markhowartharcher

I didn’t sleep very well last night as the hotel owners rather twitchy dog sat directly outside the wafer thin walls of my room and spent most of the night barking at nothing at all. I did consider shutting the dog up at one point by killing it, but decided that this may cause some ill feeling between the hotel owner and myself, something I was keen to avoid as he was a very nice chap. Talking of nice chaps, so far all the hotel owners and people we have met along the trail have been exceedingly pleasant, friendly, and very hospitable. Once again, another thing which makes this trek a pleasure. The views from the Danakyu that morning were superb. Yesterdays rain had cleared the haze in the air and in the early morning light ... read more

What a difference a sleep makes. Yesterday I was a tired anxious mess but today I wake up feeling great and very excited about the journey ahead. I decide on oat porridge for breakfast, figuring it’s good energy food. As struggle through the sloppy dribble I wonder how many days I will be able to stomach porridge before I break down and resort to eating something far less sensible. Maybe a day if the porridge is always this bad? From the moment I take my first step on the trail I love it, KC and me seem to be communicating much better and I’m pleased to see that he walks at a medium to slow speed after initially being worried that he would be very fast. KC walks especially slowly up hills which forces me to ... read more

The previous nights indulgent excesses meant I did not enjoy the short journey from Royal Beach to Kathmandu one bit. Upon arrival in Kathmandu I said a half hearted goodbye to Kristina our truck (this would be the last time we would see her), ordered lunch at our hotel, realised I felt far too sick to eat lunch and then promptly went to bed (after familiarising myself several times with the toilet of course). As it would turn out, bed is a place I would become very familiar with whilst in Kathmandu. After sleeping most of the day I woke up shortly before it was time to leave for our final goodbye meal (this actually turned out to be one of many, many, many goodbye meals), despite sleeping all afternoon I still felt like a turd ... read more

While the jeep ride up to Darjeeling had been a real beauty, it was very much a nothing special Norma in comparison to the rather exceptional drive to Gangtok from Karmi Farm. The journey began with a descent to the valley floor on a steep zig-zagging road (all roads here are steep and zig zaggy), passing through forests we noticed the temperature rise and flora become distinctly more tropical as we descended. Upon reaching the valley floor we came to a bridge which crossed over an impossibly scenic river, this marked the border between West Bengal State and Sikkim state. We were advised to get out of our jeeps and walk across the bridge as Andrew at Karmi Farm had advised us that there were concerns locally about the strength and stability of the bridge, especially ... read more

From the moment we got into our jeeps at Siliguri station the journey to Darjeeling felt like the start of a new adventure, Darjeeling promised to be different to anything we had experienced thus far and there’s something about being in a crappy Tata jeep with an insane Indian driver and cheesy Bangra playing at full volume that gets the adrenaline pumping. The ride to Darjeeing took around 4 hours, most of which was spent climbing up hill on very narrow, switch back roads which clung to the side of the hill by their very finger tips, it was often best not to look out of the window as potential death seemed to lay around every corner, this was not a road that you would want your driver to misjudge. It became apparent very quickly why ... read more