Everest Base Camp

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Hey guys,

Just finished the Everest Base Camp hike, it was awesome. I would recommend it to anyone. It took a total of 12 days to trek from Lukla to Base Camp with a slight detour up Kala Patthar 5545m!!

We started the trip by boarding a small passenger plane from Kathmandu to Lukla. It was the first time I've been on such a small plane all crammed in and just watching the pilots dials changing numbers with no real clue about whats going on. The landing was the most interesting part, Lukla is renowned for being a small runway that runs down a hill with a massive drop at the bottom, it was nuts.

Anyway the organisation was lead by Gelu Sherpa and Pasang Sherpa who were great throughout the trip. Sharing their information about the Nepalese culture and language aswell as showing us the major attractions along the way. Sherpa's are not porters it is an ethnic group, although for the majority of Sherpa's, work is being a porter for all the trekkers.

Along our trek we decided to have a go at being a porter, carrying about 30kg for about 10 seconds. It makes you appreciate they work that they do, and in return the prices you pay for that effort. In addition to the Porters, Mules, Yaks and half yak half cow carry loads up and down to base camp although Yaks have difficulty below about 3400m which I find slightly strange, because I seem to have difficulty above 3400m!!

The nights stay was provided by tea houses which were not great but expected, some were very cold at night when it reached about -5 to -10 degrees C. During the day it was a pleasant 15 c. which was nice!

Kalla Patthar was one of th highlights of the trip. We set of at 4:30am to summit at about 7am. Obviously it was pretty dark to start with, with just the sillohettes of the surrounding mountains including Everest. Once the sun started to rise the views were spectacular! It was hard but worth it.

Everest base camp didn't really dazzle anyone it just was what it was, an area which started the climb of the biggest mountain in the world with sight of the most dangerous part of the climb the ice fall. There was only one tent set up for the climb to the summit, but we were told that this was the very beginning of the season and many more would come. It is about 25,000 pounds to climb Everest and even then its hit and miss whether you can have a chance to summit. There are an unlimited amount of permits issued and on a good day it seems that about 100 people can complete their journey.

Anyway, we are back in Kathmandu now hoping to be able to get back into India on Tuesday (its a bit funny with this 2 month rule). We intend to go to Darjeeling, where apparently the worlds greatest cuppa (tea that is) awaits!! talking about tea never buy Shepa tea its horrible, made of a combination of milk, butter, lots of salt and herbs yuk! Masala tea on the otherhand is awsome its just tea with cinnamon but it hits the spot when needed. Oh and a snickers pie is actuallly a pie with a snickers inside, oh yes!! Nepalese legends, what an idea!

Back to Darjeeling it may prove to be painful as it looks like we need a 17 hr bus ride on another local bus, hmmm. As you may know we didn't originally plan to go to Darjeeling, but we have been warned that its going to be really hot in Rajastan so we are going to avoid. So the new plan is Darjeeling to Varanasi to Amritsar then finally Delhi to fly out to Beijing.

Thanks for reading, should update again soon hopefully from India!!

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