Thyangboche is absolutely tiny. It’s quite desolate and there’s not much here apart from a large, striking monastery. A prayer ceremony began at 3 and we were able to sit and watch. In front of the monastery is a beautifully impressive archway covered in vibrant colours and carvings of Buddhist gods.

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I had a veggie fry up this morning which was a great start to the day - even though the baked beans were strangely spicy and tangy. After the rest day, I felt much more energised and happy to walk up the mountain. The first half of the day wasn’t too difficult and we saw some great things such as the Rhododendrons - Nepal’s national flower. Apparently it’s rare to see them in bloom in June, they’re normally in full bloom in February - so we were lucky!

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When I woke up and looked out of the window I was speechless. I couldn’t see a thing out of the window; the whole of Namche was enveloped in a cloud! For this reason the gallery below shows photos from the day before; our approach to Namche Bazaar.

Today was an acclimatisation day AKA “the rest day”. It’s built in to the trek allow the walker to acclimatise to the altitude and reduction in oxygen. On this day however, you don’t completely rest as you might expect. We were told that it’s a good idea to climb up high and then come down again and sleep to help with the affects of the altitude.

We climbed up to Namche’s Everest museum which had all sorts of information about porters/sherpas/the history of the mountain and people and loads of photos. For example: we all thought we’d been seeing yaks all over the mountain carrying loads of luggage but we had in fact been seeing cross breeds - ½ yak, ½ cow called Dzopchoik - male, or Dzoom - female. They were smaller than yaks with shorter hair. They are also better at handling warmer climates. We’ll apparently see some real yaks as we climb higher.

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It’s morning. Already, we had grown accustomed to hearing the retching/coughing sound of the locals, where they would quite literally cough up muck from their lungs. This is due to the dust/thin air of the mountain. At first we were slightly put off by it, but now it’s a familiar sound! After a porridge breakfast, a massive jug of boiled water was brought out and we all filled up our bottles before setting off for our morning trek.

We walked for 3.5 hours up and down a mountain, stopping at Jorsale for lunch which was very similar to the day before. We went past some beautiful waterfalls. The sun was very strong and I made sure I wore my factor 50 on any part of uncovered skin, but I had to take off my hat as my head was getting too hot and I found out later that my scalp got sunburnt!

We saw the most spectacular view of what I thought was the summit of Mt. Everest, but after asking the guide (who laughed at my naivety) we discovered that it was Thamserku, a mountain which stands 6608 metres tall. It was hard to imagine a mountain over 2000m taller!!

After lunch the walk began to get much harder. It started off medium-difficult but ended up being incredibly challenging! We got to a point where we were walking up steps for hundreds and hundreds of metres, never stopping. The views continued to stun us with their beauty. We got to a suspension bridge where two rivers join, one river running from the top of Everest, the other from Tibet; they join at this point and run into the Ganges. The wind was getting stronger and the flowers were becoming scarcer.

Very gradually, the Everest Base Camp Trek was becoming more and more challenging, every few steps we’d have to stop to breathe and I felt exhausted all the time. The climb was getting steeper and there were times where many of us just wanted to turn back! I was told today that someone actually thought they would burst into tears they were that fatigued. My toes began to hurt a lot. My boots have never been a problem before I’ve had them for about 5 years, but I think they may be too small! A combination of wearing thicker socks than usual, and my feet being constantly swollen. I’ve put on blister plasters underneath my big toes to reduce the pressure on them.

The walk was about 4 hours long, when we finally saw Namche Bazaar (3,500 m) in the distance (our next destination) it felt incredible - but it still took what seemed forever to get there as we were moving so slowly! Namche is in the cloud line - we were literally level with the clouds!

When I finally got to the hotel, I collapsed in bed and slept for 2 hours unable to move. My back felt very sore as did my feet. After eating a fantastic Dhal Baht we fell asleep looking forward to having a lie-in before our rest day that would follow.

Today’s walk was a gentle amble to get used to the terrain and walking. One of the first things we went past was a Starbucks on the side of a mountain - I was disgusted!!

However, after that the sights became incredible. We passed Buddhist good luck symbols everywhere! Across the suspension bridges were colourful prayer flags blowing in the wind, every so often you would come across a large, colourful, revolving cylinder memorials called Mani Wheels which contain Buddhist prayers that get stronger each time the wheel is turned. Doing this is meant to cleanse your body from any sin. There are also huge rocks known as Mani Stones carved with a single Mantra (chant) or a complete prayer to the God of compassion. They’re very impressive and beautiful.

