Baaah Trek - The Ewe Generation

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The start of our Himalaya trek is marked by two VIP encounters. The first is a sighting of His Holiness the Dali Lama, in his home-town McCleod-Gange, the second is meeting Paul's brother His Twattiness John Vickers in Delhi. Both fill us with happiness.

We join up with four other walkers from the UK (three of which aptly work in mental health) in the capital. Little do we know that the grubby sleeper train we take to McCleod-Gange will seem the height of luxury after ten nights camping.

After meeting our guide Dibs - we head for the hills. We start off gently so as to get used to the altitude. The highest we go on the whole trip was 3600m - where Emma gets a bit dizzy(-er than usual) and can only walk a few steps at a time.

A team of 14 porters from shepherd families support our team and skip up the mountains, each carrying at least two big back packs plus camping equipment as they pass the puffing and panting Brits.

We attempt to recapture some national pride with our cricket prowess - at which they also whoop our (now quite toned asses). Match highlights include some village kids stumping Paul when he isn't paying attention and Emma bowling out John - admittedly from halfway down the wicket. We enjoy listening to intense arguments in the local Gaddi dialect about whether the ball crossed the boundary or not - usually a stream or pile of sticks.

No washing facilities for ten days - apart from in mountain pools, which are chilly to say the least. We share our camping spots with shepherds - which also means a hell of a lot of noisy sheep/goats/dogs.

We don't see any snow leopards, but John sees a paw print in freshly fallen snow, when walking with one of the others in the group. He consequently runs down the mountain side out of fear, leaving Luke to potential feline fate. Luckily there is a kitty no-show and the only casualty is John's pride.

The trek finishes back in Delhi - where we head to the five star Imperial hotel for some well earned draught beer and part with our lovely group. Namaste to: Dibs, Luke, Lynne, Eddie and Jenny - we hope you have recovered.

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Comments

[John]

misrepresentation of the facts
Can I just say that I ran down the hill after I heard a loud screeching noise and a movement in some bushes, after we saw the leopard paw-print. I did not run when I saw the leopard-pawprint. I am a wuss, but not that much.