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Himālaya & The Silk RoadHimālaya & The Silk Road
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Himālaya & The Silk Road

mars - juin 2024
A *bit of a mess* by Thomas & JJ. En savoir plus
Actuellement en voyage
  • 31empreintes
  • 4pays
  • 63jours
  • 258photos
  • 5vidéos
  • 16,6kkilomètres
  • 14,4kkilomètres
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  • Himālaya & The Silk Road
    3
    11
    Jour 11

    Day 11: Namkheli to Goli Gumba

    31 mars, Népal ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    Freshly fired up from our morning serving of Nepalese chapatti and honey, we set off for the beautifully clear day with a 1000+ m of ascent in mind before dark. In fact, with the altitude rising ~1200 m in a span of only 3.6 km, there was only one order for how today would go: uphill, uphill, then finally some more uphill.

    But where to incline was where our confusion lay at first; steep, mazey tracks unmarked on our maps criss-crossed the mountainside making it tricky to find a consistent route. Hey, uphill is uphill, we thought, all roads lead to Rome, and kept hauling ourselves up blindly. Luckily, we did find our intended path, and managed to slowly crawl up in elevation, taking occasional shady breaks to discuss nonsense like every member of Bournemouth's championship winning side back in the day.

    Visibility was stunning and once we'd ascended beyond 2450m, we could peer back down into the deep valley out of which we'd emerged, while, in the other direction, a magnificent cast of towering snow-capped characters emerged on the skyline. It was our first true view of the Himalayan massif (and wow they're beautifully big, and beautifully terrifying.)

    Cue some more upward slog and Thomas using the camera's mind boggling zoom abilities to inspect the wildlife's tonsils, and we find ourselves at 3,000 m in Goli Gumba. And good golly (Gumba) indeed, there's no shortage of vantage points nor monasteries up here. Meanwhile, our teahouse for the night is again (and unsurprisingly at this point) completely empty, although the language barrier did result in us accidentally ordering double the amount of food to what we intended (oops). We then marvel at the sunset before I write these rambles* and call it quits until tomorrow.

    *I'm also now preparing to run out into a storm to wangle some signal to upload this footprint, so you better be damn grateful to see this.    En savoir plus

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  • Himālaya & The Silk Road
    Jour 12

    Day 12: Goli Gumba to Pikey Pk Base Camp

    1 avril, Népal ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    Three whole kilometres of flat ground? Surely an April Fools' joke, we thought, but no. A gentle start from Goli Gumba eased us into the day's walking until we reached a dusty ascent, where some locals who were trying to kick a motorbike into gear (at 3000 m of all places) took an interest in us, and resulted in a bit of a bizarre selfie. What followed was a moderate climb through mossy, enchanting woods, which seemed to be dripping in colour: of red rhododendrons, blue blooms of flowers, rich in green shrubs, and bountiful in butterflies, especially given the altitude.

    The journey was honestly a peaceful and enjoyable one, and it felt like no time at all until we'd pulled into a little teahouse for some chow mein lunch at 3400 m, with the growing Himalayan range staring back at us. The Nepalese who we came across at that teahouse were exceptionally hardy people, and we saw the old lady who we figured must've been in her eighties and a lama at the adjoining monastery, hauling a giant basket of firewood up the steps all while balancing the load with nothing more than her head (!) I don't know about your nan, but my nan struggles to walk in a straight line while carrying a cup of tea in her living room even (bless her), god knows how she'd fare with a ton of bricks on Kilimanjaro (sorry nan.)

    Our final stretch of ascent was drawn out over the next few hours as we battled a shortness of breath due to the dwindling atmospheric oxygen, while passing little patches of ice on our way up to Pikey Peak base camp at an altitude of 3730 m. Here, we were surprised to see one thing, other trekkers?! Where the hell have they come from, and why are there suddenly so many? Realising that we won't be enjoying much solitude beyond this stage, I think we both have renewed cheer for how we'd chosen to do the previous sections, having enjoyed whole teahouses to ourselves literally every day. Still, with the chance to talk to some fluent English speakers, we met a South African couple who'd been travelling for over 2 years straight, survived death from a Laotian bus crash, and where the husband had been an understudy to Archbishop Desmond Tutu back when he worked. Pretty cool. And with that, we set down the shutters and prepared for a 4:30 am awakening to ambush Pikey Peak at dawn.

