Still Loving Nepal

Well, I’m going to take advantage of this rare rainy day to get you all caught up!

Getting tikka from grandma 

Kathmandu

After leaving trekking, I came back to Kathmandu where I intended to relax for a few days.  I achieved my goal the first day and the second morning was spent meeting with a local friend who I’d met on the trail.  The next day was anything but relaxing.  We left at 8am, with 2 of his other friends, to go to Nagarkot, which is a 3 hour public bus ride from Kathmandu.  Due to the gas shortage (India has stopped supplying gas to Nepal), the busses aren’t running nearly as regularly and are extremely overpacked.  We set on the roof, hoarded in with others.  It was uncomfortable and probably unsafe, but it was a true local experience!  On clear days, Nagarkot has a great view of the Himalaya, but it was too hazy when we were there.  Still, though, the hilltop village has a great view over two grassy valleys below.  In Nepal, there is a saying that “guests are god” and the three locals certainly treated me that way, always asking if I was okay and if I needed something and making sure I had the best “seat” on the roof!  I had planned to go to the lakeside town of Pokhara the next day, but due to the fuel, they weren’t running, so I spent one more relaxing day in Kathmandu before setting off to Pokhara.

Fewa Lake, Pokhara

Pokhara 

In Pokhara, I met up with a Coloradoan girl that I’d met trekking who lives in Nepal now.  Her and several of her friends (local and tourist) were in Pokhara as well, so I spent most of my time with them.  Pokhara is a great place to do a whole lot of nothing besides eat (and the occasional drink), but we did do small activities each day.  One day we hired a peddle boat and spent the afternoon floating around the lake and walking up a hill to a World Peace Pagoda with a panoramic view of the lake.  Again, in clear weather, the mountains are behind the lake, but except for the odd glimpse, they hid behind cloud.  Another day was spent bicycling around the lake and to a waterfall.  One of the locals had some family in Pokhara and it was Daishan when I was there, so we spent the afternoon with his family getting tikka (the red dot on your forehead—it’s actually rice), and eating a big, delicious meal.  While getting the tikka from his family, they all say a blessing or prayer for you.  It was interesting as only the friend and 2 cousins spoke any English, but the family was extremely friendly and their prayers were wishing us all safe travels and a long, healthy life!  Daishan is the biggest holiday in Nepal and, as I understand it, is the celebration of the gods eliminating evil from earth.  Otherwise, it was a very peaceful and relaxing several days.

Monkey Temple

From there, it was back to Kathmandu.  By now, I know my way around the city well, which is nice and am actually beginning to really like it.  The Coloradoan girl took me to a hilltop temple, known as Monkey Temple, which has a great view over the city, along with a huge temple and monkeys!  I also went to Durbar Square, which is a World Heritage Site, but was heavily damaged by the earthquake.  Essentially it’s just a block that is full of many temples!  Lastly, I went to see the Everest movie, which was really cool since I could recognize some of the places and relate to certain parts of it!  The theatre was extremely nice and modern, which was surprising in the dirty, poor city!

Kathmandu busses

Although Nepal is the poorest of the Asian countries, I loved it from the beginning and it keeps growing on me.  I know my way around Kathmandu now and actually quite like it.  It took a while, but am now completely comfortable in the overcrowded, polluted Asian cities.  The people, despite the hardship with the earthquake and fuel shortage are friendly.  They don’t harass you like other Asian countries, they smile, and they are always happy to talk.  I found a dumpling food cart that I really like, and visit every night, and every night I am the only foreigner, but the locals always talk to me about where I’m from, what America is like, what life in Nepal is like and so on.  They speak English exceptionally well and really do make the foreigners feel welcome in a way that the Southeast Asian countries didn’t.  In fact, although they are probably the most different country from ours, I find them the most relatable people. Oh, and they have some cool mountains!

 I’m not exactly sure what the plan is from here, but I’ll be sure to enjoy it and fill you in!

Almost on Top of the World

I really don't know how to describe 28 days of trekking through the Himalayas in a blog.  I don't think I can, but I'll try my best!

From one little leech!

Earthquake damaged home

I chose to follow the traditional route to Everest, which meant starting from Jiri, where the bus stops, rather than flying.  While this added several days, it was worth it!  Anyway, the adventures started before I even had to begin walking.  The bus, as usual for Asia, was packed with way more people than should have fit, along with chickens, goats, and who knows what else I didn't see.  The lady across the aisle from me was vomitting the whole time and at one point we stopped for repairs.  Oddly, Nepali repairs apparently mean to take the tire off, take the brakes off, hit them with a hammer, then replace them and drive on.  After 10 hours of luxury, we finally made it to Jiri!  There was one other white person, a Welshman named Adrian, on the bus, so we decided to trek together.

The following morning, the adventures escalated.  We decided to get off the road and try walking through the jungle, but that was clearly a mistake.  About 20 minutes in, I fell off a 10 feet cliff and had to use rope to get my bag back up and lost one of my new trekking poles.  Not long after that incident, we realised we were getting infested by leeches.  I don't know much about them, but they suck--literally and figuratively!  They would get into our boots, up our pant legs, onto our arms and I think they put an anti-coagulant in your blood because they make you bleed a lot!  Anyway, we eventually made it to Shivalaya for the first night.  From here on, things got slightly more normal.

