The pass and the road

The Annapurna circuit is a trail of 220 kilometres, an almost complete circle which goes round the four Annapurna mountains. Usually, the trek starts in the east and circles anticlockwise to the west, divided in the north by the Thorong La pass into an eastern and a western part. Part of the trail is paralleled by a bumpy road for jeeps or even autobuses, and the two big themes that accompany all trekkers are these two: the pass and the road.
It's impossible not to get in touch with the pass from the first day of the trek. Actually, whereas the first few days everybody is free to hike as far as he wants, the four days before the crossing of Thorong La are mainly a preparation for it: in Manang at 3.500 height meters, all trekkers are strongly advised to stay a minimum of two days and to do a dayhike to higher areas for acclimatization, and they shouldn't gain more than 500 height meters during each of the next days before the crossing - all to avoid the very real threat of altitude sickness. At the last stop before Thorong La, there's almost no other conversation than each one's condition and the strategy of pass crossing. It's quite easy to get so absorbed by the pass, that you in fact forget that after it there are 10 days more of the trek - that's exactly what happened to me! It took me nearly three days to get  my motivation back, after mastering the "big challenge".
This is the point where also "the road" comes in: on the west side of the Annapurna circuit, there's a road that reaches almost to the pass, and many people go straight from there back to Pokhara instead of finishing the circuit. The road building business in Nepal is very fast developing: Both my trekking guide from 2009 and my map from 2011 were hopelessly outdated, because the west road exists since several years, and the road on the east side already reaches as far as the first four walking days. The locals are usually very excited about the forthcoming of the new road because they hope for more business as the access for trekkers gets easier - whereas I fear the contrary: most trekkers I talked with about the road business are coming exactly to get away from vehicles and dusty roads, and I fear that in the future the trekking business is going to move to other, less developed (some would say: destroyed) areas. It already is an additional effort to find the trails that avoid the road. Even so,I'm happy I didn't give in to the temptation to stop the trek after the pass and take a bus because these last days have been as beautiful as the first ones. Surprisingly enough, I found the most intact villages and most unspoiled landscapes here on the west side, where the road already exists for some time, and that's because there has been time for new foot trails to evolve. Foot trails which often bypass the villages which lay on the road and hoped for more business through it...
There are two days left before I reach Pokhara, and I already know I'm going to miss the trekking routine. Even if my feet are looking forward very much to a rest!