    P.S. First day without signal so you won't see this as I write it!    En savoir plus

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  • Himālaya & The Silk Road
    Jour 13

    Day 13: Pikey Peak Base Camp to Junbesi

    2 avril, Népal ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    Slept up against the outdoor wall of the shack at base camp, I spent the night huddled up with my water filter and electronics in my sleeping bag with me to save them from the bitter cold wind which spilled between the wall's wooden planks. And apart from synchronous 2 am awakenings to glug some icy water and stave off our severe dehydration, we appeared to be clear of any signs of altitude sickness.

    Cue 4:45 am and our plan kicks into action, mashing our things into our bags and throwing on our warmest layers to brave the strong icy crosswind of the dark dawn up to the peak. But we weren't alone, and in fact, we weren't nearly the first people to set off for the summit; the pastel colours of the sky revealing the lengthy line of trekkers making their pilgrimage to look out upon Nepal's 8000-metre monsters on the horizon. Among them: Everest, Lhotse, Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, Makalu, Manaslu, Cho Oyu, Kangchenjunga, all iconic names towering and jostling for space in one big line which seemed to expand from western Nepal one way to the Indian border in the east (though to be honest we struggled picking out exactly which mountain was which). We soaked in the view for a while even after almost every other trekker had moved on (and also after Thomas had made me take a photo of him with literally everything). Once we did decide to move on, Thomas couldn't help but run up the second summit at 4064 m, while I sat and admired looking down on a drifting plane from above.

    Following 500 m of descent, the adrenaline had long worn off, and we stopped for some breakfast to fend off our feelings of being gruesome: having not eaten, nor drank while sweating hard in clammy warm clothes with the sun now shining. Breaking up our brunch to have with some chat with welshman Rob and Portuguese Raul, we took off again to finish our long descent back down into the valley. Other than handing out some chocolate to Nepalese children during a lunch stop, the rest of the day became a simple trundle into the village of Junbesi, where we have struck gold with this gem of a teahouse, albeit containing a very naughty cat who kept trying to steal our dinners. But regardless, had my first hot shower since Kathmandu, and god it feels good to be clean!!    En savoir plus

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  • Himālaya & The Silk Road
    1
    11221122
    Jour 14

    Day 14: Junbesi to Ringmu

    3 avril, Népal ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    Leaving our packs behind in Junbesi, we decided to take a short break out of our trek and instead took a morning stroll up to Thubten Choling, the largest Buddhist monastery in Nepal. A huge untroubled community of nuns and monks living harmoniously in a 3000 m village embellished with intricate colourful ornaments. I have to say, it's the first time I've ever visited any place of religious significance and realised that this could easily be a salvation for its members. We saw the prayer wheels inscribed with mantras rotating due to the cleverly engineered flow of water, while robe-wearing monks roamed between vibrant buildings amid tranquil chiming and all the children seemed to be learning to make pottery at school. After wandering questionably into a very holy looking building, we found a place to buy some prayer flags, beautifully hand painted postcards, and a notebook handmade with an ancient paper making technique. It was such a peaceful place, and honestly, I'm not religious myself, but if I was, Buddhism would be the one for me. (And we did also buy toilet paper there, so maybe that'll make my holes holy after all?)