(click on the images to enlarge)

On this first trip up the mountain we were struck by the beauty and lush vegetation everywhere, the amazingly fresh air and breathtaking views. Whoever you passed on the mountain would stop to say Namaste “greetings”, and the people were all very friendly. Herds of yaks went up and down the mountain with bells attached to their collars. The sound of the bells ringing as the yaks move up and down the mountain is almost magical. We also crossed our first suspension bridge - an prospect that was daunting to many in the group. However, the bridges were sturdy and not half as scary or unstable as we expected.

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We had a very early start, waking up at 4.30am to get the early morning flight to Lukla. When we got off the mini bus our luggage was carried off by unknown porters that were waiting around at the airport. They scrambled in and grabbed some of our luggage and even though we were perfectly capable of walking the 20 metres to the airport entrance! They refused to give the bags back until they’d been tipped! Cheeky! and they even complained about the amounts of the tippage!

The airport was very small, but we were checked at security stations about 4 times before boarding the plane. The plane was over an hour delayed as we had to wait until the sky was clear in Lukla. Most of the group fell asleep waiting for the plane. When our flight was called we went onto a bus which took us to our plane. The airline was called Yeti Airlines!!

When we saw the plane the excitement of what we were about to do sank in! The plane was tiny, seating 17 people -  just enough for the group. Sweets were handed out, and cotton wool because the plane was so noisy. The excitement and anticipation of the group as we neared the Everest Base Camp Trek is difficult to describe in words as it was so immense! 

The journey lasted just 40 minutes and the views we saw out of the aeroplane were spectacular!

The landing was surprisingly smooth. We noted that the airstrip at Lukla was on an incline, I assume so that the aeroplane can slow down and take off faster on the runway.

We had tea, sorted out our luggage and began walking straight away. Many of the local people work as porters and help walkers carry their luggage up the mountain. These porters are incredible - super human! They voluntarily took our big bags, each porter carried about 25k of weight, and they literally ran up the mountain as if our bags were full of feathers!

We carried our day packs on our backs containing anything we’d need during the day as we wouldn’t see our other belongings until the evening. Most people’s day packs had snacks, 1-2 litres of water, sun cream, lip protection, fleece, waterproof jacket, sunhat, camera, water purifying tablets etc. We then started walking.

Here are a couple more photos of our Childreach Charity trek group.

 This one is of Hannah sporting the dhauni on our way into Kathmandu.

 Next, on Day 6, we prepared ourselves for the famous air flight to Lukla airport, where our Everest Base Camp trek would finally get under way!

x
R

traditional-nepali-music-kathmandu

Here’s a quick video of the Nepali musicians performing some traditional music for us as part of our big night out in Kathmandu.

After the shopping, we went to a bar called ‘Buddha Bar’ which served traditional food and drinks, and sheesha. You had to take your shoes off before entering the bar.

Later in the evening, we were treated to a Traditional Nepali evening of festivities. We went to a beautiful, ancient building. Outside in the courtyard we were shown how flour was made and what the rooms used to be used for. Musicians played traditional music and some dancers got all the girls in the group in the middle to dance with them.

After this we were ushered upstairs into the dining room, we each got a bindi on our foreheads and water was poured over our hands before entering the room. We were sat on very low chairs on a long table. We were first given small shots of typical Nepali wine called waasa served in goblets shaped like egg cups. It was very potent and you could your insides burning as it travelled down. We were then served a meal in courses:

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After a lie-in and a fantastic breakfast we went to meet the tour guides. We had a briefing which outlined exactly what we were going to do on the Everest Base Camp trek. After this, we went in to Kathmandu to explore and do some last minute essential shopping for the trek.

On the way in, we were constantly harassed by street sellers, mainly selling Nepali instruments. Pardeep and I got sucked in, and without realising how much we were spending, we purchased Nepalese mouth organ type thing that makes a ‘doing’ sound when you breathe in an out and flick a spring (500 rupees= £4! – scammed!). It sounds very cool when played by the street people, but it’s very difficult to work out how to use it!

It’s made of metal - what exactly, I don’t know but hopefully not lead! – It’s strange that I’ve been overly cautious with eating fruit/veg/salad, and the water – drinking either bottled water or boiled and purified water, using it even when brushing my teeth, but now I’ll happily stick a piece of rusty metal in my mouth for ages!

And Lucy bought a very cool ‘singing bowl’, which makes a therapeutic drone when played.