Everest Base Camp

The first glimpse of Everest

This section of the trek was much more remote, through the rolling hills and farmland, and the villages here were hit much harder by the earthquake than further up.  The next day we went to a village called Chaulakharka, which had one lodge, but it was destroyed by the quake.  We ended up sleeping in a random house and only 1 person in the village spoke very broken English, so this is where I started to learn a bit of Nepali.  Our mattresses were simply hay woven together with a sheet over it, but it got the job done!  Everyone in the village was amazed by us and we must've had 20 people watching our every movement and laughing hysterically when we were tying our shoes--I'm still not sure why.  From here, we went to Ngaur, which was meant to be 5 hours away.  Somehow, this took us 9 hours and we spent 1 hour walking in the dark.  When we finally saw a light, we were ecstatic and it turned out to be two older women who spoke no English, but understood we needed food and a bed and coincidentally, they had both!  Ironically, there was a lodge about 2 minutes further down the trail.  From here on, it got quite a bit less "exciting."  We spent the next 6 days walking through clouds with limited views, but enjoyed the hospitality of the locals and the peacefulness of the area not full of tourists!

Lhotse (middle) and Everest (right) with Prayer Flags

Eventually, we made it to Namche Bazaar, the biggest village in the area.  This, too, is after the airport that most tourists fly into to begin their trek.  It is essentially a normal town, but prices are obviously a bit inflated as everything in the region gets flown in then carried on porters' backs to their destination.  The porters would carry up to 80kg on their backs up hills, over passes, and all over the place!  If I ever felt exhausted, they reminded me that my 14kg was actually very little.  Anyway, on the way to Namche, the weather finally turned for the better and I got my first view of the top of the world--the summit of Mt Everest!  Due to the high altitude, you have to take a rest day in Namche to let your body acclimatize.  Besides eating cake and drinking real coffee in Namche, we also did a day hike to a the village of Khumjung and the Everest View Hotel.  The sky was perfectly clear and I had incredible views of the entire Everest range!

4th Gokyo Lake

From Namche, it took 3 days to reach Chukkhung.  Again, it isn't that far really, but you can only gain 300-500m in altitude per day to avoid altitude sickness and are meant to take a rest day for every 1000m you gain.  In Chukkhung, I met 2 Polish guys and an American and the 4 of us set off early the next morning for Kongma La.  This mountain pass was the highest point that I'd reach at 5,535m (18,160ft) above sea level!  The weather had still been good throughout with some cloud coming in the afternoon, but the views from the pass were unreal!  We had to cross a glacier at the end, and I was exhausted when I finally made it to Lobuche.  The next morning, we went up to Gorakshep, which is the highest village on the trek at 5,180m, or nearly 17,000ft.  After dropping off our bags and eating lunch, we went up to Mt Everest Base Camp in perfect weather again!  The following morning was the Everest Marathon (those people are nuts), so base camp was full of runners and 1 Japenese guy leaving in the morning to attempt Everest.  I heard later that he did not make it to the summit, but had to turn around.  Unfortunately, this is where I started to get sick also. By night, I felt awful.  It was like having the worst hangover in the world, and for those of you who haven't had the joy of experiencing that yet, it's a combination of a headache, dizziness and nausea.  These are tell-tale signs of altitude sickness, so I went back down to Lobuche in the morning, but still didn't feel well, so went all the way down to the medical clinic at Pheriche the next day.  There is an American ER doctor from New York volunteering there for the season and he took my oxygen levels and body temperature and determined that everything was normal, so he reckoned I had gotten a gastrointestinal illness, rather than altitude sickness, but I think altitude did have some impact also.  However, 4-5 people get flown out by helicopter daily, so luckily I didn't get anywhere near that sick!  Luckily after 2 days in Pheriche, I started to feel better and went up the valley to Gokyo.  The first two days, after living off of soup and toast and a lack of walking, were a struggle.  It's amazing how quickly you lose strength!  Anyway, I eventually made it back up to Gokyo, which is an awesome village.

Everest from Renjo La

From Gokyo, there are several day trips to do.  I went up Gokyo Ri, a small "mountain," but unfortunately got clouded in and had no views, but I made it!  There is also a series of 6 turquoise lakes, and I spent one morning walking to the fourth lake, but again, clouds turned me around.  The weather had changed quite a bit, and afternoons got very cloudy and even snowy.  I met a really friendly Canadian family and another Canadian couple, so we spent the snowy afternoons playing cards around the wood stove.  Oddly enough, since there is no firewood as it's all above treeline, the lodges use Yak dung as fuel.  Luckily, the smell goes out through the chimney, but it does do a good job of heating the lodges.  This lodge in Gokyo also had delicious pizza, which I ate for dinner each night!  Needless to say, I was happy to feel better and have my appetite back!  On the third morning, the skies were clear so the Canadian family and I set off to go over Renjo La.  This pass was lower and much easier than Kongma La, but again had unbelievable views from the top, including a stunning view of Everest!  After safely getting over the pass, it was fairly easy and downhill from there back to Lukla.  Lukla is the most dangerous airport in the world as the runway is literally on the side of a mountain and therefore rather steep, but landing is far more dangerous than taking off and I safely and happily made it back to the warmth of Kathmandu.

At the top of Renjo La

Kongma La--18,160 ft above sea level

As I've mentioned before, I absolutely love Nepal.  The landscapes are beautiful, the people will bend over backwards for you, and it's ridiculously cheap.  While the lodges were a bit more expensive, they were comfortable and the food was usually delicious.  Anyway, the trek was a fantastic experience full of great people and breathtaking views, along with several days of breathtaking climbs!  My next plan is to go to a town called Pokhara, which is situated on a lake with great views of the Himalayas around it and relax for a bit.  From there, I may do another shorter trek, or possibly head to Chitwan National Park.  Or maybe I'll just get stuck relaxing by the lake... At some point I will spend a few more days in Kathmandu also, as I haven't explored much of the city yet.  I tried to throw as many pics as I could in the blog, but there's a lot more on facebook and even more on my computer that I can show you later.  Miss you all!