Hotel Mountain View, Bahundanda — Hotel in Marsyangdi

My parter and I tentatively embarked on the ACT without a guide, despite everyone and everything telling us that trekking without a guide wasn’t allowed. On our first day, setting off from Besishahar, we were a little nervous about the trip ahead, as to be expected. However, we stumbled into Bahundanda just as a lightning storm was beginning and came across Hotel Mountain View and were greeted with a warm welcome by Bal and his Wife. We were the only guests they had hosted (or seen on the trail) for over 3 days and were told this has become a normality. We had a really enjoyable stay with them, the best of our whole trip on the ACT. The room was comfortable, we had a hot shower and fresh, organic food. The freshest food we had in Nepal, straight from their garden. We hope that they will start hosting cooking lessons as well… how on earth did they make such an amazing pancake with no flour…? And the local cinnamon was next level amazing.

Chatting to Bal and his wife changed the course of our trip as they kindly shared with us some top tips for the trail and Nepal in general and made us feel very confident in our decision to have no guide. We were sad to hear, but not surprised, that the general consensus from the local people throughout the trek is that the new legal recommendation that “requires” you to have a guide is damaging to the local people and only profits the tour companies based in Kathmandu and Pokhara. Bal is a prime example of this. The guides are insisting that their customers start the trek much further along the trail, skipping places like Bahundanda. As a result, the guest houses and business at the start of the trail are suffering from this, losing much business as trekkers aren’t passing through (and in our opinion are missing really beautiful parts of the trail). Furthermore, the guides have prearranged agreements with certain guesthouses so a lot of them, and really good ones, are receiving no business even in the busier sections of the trail.

We are SO glad we made the decision to walk without a guide and to start the trek from Besishahar. I would strongly urge any trekker to ignore the guidance from the guide companies (they will try to convince you that it is illegal to travel without a guide but this isn’t true), to make your own way along the ACT and to try to start from the beginning.

For us the first few days were some of the best, you can’t beat the first views of the mountains, and the view from Bal’s hotel is especially fantastic. Stay here, you really won’t regret it… the true gateway to...

we went there during poon hill trekking. we found the hotel by chance and spontanuously decided to stay for one night, as we liked it that much.|rooms are tiny and simple. we had our own sleeping bags but there were blankets. maybe not the cleanest ones.|the hotel is run buy a family. the mother is cooking (amazing!) and very friendly. her husband is always around for some smalltalk. they serve the standard dishes. we had dahl bat, local millet beer, local "wine", pancake, vegetarian momo, french toast and many more. everthing very tasty. best was the fresh hot ginger lemon! unbeaten in nepal so far. |the view from the terrace is worth a million and was maybe even better than anywhere else during poon hill trek... in clear weather you see the annapurna south, fish tail and the whole valley in front of your milk tea. i would love to go...

I spent my first night on the Annapurna Circuit at Hotel Mountain View, back in October. It felt magical! Bal and Januka took the greatest care of me: the shower was hot and the beds were comfy; the food here is absolutely amazing: everything comes from their own garden, even the rice! Even better, you get to eat with such a beautiful view. I was met with so much hospitality - Bal sat and chatted with me over tea for more than two hours and Januka treated me with the tastiest of dishes.

It is one of my most memorable nights on the AC and I would highly advise against taking a jeep and skipping the first days. The lush rainforest with all the insects and colorful plants was a very grounding environment for my soul, and the people along this first part of the trek are delighted to meet tourists. Take the extra days, you won’t...