We went into an area called Thamel, the tourist part of Kathmandu. We went to a trekking shop recommended by the guides. The prices were fantastic!! I bought a black down jacket for the Everest trek which folds down into a tiny draw string bag for 3500 rupees (approx £28)!! I saw them sold in England for nearly £200! We bargained some walking poles down to 1000 rupees – £8. Some of the girls got some gloves costing less than a pound, and fleeces were sold for £2-5! It was amazing, and very good quality!

Sweating and tired, we heaved our belongings off the roof of the bus and schlepped to the boarder to meet the tour company. We had our passports and visas checked both at the Indian side, and over the road in Nepal. It was surreal walking from one country to the next, momentarily crossing ‘no man’s land’.

We piled on to the next coach and headed off to Kathmandu. We were given pale yellow, silk scarves called dhauni with Tibetan good luck symbols and writing, and were told that it’s the Nepali custom to hand these out whenever there was a special occasion i.e. a wedding/birthday or in our case, a trek to Everest Base Camp.

We soon found out that the journey was over seven hours long. I had never smelt so bad or felt so disgusting before. We hadn’t washed for nearly three days, had been literally sweating solidly the entire time, wearing the same clothes, covered in dust and dirt, sleep deprived and very hungry!  But ironically, because everyone was in the same boat it didn’t matter – we saw it as training for the trek!

When we finally reached Kathmandu at 4am we walked down to the hotel and we were met by a magnificent sight too good to be true. The hotel was beautiful, with wooden carvings on the walls and ceiling and gold leaf along the pillars. It was like a dream! Within 10 minutes we had our room keys and could finally get some sleep.

We found out later on that flying from Delhi to Kathmandu takes just 2 hours! – two members of our group who had been unable to get Indian visas had done this and were bragging about their good fortune in comparison to ours. However, I would not have changed our journey from India to Nepal. The experience was tough but so rewarding, and it made everything in Nepal so much sweeter.

Two more pictures from the train. To read about this journey, check out my last Everest trek post. Cheers, R 

We went to Delhi train station to catch a train to Gorakhpur. We were
told to keep watch of our belongings as anything hanging loose from any pocket would be pinched. In the station, chains were being sold along the platform as it is not uncommon for bags to ‘wonder off’ while you’re sleeping.

The station was crazy. The platform was rammed full off people and the stench of human waste was pungent. The train was 2 hours delayed, and when it came we all squeezed on, trying to find our seats. The train was packed, so much so that people were lying on the floor and in the doorways. It said on the side of the train that our coach would be air conditioned, but what that really meant was that there were three fans strapped to the ceiling of the compartments wafting the hot air and stench around the train. The journey was overnight, and was meant to last 11 hours. Therefore, the seats of the train folded down in to 3 tiered bunk beds. It was a very uncomfortable journey, not only because all my bags were on the bed with me, leaving me very little room to sleep, but also because a number of men were staring intensely at the girls in our group.

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Here are some more photos of our visits in Delhi to the Childreach-related projects. I’m really glad that we got to see this in the run up to our Everest base camp trek.

Hope you like em!
Rosanna

Day 2 of my Everest Base Camp Trek adventure began with a much needed lie-in before we went to breakfast at the Smile Foundation’s office – the partner charity in Delhi. We had spicy crackers, biscuits and a MacDonald’s veggie burger … interesting! We were then given a briefing about their partnership with Childreach and the projects they have in India.

Then we went to visit two of the projects. The first was a college where the students could learn beauty therapy, English and basic computer skills. The students attend sessions which last for 6 months, 6 days a week. The students couldn’t speak much English and when they spoke to us they were quite shy, but they all wanted us to write our names out for them on paper.

We went to a shopping mall briefly before going to the next project and I was again surprised to see that in the toilets there was a shower hose connected to the wall to use in place of loo roll!

The next project was in a slum and I was shocked at some of the conditions the people were living in - flies and bugs were all over the food which was being prepared in the streets.

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Last night, I went out for an ‘authentic’ Indian meal with my family to prepare and get in the mood for the journey ahead. I had just one hour’s sleep before the taxi came to take me to the airport (at 2.30am!)…so, I arrived at the terminal exhausted and met the rest of the Everest trekking group there.

It was pretty weird everyone all getting together for the first time – a lot of us hadn’t ever met each other before. I spent a fair while talking to one of the guys, Andy, who runs the Leeds Student Television Channel. He had decided to make a documentary of the Everest Base Camp trip for the LSTC channel and Childreach! Pretty cool.

The flight was delayed so we sat in the departure lounge getting to know each other, but we were all so knackered we could barely hold any conversations.

