Overall, my friend and I had a wonderful trip and great experiences both on the “business” side with Bharat and with our guide Ramesh.
“Business” Side
Bharat was very responsive with emails and helping determine good options for our time frame. Payment was mostly straightforward, but Id recommend not using PayPal as it looked like it hit Break free with a large fee. We ended up with an extra day in Kathmandu due to reasons detailed below, and Bharat was very helpful in changing reservations and getting us a driver.
Trek
Wow!!! Langtang is beautiful, and highly recommend this area for a more off the beaten path experience. Given it was March and a less popular trekking region, we had trails to ourselves and mostly empty tea houses. Ramesh was everything you could ask for in a guide: professional, fun (we played lots of rummy and “donkey” at night), and knowledgeable. Given that a large part of the experience is dependent on your guide, I cant stress enough how lucky we felt to have Ramesh with us. He definitely seemed top tier relative to other guides we met on the trail. He was always making sure we were in-taking enough calories (Orange “tea” and cookies became a nice way to finish up the days hike) He also was very cognizant of weather, and had us skip a day of trekking around Lake Gosainkunda due to an unexpected 6 inches of snow. He did a good job of communicating this later on and working with Bharat to plan a day in Kathmandu. With that said, Ramesh also met us at the airport and was our “in town” tour guide. Great all around!
Misc:
My friend and I are both males ~ 30 years of age and in pretty good shape. We carried our own packs and still finished most stretches of the trek in 20-30% less time than Ramesh seemed to normally go. (He of course has no problems with any pace!) Had we known this, we may have tried to do a longer (distance) wise trek ahead of time.
