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    • Himālaya & The Silk Road
      Day 12

      Day 12: Goli Gumba to Pikey Pk Base Camp

      April 1 in Nepal ⋅ ☀️ 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!      Read more

    • Himālaya & The Silk Road
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      Day 11

      Day 11: Namkheli to Goli Gumba

      March 31 in Nepal ⋅ ☀️ 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.      Read more

    • Himālaya & The Silk Road
      Day 13

      Day 13: Pikey Peak Base Camp to Junbesi

      April 2 in Nepal ⋅ ☀️ 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!!      Read more

    • Himālaya & The Silk Road
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      Day 14

      Day 14: Junbesi to Ringmu

      April 3 in Nepal ⋅ ⛅ 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.      Read more

    • Himālaya & The Silk Road
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      Day 15

      Day 15: Ringmu to Jubing

      April 4 in Nepal ⋅ ⛅ 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.Read more

    • Himālaya & The Silk Road
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      Day 16

      Day 16: Jubing to Puiya

      April 5 in Nepal ⋅ ☁️ 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.)      Read more

    • TravelerMera top of the world take 2
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      Day 11

      ALLE’S new clothes

      October 3, 2023 in Nepal ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

      We got to Khote which is a cute small village in the middle of the Hinku valley.
      ALLE and I shared a plate of momos for lunch which were yummy.
      It’s a lot colder up here and decided that ALLE needed some new warm clothes. Maree and I walked to a tiny shop selling a few things and I found this great jacket for him.Read more

    • Himālaya & The Silk Road
      3
      Day 21

      Day 21: Tengboche to Dingboche

      April 10 in Nepal ⋅ ☀️ -5 °C

      With the night's freshly laid snow turned to ice, we set off for another early start, passing through thick wintry forest right out of Tengboche, much to Thomas' delight. This wooded section took us down through Deboche and Millingo, after which we crossed the Imja Khola via an icy hanging bridge, whose slippery metal panels had my heart rate in tatters. Across the other side, heart rates didn't settle for too long as we then ascended up to Pangboche. Any ascent at this altitude can easily draw breath from the lungs* but truth be told though, it's been a relatively easy day; the whole not-sleeping-500-metres-above-where-you-last-slept thing means that our calves have been coping fairly well (though maybe we've just been distracted by the views all day), especially compared to the ascents we had been putting them through earlier in the trek.

      *Oh, and especially for Thomas who complained about difficulty breathing only to then find out it was literally just because he tightened his backpack's chest strap too tightly (this is an Oxford Scholar we are talking about btw 🤦‍♂️)

      Following Pangboche, the path opens up into a stunning wide valley, where the river torrents under the towering watch of white peaks, including Everest, Nuptse and friends. As we headed up and beyond the conical summit of Ama Dablam, the views became panoramic and we enjoyed the depths of the Himalayas in their full glory. Once again, we managed to reach our destination, Dingboche, before midday and chose a teahouse (which is delightfully quiet) almost at random. As a result, we are sleeping at 4,410 m, which is similar in altitude to the height of the Matterhorn (although comically still remains closer in altitude to sea level than to the summit of Everest itself.)

      After a lunch lull, where we fuelled up on food and I had a nap again, we decided to head up the valley towards Chukhung, stopping at every shop to ask for their price for Oreos on the way. Our leisurely stroll took us up towards a peak decorated with a textured glacier, which we speculated to be Baruntse while we also saw some real meaty yaks roaming the tundra. And that was about that for the day! The views just keep getting better and better, and we look forward to tackling 5,073 m Nangkartshang for our acclimatisation day tomorrow.

      (Also, we absolutely LOVE yaks, they are such majestic creatures.)      Read more

    • Himālaya & The Silk Road
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      Day 22

      Day 22: Nangkartshang

      April 11 in Nepal ⋅ ☀️ -7 °C

      We woke up at 6 am to a frosty morning, with our window iced over blocking our view out to Ama Dablam. Hauling ourselves out of the warmth of the sleeping bags and into the frigid air, we downed a feast of porridge, omelette, jam toast, fried potatoes and tea for breakfast, before heading out to tackle Nangkartshang. The conditions were once again lovely, and the weather here takes a quite consistent pattern: beautifully clear in the morning and clouding over by mid afternoon without fail, hence our eagerness for an early start.

      The 732 m of steep, steep ascent up to Nangkartshang's 5073 m pinnacle was a laboured one, with us stopping regularly to catch our breath in the thinning air and question quite how we could possibly only have ascended about 50 metres each time we'd stopped for a break. Still, the early morning stillness, combined with the peaceful solitude and grand vistas out to some of the largest peaks not only in the region, but also the world, encouraged our efforts. The increased leverage brought us level with some giant glaciers and a great angle of eagle eyed observation over the valley. The views from the vantage point as we broke the 5000 metre barrier were so beautiful in every direction and we agree that they rank among some of the best we've both ever seen. But how were we managing in the altitude? So far, okay. Minus a pang of dizziness from Thomas at the top, which was easily solved with some ibuprofen, we've been doing pretty alright so far (without trying to tempt fate. 🤞) And so, we sat at the mountain's pointy bit for well over an hour, just staring out at the jagged peaks while big birds of prey circled overhead (and Thomas spotted a marmot.)

      The route back down was relatively straight forward, and after a spot of lunch, we spent the rest of the day taking it easy, topping up on snacks from a nearby shop and tackling each other's wit with more vicious card games (today I'm the curlywurly. 😔) Thomas also has plenty of fun facts on Edmund Hillary now after having finished his book so hit him up for that if you're feeling nerdy.      Read more

    • Himālaya & The Silk Road
      1
      Day 23

      Day 23: Dingboche to Lobuche

      April 12 in Nepal ⋅ ☀️ -4 °C

      We tried to navigate our own way around a lump of earth straight out of Dingboche to avoid climbing it (for no reason other than we're lazy to be honest) and in doing so, accidentally took an unnecessarily indirect route to the start of the path towards Lobuche.

      The route which followed was a dusty and gentle incline, but with the altitude it soon became apparent that Thomas was struggling with lethargy and lack of being able to take a satisfying breath. And it's true, everything and anything can tire you out up here and it does make you feel extremely slow. But after he managed to collect some air, we shuffled on towards Thok La pass, negotiating a half-frozen stream set in the moraine on our way. Thok La was the most tiring portion of the day, another upward endurance test where stopping every few steps became basically mandatory. But once we finally reached the top, there were mass monuments to all those who had died on Everest down the years, while the outrageous view from every direction was joined by a new glaciated feature: Pumori peak. With the ground levelling out, we entered the final valley which leads up to Everest Base Camp, and new peaks unfolded as appropriate. Rolling into Lobuche, it's been business as usual in unwinding and recollecting our sanity at a teahouse, this time at an altitude of 4,920 m. If all goes to plan, and we weather the -30°C night (possibly exaggerating but not sure), tomorrow we hit Everest Base Camp.      Read more

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