The flight was not direct – we went via Paris. The flight on the way to Paris (once we got started) was quick and I slept the whole way with the aid of my velvet, padded, lavender-smelling eye mask – I fully recommend one!

The connection to the plane for Delhi was smooth on the whole even though the first plane was delayed – Pardeep managed to leave his passport on the plane to Paris, but fortunately he got it back in time for the next plane! Read the rest of this entry »

After a week, Rosanna and David and all the others on the Childreach trek will be well on their way now. Everest Base Camp Trek routes. The latter stages show the Kala Pattar variation of the Everest trek where you climb to the summit of the neighbouring mountain to overlook Everest base camp. I just posted this video really to give a sense of Kathmandu and the first few days of what Rosanna and David will be seeing.

Here is a video I found showing the opening locations on one of the

Thanks to justindav1s for putting this up on Youtube.

So it’s now 1 am. I have to leave to get to the airport in 2 hours - I don’t quite know what to do with myself…should I sleep for two hours or just stay up? Is it worth sleeping?

I’m feeling a mixture of

1) tiredness!

2) worried that I’ve over packed

3) a little worried worried that I may not be fit enough for the trek, or being able to cope with the altitude.

4) extremely excited !

5) nervous about meeting the whole group at the airport terminal before we get on the plane excited! (i’ve only met half of them so far)…

I can’t believe I’m finally going!!

 

I have now sorted out both my Indian and Nepali visas. The Nepali visa was very easy to get, I sent off for it and it came back to me within 5 days!

 

The Indian visa however was a bit of a palaver. The website is rather complicated and the helpline is a premium number –I had a huge shock when I saw my phone bill!

I know quite a number of people going on the Everest trek were also confused by the website. I was worried that it wouldn’t get processed in time so I sent my documents to my father in London who took them to the visa application centre.

Luckily, he was there for just 20 minutes and they said it would be processed in 3 working days. I picked it up yesterday. Doing it this way was completely hassle free. If you can do it, going to the visa centres in person is so much easier than doing it online!

I spoke to Kirsty at Mountain Kingdoms on Thursday. She cleared up a few worries I had about going out to Nepal. She gave me tonnes of great advice, so I’ll only post the highlights right now:

Altitude Sickness

We talked a bit about altitude sickness. She explained about the necessary built-in rest days set in the Everest Base Camp Trek itinerary so that our bodies can acclimatise to the high altitude and decreased oxygen in the air. In these rest days we will either rest in the place we’ve stopped in, or we’ll have the opportunity to do a small walk up the mountain nearby and then come down to let our bodies adapt to the high altitude.

Altitude sickness usually brings on symptoms such as - headaches, loss of appetite, nausea and restless sleep and most people will get it to some degree. To prevent it as much as possible, I have to take full advantage of the rest days and drink lots of water and the black tea which all the Sherpas drink. Normal painkillers such as paracetamol and aspirin are fine to take. It’s also important that I don’t hide it if I’m feeling unwell.

 

The Weather in Nepal

We also discussed the weather. We’ll be going to Nepal just before the monsoon period and so Kirsty told me not to expect clear blue skies every day; sometimes it maybe grey and drizzly. Generally, in the day the temperature will be very warm - in the mid-late 20s however, as soon as the sun goes down the temperature drops rapidly and it becomes very chilly. The best thing to prepare for the weather and temperature changes is to layer up and always have your waterproofs handy!

As we get higher the air gets thinner so the sun gets stronger therefore it’s important to have good sunglasses – I’ve got some ones I use for skiing which are fine, it’s also essential to carry a very high factor sun cream and lip protection.

Kit for the Base Camp Trek

We also discussed kit – apparently what I have is very good and appropriate for the trek, but I need to get some T-shirts and a sun hat as I’ve not really prepared for any warm weather. I should also get a duvet/down jacket for the days when we’re closer to base camp, but they’re pretty expensive in England and you can buy them much cheaper in Kathmandu so I‘ll have a look once we’re out there.

Snacks!

Kirsty said that I should have a snack supply before setting off on the trek, although food supplies are sold in the tea houses we’ll be stopping in. The sort of snacks to bring are anything with a high energy content, that’s not bulky and will keep for the whole time. Nuts, raisings, biscuits, Kendal mint cake, sweets and flapjacks are all good. Chocolate will melt! It’s also good to bring boiled sweets/cough sweets as the air will be very dry and it’s common to get a sore throat.

I also found out that there will be electricity most of the way up the mountain which I fantastic and means that my camera won’t run out of battery.