Blogs from Nepal, Asia - page 11

Another beautiful sunny day with clear skies today. We liked the lodge we stayed in last night - it was friendly and cosy with good food at reasonable prices. It’s main disadvantage was the fact there only seemed to be one toilet for everybody in the lodge which did lead to rather a lot of queuing for the toilet. The day started in a traffic jam. We left our lodge and had to work our way through multiple yak packs being loaded for the day. We went through Namche and up the stairs behind the village towards Chhakung. At this point we met all the other trekkers leaving Namche and there was rather a long queue. With yaks and trekkers coming the other way you could only join the queue and progress was very slow. Once ... read more

Much like our last attempt at a trek our first few days haven’t gone quite according to plan. We were supposed to fly to Lukla yesterday morning, and then hopefully walk to the next village the same day. Unfortunately after a day sitting in the airport due to poor weather at Lukla all flights were cancelled and we were put on a flight today instead. The frustrating thing was the complete lack of communication - we only discovered they’d been cancelled after going up the desk to ask for an update. Fortunately we managed to get a room in the same hotel we had been staying in in Thamel, Kathmandu. We also had a delicious dinner of aubergine and couscous in a restaurant called Mitho. It wasn’t too expensive and made a great change from rice ... read more

We had to be up early on our final morning in Tibet, to catch our return flight to Kathmandu. Our hotel had been excellent, right in the heart of the city with everything one might need so I was somewhat surprised that Reception wasn't staffed 24 hours a day. It turned out it was, because I disturbed the young receptionist this particular morning when I went down about 5.30 am. Apparently, she slept on the cold marble floor behind the desk in a sleeping bag and a woolly pully and I don't know which of us was the more scared - me at the sight of her, suddenly rising up from nowhere, or her at the sight of me in pyjamas and a puffer jacket, with bleary eyes and a bed head. Not a good way ... read more

October 14th - Gorakshep - Dia 115 Today we crossed our first of three 5000+meter passes. Kunma La Pass reaching an elevation of 5536 meters is the highest of the three. It was a long day with a lot of elevation gain. I was really proud of our pace. We kept a steady pace with minimal rests, taking over everyone that had started a few hours earlier then us. ? After passing the crowds we were venturing alone through the beautiful barren alpine terrain. The best part of the pass was having the huge mountain range which has Nuptse (7864m!) and Lhotse (8516m!) immediately on our right hand side. Being so close to such big mountains is incredible. Hopefully one lucky day I can climb any one of them. There are too many! Another cool feeling ... read more

The last day. Nothing planned. We tried to sleep in a little, despite the bell-ringing, that happens every day from 6:00 onward. It's to announce oneself to the hindu gods when entering a shrine. Took some time to properly stash our bags for the way back. Had breakfast, printed tickets, went out to buy the last few things we wanted .In my case, without much luck: The things I wanted most were: some new/extra packing cubes, a sleeping mask and maybe one well-fitting goretex / fishermanspants. No luck on any of those. Shop in, shop out. They're all the same here. There's your prototype 'the north fake' trekking shop, with all kinds of trekking clothes and accessoires. A hemp shop, with mostly backpacks. A Nepali/festival-kind of clothing store and shops for fabrics (yak, cashmere, pashima).rinse, repeat. ... read more