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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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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