Himalayan Odyssey (4)

3 October, 2007
We were packed and ready when Ang Nuru arrived with the minibus around 6:50am and the trip to the domestic airport was quick and easy in the early morning. Ang Nuru smoothed the way for us through the expected chaos at the airport which made life much easier for us. Our Yeti Airlines flight scheduled for 8:00am eventually took off at around 8:50am on a Shangri La Airlines plane. In the three seats-per-row passenger accommodation Dominic and I were just to the right of the narrow aisle in the row immediately behind the cockpit. This gave me an overview of everything that the pilot and co-pilot did as well as an almost unrestricted view through the windscreen. The 180 km flight takes just under an hour and along the way there were spectacular views through the side windows and also, at times through the windscreen.

View through the windscreen - Kathmandu to Lukla

On arrival in Lukla we were quickly off the aircraft after the short uphill landing. Ang Nuru quickly had our other guide, Passang, and porters Chirring and Block (probably a nickname) organised and carrying our baggage to the restaurant of the nearby Shangri La Hotel. Since we'd had such an early start we didn't have time for breakfast in Kathmandu so made up for it here with black tea, chappati and jam or honey (I used Dominic's emergency jar of Vegemite!). While we had breakfast Chirring and Block organised their loads which are typically carried with a tumpline over the head rather than with shoulder straps.

At around 10:00am we eventually got going on the first leg of the trek. All the months and weeks of planning had got us this far. Now it was up to our bodies to do the rest.

The first leg of the trek is generally to Phakding (sometimes spelled Phakdingma) which is actually about 300 metres lower than Lukla which seems a bit strange - losing elevation on a trek which is going to go up quite high. The track winds through the river valley through numerous small villages and over the occasional swing bridge. At least most of these are now constructed of modern robust materials so the only major hazard is the possibility of yaks coming the other way.

Shirley and Barry behind a few well laden porters on the first swing bridge.

On this stretch, from Lukla to Phakding we encountered many other trekking groups along with their porters and guides. There were also yak trains laden with baggage or goods going in both directions.

Passang's house also lies along this track and we stopped there for a very welcome hot lemon drink before continuing. Unfortunately Dominic was feeling a little bilious so left the contents of his stomach beside the track before we carried. It was probably exacerbated by the exertion on such a warm day too.

A little further on and toward the middle of the day we stopped in Ghat for lunch at Ang Nuru's aunties Guest House. Her potato soup for 80/= Rs was particularly good. After lunch it was another 40 minutes or so to Phakding where we crossed another swing bridge across the Dudh Khola (Dudh means river) to the Phakding Star Guest House where our baggage had already been taken to our rooms waiting for us. The rooms were clean and quite spacious with two single beds so we expected to get a better sleep there than in Kathmandu.

A cold shower enabled me to clean up to treat some chafing in tender spots with the "can't be too highly recommended" Lucas Paw-paw Ointment. We also established a pattern for the rest of the trek - walk, get to the overnight stop, rest for a while before dinner, then an early dinner generally around 6:30PM followed by an early night to read and/or listen to MP3 player until sleep came.

We now started monitoring pulse and O2 saturation levels to get some idea of acclimatisation to the altitude. So at the end of this first day, my pulse was 62bpm and O2 was 90%. Another check in the morning would reveal how well we recovered overnight. The general rule being - if you are worse in the morning do not go up any higher that day.

I was also wearing my Pedometer during the day and for this first leg the number of steps was 12485 - about 9.3 km.

Himalayan Odyssey (3)

Last night's sleep was broken due to street noise continuing throughout the night. It seems that even when there is little other traffic on the street the drivers have to periodically lean on the horn to reassure themselves that they are still alive and awake! Of course this is pretty much like Bangalore was too. Of course it makes no difference that much of Thamel is a restricted area for vehicular traffic and there are signs at the entrances proclaiming it as a 'Horn Free' zone (no jokes please!).

Breakfasted at Brezels Bakery after an easy morning stroll through Thamel's alleyways. It's easy to understand the attraction for tourists with all of the competing shops with souvenir and other goods ranging from pure kitch to the utterly desirable.

