Well, it’s all really kicking my arse today! Overnight I got a bad case of gastro, but the meds I carried seem to have already mostly cleared that up. Didn’t get much sleep though, and woke up seriously dehydrated. Also, gastro on squatting type toilets is /not/ fun. I had two bits of toast for breakfast at 7am, and after thinking I lost my wallet and then finding it in my bag, we were off. The first part was fine. Until we got to the suspension bridge stairs. Our guide called a break and Kempy and I got our hiking sticks out. The suspension bridge was a good 50 meters above us. We takled the stairs with gusto, but it was exhausting. Imagine the first hill at Waterfall Gully, if you know it. But that was only the start. From here it continues from 2800ish meters to 3400ish meters in one continuous /steep/ slope. Of course every step we took also brought us less oxygen in the air. At several points I was barely moving, eventually finding my physical limit and having to stop twice. I’d have probably stopped more often, but our Guide also called two stops in scenic places, which helped. From one we could see the foot of everest, though the peak was lost in the clouds. We arrived at Namche Bazar just in time for lunch. Between being exhausted, mild altitude sickness and gastro, I wasn’t hungry at all and just wanted to sleep. I power-napped while lunch was being prepared, and made myself eat half a plate of noodles. After that I went back to sleep while Kempy went exploring the town. Amongst other things he found me a musli bar to make sure I ate at least something. I slept until about 16:30. No I’ve filled in the journal which was a lot of effort. Soon we’ll probably have dinner and some Diamox (altitude sickness meds). I’d like to be recovered enough for an excursion around Namche Bazar tomorrow, but I’m preparing for the idea that AMS (Accute Mountain Sickness) may have other plans for me.
Category: Nepal 2011 (Page 3 of 4)
In 2011 I took a stroll to Everest Base Camp
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.
Hello from Kathmandu! Just a really short update: after a fun day in hong kong, we’re in Kathmandu now. Hotel has Internet via wifi, so a quick update from my iPhone :)Flights were fine, but was a bit confronted by the obvious third world state of things here. Dogs everywhere in the streets, as well as cows. All eating from the piles of rubbish on the side of the roads. Today we were taken around by a professional guide to some of the nicer areas, including a bunch of temples.We’re currently re-packing everything – tomorrow our adventure starts in earnest. I don’t expect to be online again until we return. Hope you’re all having fun! 🙂
As things turn out, breakfast was included and consisted of some eggs and toast with a Jam I’m pretty sure was just sugar, cornstarch and red food dye. We waited around for a bit until about 11:30, when our guide came and introduced us to our Kathmandu city guide and driver. The driver we’d met the night before, and the guide was a delightful older man who really knew his way around the city and its history. I wish I’d have taken notes, because we were so overwhelmed with information that I don’t recall much of what he told us at all. We did get to see many temples, including the ‘monkey temple’ which had a spectacular view of Kathmandu. Much to Kempys delight we also got to see how electricity is distributed (think a tangle of hundreds of cables coming together at a random post and hanging everywhere). Oh, and we got to experience Nepalese traffic. I imagine it’s very much like indian traffic, with cars coming and going in all directions, and motorbikes on every available space. Later in the day we saw the Kathmandu white house and a living godess. She’s selected by a council of elders for her beauty and wisdom, and only remains a goddess until her first menstral cycle… We got to see several statues of several gods, all of which were explained to us but I’ve already forgotten. One very interesting stop was at Lama’s Thanka Centre and school, where we learned all about the 4 types of Thanka. (Meditation, life of Budda, wheel of life, Portraits of gods) Both Ryan and I decided on purchasing a wheel of life version, especially as the proceeds here go back to Tibettan monks in exile (who also paint the thankas). We had lunch at a nice little cafe overlooking a temple courtyard, and as our driver had been unable to find a park we had to walk back to the hotel through nepali traffic. It was a fun-filled day, I just wish I could retain even 10% of what I was told today. We got back to the hotel at about 18:00, went and hired some sleeping bags, bought some juice and water for the night and re-packed for our trek. Now I’m horribly tired and tomorrow starts at 4:45 am, so time to turn in for some sleep!
After a night sleep, all be it poor sleep which was interrupted, I feel keen to explore the city. Our Guide will pick us up at 12:00 to show us around and help us find some sleeping bags for hire. It’s 9 am now, time for a shower and breakfast.
