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Namaste from Nepal!

After spending almost a month in Nepal we were sorry to leave this friendly country with its friendly people, fascinating mountains and excellent cuisine. As many people nowadays we had some concerns about the safety before we arrived but it turned out quickly that press exaggerated the situation. We have never experienced hostility towards foreigners, quite the opposite, everybody was very friendly and helpful.

Our first week has gone very quickly, we were busy with teaching English in the local private school. We contacted Volunteer Society Nepal -VSN through the internet and they put together a complete one week program for us: organised teaching opportunities, Nepali language courses, a lecture about the cast system and sightseeing in Kathmandu. We stayed in a house with a local family and it was a great experience and get close to the real life of a Nepali family and children. During this month there were other volunteers from all over the world, USA, Canada, Germany, UK, Belgium, spending 1-8 months doing volunteer work. If you got excited about such experience, don't hesitate to contact VSN at www.vsnnepal.org, they will professionally organise any kind of volunteer work for any period of time. We were lucky to have met such a great people!

If you are in Nepal, after a while you just can't wait to see the mountains of Himalaya. We were very excited when we arrived in Lukla, the starting point of our 13 days Everest base camp track. We flew from Kathmandu with a small 20 seater plane right into the mountains. The landing and take off were quite extraordinary, there is no way to make a mistake, the runway starts on a side of a cliff and its end is a big concrete wall!
The trek itself is a wonderful one. We have followed an advised itinerary to be well acclimatised on the way up as we started at 2800 meters elevation and ended at our highest point 5575 meters. We did exactly the same trek that the Everest climbers do to get to Base Camp. We passed through Namche Baazar, the famous sherpa village with full of colors and higher up we had our first view of Mount Everest with jetstream blowing off its peak.
Tengboche was a very special place, we were lucky to see a ceremony of the active Buddhist monastery. The head lama has almost put himself on fire when wind changed direction and the huge fire lit for the ceremony blew into his face.
Higher up we managed to get invitied into a geologist research center called the Italian Pyramid. It is in a perfect location of a small valley just at the foot of Lobuche glacier overlooking Pumori.

As we got closer to our last village, Gorak Shep, the endless seracs of the 15 kms long Khumbu glacier started to be visible, its deep crevasses and the amazing amount of moraine it moves were real examples of the power of Nature. From Gorak Shep after a brief lunch and rest we walked up to the top of Kala Patar, enjoyed the view of Everest, the Base Camp, Nuptse, Pumori while thinking of the many many stone built memorials of those who lost their lives in these vast mountains. It was extremely windy up there so after 5 minutes we headed back down. We did not dare to think how windy it is on the top of Everest.

It took us 9 days to get there and 4 days to get down again to Lukla which seemed to be endless walk being desperate for hot shower and warmer temperature. On our way down we have met more and more people going up which was a clear sign that high season has started!

Nepal was a fantastic historical, natural and culinary journey, we became real fans of the Nepali cuisine: momos, dhal baats and the sherpa beer, we also admit that we have had the best miso soup ever in a sweet Japanese restaurant in the heart of Kathmandu! What a mixture of cultures!

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