Meena from the Sherpa Society came to the hotel at 10:30 to brief us and set us up to depart for Lukla tomorrow at 6:30AM - meaning a very early start from the Hotel - oh goodie ;-(. We also met our main guide - Ang Nuru who is a nice young Sherpa guy (24) but with good experience. He will fly with us tomorrow to help sort out the fun getting onto the flight etc. While we were doing all of this meeting and greeting etc along with tea drinking, the restaurant guy got chatting to us also. He asked where we come from and what kind of animals we have. We described a Kangaroo and I hopped across the Restaurant to show him how it moves - to howls of laughter of course!

Later we wen out walking but on arrival back at the hotel there were some notes pinned to Barry and Shirley's door for us and them to call home urgently. Dominic and I just went down the street to where I could make an ISD call (100/= Rs per minute at this one) and I spoke to Garth. It turned out that Barry's brother had died so that had immediately followed up through all of the contact information which we had left. Even though we weren't in the hotel we had planned to stay in the system worked well.

Barry got through to his son Matthew without any problem but could not get through to his parents in Brisbane at all. Not good news but not a lot Barry could do from here apart from support Matthew through the period.

Before leaving Australia I had decided to hire a down jacket for the possibly cold evenings while on the trek. Having been told that there were dozens of places to hire gear I couldn't find one of them so ended up buying one (with North Face label) for US$47. Later, of course, I found an outdoor gear hire shop - ho hum!

Being our second and last evening in Kathmandu before the trek we wanted a nice meal so we ended up seven floors up on the rooftop at Helena's where had a really nice curry dinner for about US$7 each. There were great views as the sun was setting, including some tantalising glimpses of snow-capped peaks to the East (Everest direction).

On arriving back at the hotel we had the good news that our flight to Lukla has been rescheduled to 8.00AM so we don't have to leave the hotel until 6:45AM - much better ;-)

Himalayan Odyssey (2)

Eventually we settled on some dates and booked tickets for Nepal well in advance. This was just as well as we discovered that closer to the time of departure, which we had settled to be September 30th, tickets even for the end of October were impossible to obtain. Then there was the usual round of visa application, necessary vaccinations, and refilling the gastro and medical kits. A few last minute purchases included a couple of new tech tops, walking socks, and a 100 litre duffle bag to carry overnight gear and clothes etc on the trek.

After what had seemed like a very slow start, departure day seemed to roll around very quickly - September seemed to rip past at a phenomenal speed.

So on Saturday September 29th Dominic arrived from Canberra and Barry and Shirley arrived on Sunday so that we could all go to the airport together. Check-in was uneventful apart from a rather sour-faced business-class check-in attendant who called us to her line for check-in and then seemed put out that we had a fair bit of baggage! The only other event of note(?) was that we all had to disembark the plane at Brisbane due to security regulations - ho hum! On the Brisbane to Bangkok leg I spoke to the young bloke next to me. He was off on a year backpacking holiday in Europe starting off with Oktoberfest in Germany. I didn't say anything but I thought to myself that it might have been better to end the trip at Oktoberfest but, hey - what do I know.

A couple of hours to wait in Bangkok (new) airport was boring and emphasised again, for me, how inane the security arrangements are at this particular airport. At every other international airport I have been to, you go through the second level of security to get to the gate areas and then you can still buy essentials like bottled water. Not at the new Bangkok airport though! After going through security there is NOTHING except the gate check-in, toilets, and seating in the gate-lounge area. There is nowhere to get a drink of any kind and they will not let you take in water bottles or even an empty container to fill up. If your flight happens to be delayed you can get very thirsty and even quite distressed from lack of fluid intake. After this trip I vow that I will avoid Bangkok if at all possible on future overseas trips - at least unless they do something about this ridiculous situation. I have no problem at all with the security requirements but the way they are implemented at this particular airport is just plain silly. OK - got that off my chest but I do intend to write to the Bangkok airport authorities about this.

The short flight from Bangkok to Kathmandu is over quickly and then it is out into the mad melee at Kathmandu airport. Baggage trolleys are free at Kathmandu but they are all commandeered by porters who want money for handling your gear out to the waiting chaos of the taxi rank. Finding and getting to a suitably sized taxi is a perilous undertaking and it would be quite easy to lose ones baggage if one became separated from it. However, we managed to find a mini-bus which could take all of our gear and ourselves to the Tibet Guest House where Dominic had made our initial hotel bookings.

