Let me start this entry with “GOOD GOD I’M TIRED!!”>>This morning our day started at 4:45 am. A quick shower and packing the rest of our gear later, we had breakfast around 5:10, while the tour organizer explained the process. I didn’t quite retain anything he said besides ‘Give this big white envelope to your guide in Lukla, his name is on the envelope’>>>>And with that it was back to the airport. Here I made a mistake: Our Guide was telling our details to his associate who would see us through the airport. Next to him were two guys with red ‘Porter’ baseball caps. I assumed they were with him. I was wrong. A 500 R tip later I learned that lesson ;)>>>>In the airport waiting room there was chaos. It appears that the airport isn’t immune to the power cuts, and thus there was nothing working in the building but lights on batteries. No terminal signage and no PA.>>>>Announcements were done by people walking the floor and yelling. Anyway, Lukla airport was closed due to some bad weather, so the flight was about 1:30 late.>>>>Eventually we got into a bu and were driven to a twin engine ‘otter’ plane which would fly us there. 30 more minutes and one medium soduku puzzle later we landed in the most dangerous airport in the world. To Kempys credit he didn’t flinch any more here than everywhere else during landing.>>>>We went to pick up our bags and our guide found us before we even got our bags. He is extremely friendly and (as far as I can tell) tallented man. He’s also /super/ fit.>>>>He wasn’t concerned with me wanting to carry my own gear, and arranged the porter – who I’m sure is less than 20 years old – to carry my sleeping bag and Ryans gear.>>>>Then we promptly set off!>>>>We walked reasonably quickly and covered around 10km today from Lukla (2800m) to Manjo (2835m) (or Monjo if you prefer).>>>>We encountered many faboulous things already, and while parts were extremely challenging, I made it while carrying my 15kg backpack. Yay for me! :P>>>>Tomorrow we cross the altitude line most people have problems with ~ around 2900m.>>>>We saw a good bit of country life, chickens, yaks, cows, yack and cow cross-breeds, goats and dogs. No cats so far though.>>The scenery was breathtaking, or it may have just been the hike. Plenty of waterfalls; we followed the river most of the day, crossing several bridges and two faboulously long steel suspension bridges which Kempy hated.>>>>There’s much less rubbish here and it feels more like a second world country. We had lunch at a nice teashop, and while there bumped into another adelaidean doing a 14 day base-camp trek (ours is 21 days and includes Gokyo). Oh, and there’s also only the two of us in our group of 4 ~ The guide, the porter, Kempy and I.>>>>Tonight we spend the night in a nice lodge in Manjo.