Even with our best inentions, we didn’t make it to the docks until Tai chi had already finished for the morning. Some panoramic Shots of the shoreline late, (I love my new NEX-5) we decided to find the peak tram. This lofty venture included a ferry trip and getting a bit lost for about an hour. Even with the stifiling humidity and mostly walking uphill, it was totally worth it. The tram is basically a counter-weight pulley system with two trams attached to it. The angle the tram travels up is so steep that the skyscrapers literally seem crooked ~ like they were built on a 45 degree angle. We paid a little extra to get access to ‘The peak’ which has awesome views of hong-kong. The ride back was fun too, and knowing the way and following the signs the return trip only lasted 15 minutes. Turns out following signs leads one down the most direct route. Who knew?!? We crossed back on the ferry, and noticed something pretty cool ~ the seats are basically benches with a back on a 45 degree swivel. This allows passengers to push the back rest into the position they require to be facing the front while traveling either way. It’s a bit hard to explain, but remind me and I’ll draw you a picture to make it clear 🙂 We spent a bit of time cruising through a shopping mall to have some photos of the family printed for the trip, to have some lunch and get some antisceptic hand wash which we forgot to pack. Eventually we returned to the hotel an hour early for our shuttle bus transfer. The hotel was nice enough to let us use their business suite for that time, and I updated my journal there. In the process I took off my leather bracelett, to ease the sorness in my wrist. Mistake! When we rushed off I forgot about it 🙁 We had some dinner and browsed all the shops at Hong-Kong airport, before flying to Kathmandu via Dhaka. At Dhaka the captain made the funniest announcement. “Sorry for the delay Ladies and Gentlemen, the aerobridge is uuuh… Broken. They’re furiously trying to fix it and assure me it shouldn’t be much longer. After this we had to wait for the people to egress who were going to Dhaka. Once done, the cabin crew had to match all the hand luggage left on the plane to existing passengers. It was the most disorganized flight I’d ever been on, but it definitely felt a bit like an adventure was starting 🙂
We exited the plane via stairs and straight into a crowded bus which drove us to the terminal. Ryan described the terminal well when he said it looked like an abandoned army barracks in disrepair. For all that, it was teh picture of efficiency. Clear signs showed us where to go and friendly officials were everywhere to help us where required. A passport photo and US$40 later, we had our temporary visa sorted and headed into Kathmandu. Exiting the airport was a complete culture shock. Inside it was quite and organized. Outside tehre was hundreds of people and before we’d really left the building we had 3 guys offer us taxis to accomodation. There as Army guys walking around with canes and whistles ready to enforce whatever needed enforcing. We were looking around for someone holding a sign, but our host was so effective that he found us almost instantly. We were driven to the hotel through the dirt roads and the seemingly lawless traffic. The roadsides were littered with rubbish where what I assume were stray dogs were happily eating what they could find. Cows walked the roads and fed on the rubbish too. I saw only one traffic light, which the driver promptly ignored. It’s definitely a third world country. Here and there was police directing traffic, or Army with canes and/or machine guns standing watch. Motorbikes cruised past us, coming out of nowhere with only a honk of the horn. There were few helmets (none on passengers) and no safety gear at all. That said, there were no seatbelts in the car either. Finally we arrived at Hotel Thamel. Compared to the surroundings it’s probably the finest establishment in the area. Compared to home it’s barely a Motel. Power cuts are scheduled three times a day, and there is no airconditioning. For all that I was aleady acclimatizing a bit.
We flew from Adelaide to Hong Kong via Melbourne this morning. In our stop over at Melbourne I had to get a pen as I wasn’t smart enough to take one in my hand luggage, though several in my checked baggage. Ah well, lesson learned I guess.
After a 5 minute hike from the gate to immigration and a 30 minute wait to have our passports stamped, we finally got our luggage and entered the arrival hall. There were many people with signs, but none with our names on it. So we did the only rational thing a couple of guys would do, and rather than asking someone, headed to the ‘Hotel Coaches’ Area. This led us to a very helpful man, who pointed us back to where we came from and said ‘ You need to convert your vouchers to travel passes at the arrival gate’ So we walked back, all the while carrying all of our baggage. There was still no one there for us. I asked the chap at the information desk who pointed us to another counter. On the way /there/ we /accidentally/ found a luggage trolley with our names on it. After nearly 30 minutes of walking around we finally got our ‘travel pass’ – a round K sticker. A 10 second elevator ride and we were back in the area we’d walked to before, and finally got on the bus a few minutes later. The bus ride was fine, but I’d hate to have to drive in Hong-Kong. Arriving at the Kymberley hotel we spent our first few moments outside to feel just how humid it was, even at night. They must spend a tonne of power on cooling, all the buildings are cooled to about 10 degrees celsius. Just to make our experience that bit more difficult, the hotel didn’t have a booking for us. They wanted to charge me HK$1600 (About AU$170) as a bond until it got cleared up. I bluntly refused and asked to speak to a manager. I was informed that the manager wasn’t available right now, but the receptionist went to check with someone in the back office. Another 10 or so minutes later we had someone sort it for us. When we got to the room the lock didn’t work, so we did another round trip to reception to have the lock fixed, and then finally settled in. We changed our shirts and set off to explore for a bit. Everything was closed except for bars ‘With girls’ as we were assured by several people trying to pull us into them, until we finally found a 24 hour McDonalds. After another half hour or so of strolling about, we returned to the hotel by about 1:30 am, with the lofty plan to get up by 7 am to see Tai-chi at the docks.