Friday 12th April Today was planned to be probably the longest walking day so we set off a bit earlier than usual, leaving the Rivendell lodge at Deboche at 07:15. Rivendell has a great view of Everest and this morning it was clear without any cloud cover. Leaving the lodge we first had a short sharp uphill walk to Tengboche monastery. Tengboche is one of the most important Buddhist monasteries in Nepal and is the one where many mountaineers go to pay their respects before attempting to cloimb one of the high summits. It is also blessed with an excellent view of Everest. We are now back on the main direct route for trekkers going from Lukla to Everest. Leaving Tengboche there is then a quite long steep downhill section towards Phungi Tanga where we cross ... read more

Wednesday 10th April This trek had two main objectives, firstly to reach Everest Base Camp itself, and secondly to reach the summit of Kala Pattar in order to see the 'classic' view of Everest. We achived the first objective yesterday and the intention today was to achieve the second and then begin the return journey to Lukla. It is generally considered that the best view of Everest from Kala Pattar is around sunrise. In theory Everest can be viewed from there at anytime but in the afternoon it is more likely to be clouded over and therefore the best chance of a good view is early morning. For this reason we were woken at 4am and dressed and met down in the dining room for a cup of tea at 04:30. At 04:45 we left the ... read more

It's been a few days since my last update but I've been pretty tired at the end of the day and gone straight to bed after the evening meal on two occasions and hard to find internet cafes on the others! However we are now in the village of Dingboche for the second of our acclimatisation days so we have an afternoon free and the village has 3 internet cafes. Unfortunately most don't seem to have working USB ports so I am unable to upload any photographs as yet. As we now have something like a daily routine for the walking days, it might be worthwhile describing the daily routine. We are woken (if we are not already awake!) at 06:30 with a cup of black tea. We then have 30 minutes to pack the bags ... read more

Today I saw my first view of Everest - fantastic! We are stopping in Namche Bazaar for a second night tonight as today was an acclimatisation day after the big rise in altitude. I have realised that I forget to mention any heights in my previous entry, so here goes: We flew from Kathmandu to Lukla which was at 2880 metres above sea level. On the first day we actually lost height as our first night's stay was at Phakding which is at 2640m. Yesterday we then climbed to Namche Bazaar which is at 3450m. This morning we were woken 5:15 by Tanka, our sirdar, with a cup of tea. This was an encouragement to get up and dressed ready for a short walk at 05:30. We were getting up this early in order to climb ... read more

We arrived in Kathmandu late last night and today has been quite full of activities so this is the first chance I've had to get on a computer. The group was 11 in size leaving the UK with 2 more joining us in Kathmandu. We flew from Heathrow to Kathmandu via Abu Dhabi with Etihad airways. Both flights were on time but we had a 7 hour stopover in Abu Dhabi so 5 of us decided to try and go into Abu Dhabi city centre to pass some time and to have a general look around. In fact it turned out to be quite easy to leave the airport plus you get the extra entry and exit stamps in your passport for the United Arab Emirates. There is a shuttle bus just outside terminal 3 which ... read more