    Returning to our lodge in Junbesi, we each devoured another of our favourite pizzas yet and some cadbury's we'd wangled at a shop, before making haste in the heat onward on the trail. A stuffy ascent sent us up to Phurtheng, where I decided to stop to enjoy the view over a cup of tea. Here, the host of the teahouse was a very sweet guy, a Sherpa who had lived there his whole life, and entertained our stop by explaining the extent of the traditional route and how the sections from Jiri had suffered hugely in business since most people now choose to fly into Lukla. One thing about him, just as is common with many Nepalis, was just how humble he was, placing his hands together almost in prayer and grinning with a huge smile in response to every 'namaste'. Ending the day with a further down then up through a valley via a hanging bridge, we have called it a day in Ringmu, where a busier teahouse continues to wane our wearies.    En savoir plus

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  • Himālaya & The Silk Road
    1
    22122112
    Jour 15

    Day 15: Ringmu to Jubing

    4 avril, Népal ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    A funny one today. The hubbub of activity outside our door at the busy guesthouse made us hesitant to leave our beds, and only once our not so friendly Russian neighbours had cleared off, we emerged from our room for some breakfast. Eventually we set off for the day as late as 09:30, making the laborious ascent up to the top of the pass, 3071 m at Taksindu La. Here, after a pause for some sweeping views, we were shepherded for a while by a friendly black dog, who we dubbed 'Shishapangma' in homage to the 8027 m Tibetan mountain. Our friendly accomplice sadly didn't follow us for long though, and the 1500 m+ of elevation loss that followed became a feat of lengthy concentration and accurate foot placement. And yet somehow, as we'd descended onto perhaps the easiest terrain of the entire day: a dusty, descending road, I clearly lost my concentration and rolled my ankle, taking a tumble and scuffing my left knee. Patching up the blood in Nunthala and filling up on some bland (to Thomas's delight) spaghetti and apple pie in a fine teahouse, we soon got back to our descent. And boy did we descend, down to 1490 m, the lowest altitude we will experience for the remainder of the trek. With it now being Thomas' turn to question the motions of his stomach and pounding of his head, we then ascended back up again to Jubing, where we are once again the only guests. Over dinner, we discussed our dream meal each to distract from the heavily heaped greens on our noodles and took it in good spirits to pass out for another day.En savoir plus

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  • Himālaya & The Silk Road
    1
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    Jour 16

    Day 16: Jubing to Puiya

    5 avril, Népal ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

    If yesterday was the downhill day, then today was definitely the uphill one, with 1,500+ m of steep ascents up through Kharikhola, Bupsa and Kari La.

    Before all that scrambling though, just leaving for the morning as usual became something of a struggle. And not for any of the normal reasons: as we'd left our window open while packing up our things, a monstrous winged beast kamikazed its way into our room like some buzzing Chinook locking onto its target. We both took one look at this thing and noped our way out of that situation, fleeing our room without hesitation, deserting our belongings and hiding behind the door from the wrong side. This insect, which we later discovered to be called a mammoth wasp (literal species name), was MASSIVE, with a chunky black torso and a buzz like an industrial lawn mower. Once we'd waited out the 'death hornet' as we'd called it, to leave back out through the window from which it came, we were able to make our way, but quickly came across another oddity in nature, witnessing streams of caterpillars following one another everywhere and all over the forest, apparently going off on little adventures to pupate into butterflies together.

    On the more human side of the climb however, our progress was slow in the heat, and we worked our way laboriously up to Bupsa for some lunch. Here, Thomas was particularly feeling some struggles on the ascent, but we took the time to unwind over some mango juice and spaghetti while a small Nepalese toddler took an eager interest in us. The way up from Bupsa to Kari La proved much friendlier despite the elevation gain, especially with the wider, more gentle paths which are used for jeeps up until Thamdanda. Between Kari La and Puiya, we witnessed whole herds of horses (or maybe mules given their donkey likenesses?) hauling supplies and gas bottles up the mountainside, and then the end of the road (/dirt track) where colossal landslides had taken place, trapping some vehicles and straight up destroying others. This evening, we've styled out our exhaustion by going head to head playing cards, where of course I won, (but Thomas might tell you differently.)    En savoir plus

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  • Himālaya & The Silk Road
    1
    Jour 17

    Day 17: Puiya to Phakding

    6 avril, Népal ⋅ ☁️ 4 °C

    Today marks ten days of trekking, over 100 km of distance and 15,000 m of elevation changes from Jiri.

