I woke at 4.40 in the morning to pack and be ready to leave for the airport and be there before the crowds. I did all as planned, the crowds were there already but I managed to slip through the waiting line undetected, with a help of a local Nepali, a sneaky little rascal, also helped me get the ticket and airport taxes sorted out in minimal time. All this was futile! All flights toLukla were cancelled and those that left and built up the hope in silly tourists, returned to Katmandu with tourists on board. Their hopes coudl not have [View Full Entry]

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Woke up early and after quick shower headed out to the city. The polution is owerwhelming, the noise and the speeding cars held togetehr bz string and wires. Rykshas that are taken out of some mvie about wan torn China, the roadside ditches and many more sights that are so odd to the westerners. People are the nicest anywhere and I had the best time interacting with them. As soon as you approach them and speak they open up and become your friends. The Dunbar square tamples are breathtakiong (don't mind the polution!) but the Monkey temple will stop you in [View Full Entry]

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Drove from Luxembourg to Frankfurt. Nothin eventful, except fo the fact that I had a conference call with Toronto and Spain out of my mobile office called Citroen. Boarded the flight with time to spare. The flight itself was fine. I was well fed and even had some wine to wash the food down with. [View Full Entry]

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Four days to departure and six to commencing the trek! I can't sleep at night! Wake up in the middle of my dreams! and, dream I do, every night the past week! I never had so many dream nights! Wow! And not all dreams are about the mountains, some are about smaller peaks and valleys, if you know me, you also know what I mean :-P Others are about being chased by wild animals, others are … well … can't write about them here since my family reads it too :-P This past Sunday I run the 'Route du Vin' half-marathon [View Full Entry]

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Last night was the test drive of the 65+15 liter backpack (it's huge!). I loaded 17 kg of junk (inlcuding a few bokks) and went for a one hour walk. First on the flat road along the Moselle river and then up the steep hills amongst the vineyards. The backpack felt great. It sits on the waist and barely feels to touch the shoulders, it pulls them back a bit, only enough to support the pack vertically. It should be fine to carry it for longer periods! 180 euros well spent! [View Full Entry]

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Learning from the experiences of my esteemed fellow travelers, I have decided to sign up early to the TravelBlog site and get a feel for it from the comfort of my couch, before I am forced to stare at some medieval monitor in the sticks and type on a crunchy/sticky keyboard in a dimly lit cyber café :) There are many interesting features in this site for which there will be no time to learn them on the road, so here I go, begin my travels a whole 10 days ahead of schedule. I also look at it that I extend [View Full Entry]

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