Jiri

There are several trailheads to commence the trek into Everest Base Camp. Many tourists on a timescale choose to fly from Kathmandu straight into Lukla, with a reputation as perhaps the most dangerous flight in the world, where the short runway is bookended either side by a sheer drop and a huge cliff. On the other hand, some travellers prefer to rent a jeep and enter via Phaplu, while the more time-rich trekkers can choose to walk the extra 90 km+ by riding a bus into the small town of Jiri, taking some extra time to soak in rural Nepalese life and acclimatise to the ascending altitudes. Having weighed up our options and deciding we'd be best suited to take our time, we opted for the latter route, and having done our homework, set off to Jadibuti via taxi at 7 am, where we crossed our fingers in hope of finding a ride towards Jiri.

After rattling through the early streets of Kathmandu, our taxi driver pulled up on a busy road, wound down his front window and emphasised the word 'Jiri' to some locals who were causing the regular disruption. Within a matter of seconds, our haggling with the taxi driver had become well, obsolete, as we didn't even have time to break change before he'd opened his tailgate and allowed the locals to scurry off with my backpack. Alarmed at having had practically the entirety of my possessions walked off with, I rushed after the guy who took us to a bus where the driver claimed to be going to Jiri. Fair enough, we thought, there's no other way we'd know where the hell it's going, so we hopped on. At least by consolation, we weren't the only westerners on board; an American dude named Brock rocked up soon after, and it wasn't long before the bus was crawling along through the suburbs, recruiting locals on board seemingly at random. Passengers weren't the only thing this bus traded though, as we stopped at nearly every market en route for some new commodity, even picking up boxes and boxes of newly hatched chicks, which were crammed up into the overhead bag storage for the journey! Despite the persistent chirping which eventually became drowned out by the blaring traditional music, the journey was actually... alright?! We'd been braced for the ride from hell; we even read one article yesterday from someone who'd said something to the effect of 'it wasn't that bad' followed by 'only half of the passengers became travel sick' and 'we had to sit on top of the bus and dodge the power lines in the rain'. But in the end, despite an 8+ hour journey of incessant hairpin turns and crumbling cliffside roads, we didn't experience any of that and, dare I say, we actually kind of enjoyed the ride? Oh, and we did get smuggled off of our original bus and shoehorned into another that turned out to *actually* be going to Jiri at one point, but not much drama otherwise.

Anyhow, once we'd arrived in the Jiri rain, a local man greeted us straight off the bus and into his lodging, Hotel Everest, where we've spent the evening playing card games with Minnesotan Brock and local man Probin, and feasting on Tibetan Bread, dumpling-style MoMos and Dal Bhat.Read more