it summarizes the story quite well.

This is the resulting article from that story, came out in December 2010:

 

 

 

And these are some of the images that didn't make it into the story, life along the road...