The journey into the Thamel area of Kathmandu was very reminiscent of the traffic chaos of Bangalore. All of the road is used by vehicles travelling in either direction and the horn is used continuously. Traffic moves slowly and any vacant piece of road is quickly filled with a vehicle of some kind. Like Bangalore there are rules: Trucks have absolute right-of-way due to their size, then large buses, smaller buses, cars, motorbikes, motorised trishaws (these are bigger than motorbikes but generally much slower), pedalled rickshaws, cows, bicycles, and - last of all - pedestrians.

Eventually the driver navigated us through the narrow and even more chaotic streets and lanes of Thamel to our chosen hotel. Ah but! The hotel cannot find our booking (done by e-mail) and in any case has no rooms available! Fortunately Hotel Yanki right next door (and coincidentally owned by the brother of the owner of Tibet Guest House!) has a couple of rooms available at US$20 per night so we are not stuck for long. The room that Dominic and I are assigned to is on the first floor and overlooks one of the main 'roads'. The picture below, taken from the balcony of our hotel room, gives some idea of Thamel 'roads' (and this is one of the wider ones since it is pretty much on the Southern edge of Thamel).

Thamel from Hotel Yanki, near Chhetrapati Chowk.
Note the interesting wiring systems in front of the Hotel.

We were due to meet up with the Sherpa Society rep the following morning at the hotel so Dominic rang her (Meena) to tell her about the change of hotel. After stowing our baggage in the hotel room we have our first wander around the lanes of the Thamel district. Practically all of the shops are aimed squarely at tourists and selling souvenirs of many different kinds - castings, carvings, clothing, etc. Many shops are also catering to trekkers who need to add to their clothing or equipment before heading off into the 'hills'.

We stopped at Brezels German Bakery for a chai and then on to Pilgrims Bookshop for a browse. Dinner that night was at KC's - a mixed veg curry and rice with roti, lentils and Aloo Jeere for about 300 Rupees - about AU$5.50 (approx 55 Rupees to the Australian dollar). Bedtime at the hotel was early after a shower following nearly two days of travel etc.

I had decided to wear my Unisys pedometer just to see how things were stacking up exercise wise. At the end of this day, counting from Australia, the reading was 5395 steps.

Himalayan Odyssey (1)

A chance remark from son Dominic started this one. We were having a Yum Cha lunch in April in Canberra the day after Martin, John, Garry and I had completed the Lone Pine Hut walk in Southern Namadgi NP the previous day. Dominic had joined us for Yum Cha but had not been on the walk having just arrived back from Beijing on the day of the walk. In conversation he just "happened" to mention that he was planning another trip to Nepal for around mid-September timeframe and, this time, to do the Everest Base Camp trek. My attention was caught immediately as his previous visits to Nepal (5 of them) had all been to the Western, Annapurna side which had not been of any interest to me. However, I had thought about doing the EBC walk as far back as about 1986 while living in Tasmania but had never got around to doing anything about it. Now here was an opportunity to 'fill in the hole'!

On expressing interest Dominic showed willingness for me to come along. The group to go on the walk had not yet been finalised although he had a couple of other definites (Barry and Shirley) besides himself - the only issue being timing as they were due to start building a house on a farm block that they own. Anyway he said he would send me some info on the proposed itinerary and I could make my mind up along the way. From my point of view I thought that I could give it a good shot, the only potential issue being whether I could perform well enough at the high altitudes involved (up to around 5, 500 metres). The timing would also give me about 4 to 4.5 months to boost my fitness levels over the winter.

Wife Patricia also questioned whether I would really be able to do such a strenuous trek having had a couple of angioplasty's and suffering mild Angina during exercise while the muscles are still cold. I based my decision on the full-day walk we had done a couple of years previously around the Snowy Mountains Main Ranges track which had seen us walking in temperatures of -6C to -8C which, with wind chill, put the effective temperature down around -28C. On that occasion, even although it was only a one day walk, I was very pleased with my own performance in extremely trying conditions. For the EBC project I thought that I could make a good fist of it and, if needs be, I could stop at a lodge along the trek and await the return of the others, or even just turn around and make my own way back down to a lower altitude (but with a guide/porter).

Anyway, thus the idea was born and the only thing left was to start the planning - always the exciting bit working out possibilities etc.