A year away: Nepal, Oct and Nov 2010

Once again it has been too long since I have had a chance to work on the blog. Since I'm in Nepal now and some of you are wanting to see photos and to have a bit of a rundown on what I've been doing over here I will do my best to update you. The images and updates for Eastern Europe and Turkey will have to wait.

Firstly, here is a set of photos on Photobucket I'm working on uploading. I will add more as I have time. Click the link and you'll be able to see them all.

http://s757.photobucket.com/albums/xx220/thomasphenley/nepal/

My original plan was to arrive in Kathmandu, spend a few days and then head into the mountains. I didn't have a detailed plan as to where I wanted to go, other than up. The trip from Istanbul, through Munich and Delhi was drawn out to say the least and I was happy to sleep in a real bed after so many hours on planes and transit lounge seats. In KTM I met up with the American guy (named England) who I'd travelled with in China. He'd been up in the Everest Base Camp (EBC) area a couple of weeks before and was able to give me a lot of really useful advice about what to do and where to go. Using his advice in combination with the Lonely Planet trekking in the Himalaya guidebook I decided to attempt the "Three Passes" trek in the EBC area - it's nominally 20 days long and involves the crossing of 3 generally non-technical passes of about 5,300-5,500m and several minor peaks as side trips. The trek is possible in both CW or CCW directions; I opted for CCW, meaning I would approach the passes from the East and descent to the West - gentler ascents, steeper descents. I've "borrowed" a map below to show you where I hiked, not that it's probably too useful without some context - this whole area is to the NW of Kathmandu - somewhere near here. As I mentioned there are 3 passes to cross - Kongma La (5535m), Cho La (5420m) and Renjo La (5345m), so the highest is first. That should make the others seem easy! I planned to go without a porter or guide, which is perfectly normal except that I would have to carry my own 12 or 13kg worth of gear. On this route you don't need a tent, food or cooking equipment since there are "teahouses" all along the route, so will take only a few snacks to supplement the high-priced mountain food.

Before setting out to the mountains I took a few days to look around Kathmandu and 2 days for a quick rafting trip. The chaos of Kathmandu is hard to describe other than that it's a pretty intense place. I hope some of the pics below and in the link to Photobucket will show you a bit of what I saw. The rafting trip was good fun and although it was my first time I didn't really feel challenged by the rapids we ran. We'd been promised something tougher, and that didn't materialise (allegedly due to too high water levels/flows). Unfortunately I don't have any pics of the rafting - it's not a good idea to take a non-waterproof camera on white water!

Temple in Kathmandu

After the rafting was done I was off to the mountains....eventually. It's most common to fly to the town of Lukla to start trekking in the EBC area - you can hike in but it's a 6 day slog and didn't sound like a whole lot of fun, so I bought my ticket a few days in advance and headed expectantly to the airport. My flight was scheduled for 9am but I was given a boarding pass for the 10am flight. Why? No explanation...welcome to the non-customer service oriented customer service of Agni Airlines. Hmm, not a great start. After waiting all day at the airport without any clear idea of what was happening or going to happen, and only 2 flights leaving, the rest of the flights were cancelled and we were advised to rebook though our ticketing agents. What?! You can't/won't rebook us for one of tomorrow's flights? You mean we get bumped to the BACK of the queue now? And all the flights for the next couple of days are full?! This is how you treat passengers who you've already left in the dark for 8 hours? Wow. After some time and by resisting the urge to strangle the staff I did manage to get booked onto a flight, but not for 2 days. Turns out many people had been waiting days so I should consider myself lucky... The reason seems to be that since 3 planes have been lost (ie crashed, killing everybody on board) in the past few years at Lukla they tend to be very cautious about flying in poor weather these days, or even if it's cloudy. Agni Airlines actually dropped the most recent one back in August killing 16 I believe....I didn't know that when I booked the ticket! Hence few flights can get through if the weather's less than perfect, which it had been the last few days. So back to the guesthouse for a wasted day in KTM and back to the airport at the crack of dawn on the day of my newly booked flight. This time I was lucky and I squeezed onto the first flight of the day (my ticket was for the 3rd, I think). After some messing about we were airborne on a borrowed plane not showing Agni signwriting - maybe this is the replacement for the one they crashed a couple of months ago. Let's hope they get this one on the ground safely. The flight was quick and the landing smooth. Lukla (2800m) was chilly in the early morning and I quickly got my walking underway.

In the air and on the way to Lukla - my first views of the mountains

Tibetan Buddhist Monastery, lower hills

Cool mani stone in technicolor - they're not normally this colourful

The first day took me about 5.5 hours to reach the town of Namche Bazaar at just over 3400m where I spent 2 nights as the first stage of my altitude acclimitisation. The ascent up the valley passed through many small and picturesque villages with distant views of Everest and regular views of Ama Dablam. Slowly the vegetation started to take on a sub-alpine nature. Namche is a busy town set in a natural amphitheatre-shaped bowl on a steep mountain side and is of historical importance as a trading post in the grain-for-salt trade between Tibet and Nepal. Now it's just a major trekking hub and is jammed full of trekking lodges and shops - it's an OK place to pass through but not to stay for a long time - this is not exactly roughing it. This is the first place I've ever hiked where there is serious concern about going up too fast, and the potentially deadly effects of altitude sickness, so I planned to play it safe (if not 100% by the book - the book is pretty conservative!) On the rest day I did a day hike to a town a few hundred metres above Namche and back down.

From Namche the next few days took me up the eastern-most valley on the map above to the towns of Tengboche (3870m), Dingboche (4410m) and Chhukung (4730m) with a stop in Dingboche and Chhukung for second and third acclimitisation days. By this time I was starting to get some seriously upclose views of the big mountains I'd come to see - awesome. I hope some of the photos will do the views justice. On the rest day in Dingboche I took a day hike up to a lake and glacier at about 4700m which was simply spectacular. From Chhukung I climbed the peaks of Chhukung Ri (5500m) and Chhukung Tse (5800m) to reach the highest point of the trip and of my life - and much to my surprise I felt strong and handled the altitude well. Also from Chhukung I visited Island Peak Base Camp and the vast glacial lake of Imja Tso at around 5000m - the views of this unusual gray-green coloured lake set against the confluence of so many massive glaciers and behind them, peaks and unfathomably vast walls of ice were some of the most awe-inspiring of the whole trip.