    Setting off from Puiya, the aroma of horse manure present in the air was at an all time high as whole schools of mules would come paraded through the narrow paths by strict horse masters, who took no invitation to beat their animals quite viciously and unnecessarily to keep them in line (horses and yaks are used to transport everything beyond where jeeps can access here). It was also interesting to witness the attempted extension of the jeep road, big JCB excavators drilling away at the cliffside presumably wanting to take accessibility as far as Namche. On our descent into Surke, the constant stream of aircraft coming into land at nearby Lukla was quite the sight, and Lukla itself is quite the airport. A steep runway barely 500 m in length, bookended by a sheer cliff one side and a sheer drop the other, just watching planes come into land was scary enough.

    After a hop back up to Chaurikharka for lunch, where I got my daily coke fix and we savoured spaghetti, an omelette and some chips, we finally merged onto the tourist trail beyond Lukla. And the difference was quite startling, with crowds of dazed looking old tourists bumbling through the much gentler and more commercialised path in constant streams of tour groups, each of which look comically like the team-building outing of some office company in Slough. This is quite a starked change for us, having gone from over a week of near-solitude to negotiating the hiker traffic. Still, we pushed on and finished in Phakding, where we found a practically luxurious alpine cabin style teahouse complete with en suite hot shower and western toilet! To celebrate, we gorged on pizza and I fell asleep before I even managed to find out that Bournemouth lost to Luton (then waking up at 3 am to write this, you're welcome goodbye.)    En savoir plus

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  • Himālaya & The Silk Road
    1
    2
    Jour 18

    Day 18: Phakding to Namche Bazaar

    7 avril, Népal ⋅ ☀️ 1 °C

    A brisk morning jaunt took us beyond the schools of sluggish tour groups and through the continuous teahouse options of Zamphuti, Toc Toc, Benkar and Chumoa before arriving in Monjo. Our priority in Monjo: to secure some permits to get into the national park, and we figured the more people behind us, then the shorter the queue into Sagarmartha might be. This wasn't quite the case as there weren't many queues at all, but instead tour guides all jostled to secure passage of their own clients while we were left working out where exactly we needed to register ourselves as independent hikers. Between making the mistake of waiting at the wrong desk, we managed to secure trekkers' cards to be able to pass through the region's checkpoints while we also handed off the conservation area fee to some official. Just as we'd been sent off through our final booth, it was looking like we were in, or so we thought, when suddenly some army man pulled us to the side right in front of the entrance gate and demanded to know if we had a guide. Shiit, we thought, assuming the worst: Nepal had recently implemented a law that every trekker has to be accompanied by a guide, and despite the Khumbu region refuting that, we were momentarily fearing being turned away. As it so turned out, nothing to worry about; as soon as we admitted to our guidelessness, army man seemed only to go on some long speech about some basic rules including how we weren't to teach anything unsavoury to any monks (damn, there go my plans.)

    Regardless, we were in, and the scenery through the preceding section and onto Jorsale was immaculate, with the enigmatic blue waters of Dudh Koshi river churning through the valley headed by the towering Thamserku peak. And of our five river crossings of the day, we had to turn back from halfway across one hanging bridge when we saw a file of Dzo's (yak-cow hybrids) being marched at us in the other direction. When one of those things comes stomping at you, you get out of the way, and a hanging bridge isn't exactly the place to gamble on width for two. Our next eventful river crossing came after a snappy lunch stop, at the famous Hillary bridge, a particularly long and lofty hanging bridge, which, whether for the effect of the turbulent gusts of wind, or the synchronous steps of several trekkers, the bridge swayed temperamentally back and forth (a bit uncomfortably so for my liking.)

    Once relievedly stood on the other side, the final obstacle before Namche Bazaar was a 500 m ascent up through dusty forest. Although drawn out and occasionally hard work, this stretch was relatively uneventful minus a momentary view of Everest and witnessing more abuse on the horses who were transporting goods by their keepers. At the top, we stopped at the checkpoint, chatting to American Rachel in the queue. Shortly after, we arrived in Namche, which itself is a bizarrely big and well provisioned town given its 3,500 m elevation, allowing us a generous selection of places to stay. After narrowing down the options, we slurped up some chocolate pudding and settled in for tomorrow's recommended rest day to help along with the acclimatisation.    En savoir plus

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  • Himālaya & The Silk Road
    1
    1
    Jour 19

    Day 19: Namche Bazaar

    8 avril, Népal ⋅ ☁️ 0 °C

    Waking up at the early dawn, I peered blearily eyed out upon the proud peaks overlooking Namche, their snowcaps bathed in red light and obscured through the condensation-spattered window. Once we'd eventually gotten up and enjoyed a hearty breakfast a good hour or so later, we set out on our acclimatisation hike for our rest day, heading up to the famous Everest View Hotel. Again, powering past the lacklustre tour groups, we ascended up to 3,880 m and over a bowl of chips, gazed out upon the colossal view towards Everest. Although the grandeur of the view was largely subdued by the now lingering clouds, we picked out Lhotse on the horizon while the spearheaded summit of Ama Dablam, a nearer, more dramatic peak dominated the skyline at 6,814 m.

    After taking in the view, we headed down into Khumjung, where we paid the nominal fee to see the village's monastery, home not only to fine intricate Buddhist shrines and artworks, but also to the scalp of the 'yeti' discovered by Hillary and Norgay during their expedition. Who knows what the strange, furry and coconut-like 'skull' actually was, but the fables did make for an entertaining visit, and we were soon on our way back down into Namche, passing through the national park museum on our way, where we learnt a little about the folklore of Tenzing Norgay and a lot about Thomas' enthusiasm for snow.

    Treating ourselves to some tasty lunch toasties, it was finally time for a resupply, and we hit the town hoping to stock up on suncream, snacks and sanitiser. As it turns out, Thomas and I take quite different approaches to negotiation, Thomas preferring to apologise to everyone he didn't (and did) buy anything from, while I preferred to attempt to lowball unnecessarily. Eventually, we picked up everything on our shopping list, even haggling for some warm yak-wool hats, while I replaced one of my trekking poles which had decided it preferred not to function a few days back. With that, we returned to Green Tara, the hotel where we're staying, and had a tea party with Boston-native Renée (by which I mean we ate dinner with her), before hitting the hay for tomorrow's section to Tengboche.    En savoir plus

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  • Himālaya & The Silk Road
    Jour 20

    Day 20: Namche to Tengboche

    9 avril, Népal ⋅ ☀️ -2 °C

    We left Namche early and were some of the first trekkers to hit the trail for a crisp, pristine morning with flawless skies laying bare the stunning mountain scenery. The first section from Namche was relatively flat, allowing us to take everything in without breaking too much sweat, probably our favourite part yet. After the path then dips back down to the river at Phunki Thanga, another rickety hanging bridge leads onto a security checkpoint manned by army personnel. Getting our credentials checked, our next task was to tackle a steep climb for the remainder of the day up to Tengboche, with Thamserku and its glacier staring right back at us. It was hard work, but at the top our day's walking had been done, and only by midday. We celebrated by enjoying some very tasty lunch, including outrageous chocolate cake and a cinnamon swirl before settling on a place to stay.

    We head to our first teahouse: do you have a room for the night? 'No'. Damn, okay no worries, we thought, so we head to the second teahouse. 'Fully booked.' Okay, getting worried now, head to the third teahouse. Room? 'Yes of course.' Phew, we thought, hoping that this is just a reflection of the few places to stay in Tengboche and not of the state of play beyond Namche. I then passed out via a nap after our early start while Thomas continued his reading of Hillary's book about his adventures until we dragged ourselves from weariness to go and check out Tengboche monastery. We weren't allowed to take photos inside the monastery itself, but the chanting monk from within ushered us over and gestured to tie a piece of red string around each of our necks, which we think is a blessing for our onward journey up to base camp. Final actions for the day were to book ahead a place to stay in Lobuche given today's scare and munch down some dinner, where Thomas experienced the generosity of unlimited rice while eating his Dal Bhat.    En savoir plus

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