Adventure Holidays in the UK, Spain, Scandinavia, Europe, Peru & Mexico
Telephone: +44 (0)1822 880277 • E-mail martin@spirit-of-adventure.com
Telephone: +44 (0)1822 880277 • E-mail martin@spirit-of-adventure.com
At a somewhat early hour, we set off to meet our group at Heathrow. There would be 6 of us, Mark (young and fit), Karine (young, fit and French, speaking English that put us to shame), Mike and fiance Chris (both older and not quite so fit) plus me, Gilly and husband Sandy of Spirit of Adventure (both even older and not quite so fit!) An age range of 23 to 54 years. Having been informed, to our delight, that we were to be upgraded to Business Class (did they know that Karine was an air-hostess?), we set off for Nepal, stopping at Dohar to sleep away the intervening 6 hours. Why was it only Karine in Business Class on the second leg? She could have offered it to the oldest member of the group ie me!
On arrival at our hotel in Thamel (the tourist centre of Khatmandu-shop till you drop!) it appeared that they had put out all the flags and fairy lights to greet us. In reality it was Divali, the Hindu festival of Light, but it certainly made the beginning of our holiday extra special. Kathmandu was a time to get to know each other, sightsee and absorb the hustle and bustle of this ancient city, taste the delights of well-known restaurants, including a typical Nepalese establishment where we sat on the floor and were entertained with traditional Nepalese dancing. Most exciting of all, we started the plans for a wedding. Mike and Chris decided to get married and plans were put in hand for a Buddhist ceremony on our return.
A 4am start the next morning saw us taken to the airport by Kieran, who must be the world's expert in seeing clients through the tortuous route of boading an aeroplane in Kathmandu. Trying to get through the hordes of pushing and shoving travellers, a trekker was heard to say
' please let me through, I'm trying to catch an aeroplane.' We weren't quite sure what the rest of us were meant to be doing! Then ensued the usual long Kathmandu wait for the flight to take off - this time low cloud in the mountains. Eventually we boarded our Yeti aircraft for a breath-taking flight to Suketar. The clouds were like cottonwool lining the valleys, with snow topped mountains in the distance, stark and gracious against the clear blue sky. Below us, the green hillsides were covered in terraced fields, with the tiny farm dwellings nestling between them, in places looking totally inaccessible. This hinterland was where we would soon be walking. Our landing at Suketar, on a grass strip, was apparently quite hairy, but I wouldn't know because, to everyone's astonishment, I slept through the whole thing!
Within half an hour we had met Tamding, our Sirdar (chief Sherpa) and his team of sherpas and porters who were to look after us so well on the trip. We donned our backpacks for the first time, adjusted our walking sticks (they are invaluable and act as a 3rd leg) and it was off-downhill! For every metre up, you have to go down a metre, our trek was to take us up 17 000 metres, the equivalence by the end of our trek of climbing up and down Kangchenjunga twice from sea level! At this stage we made the most of the hot sun, the magnificent views over the subtropical foothills, the locals farming in their paddi fields, children sticking close to home but calling out ' got a pen?' They learn as soon as they can talk to ask for pens as trekkers go by. Some do get given them, but it is discouraged because babes end up sucking the ink out of the ends of the pens and becoming ill. If tourists want to give pens, it is better to go to a school and give them to the staff, where any supplies are gratefully received. After 2 hours we rounded a corner to find a blue cloth laid out on an open plateau, with a wonderful view over the valley. This was our lunch stop and was the first sign of our routine to come for the next few weeks. Our hot meal and drinks was delicious and fortified us for the afternoon. The food continued to be varied and tasty throughout the trek, Tshering our cook excelling himself every meal. (They say an army marches on it's stomach and on the whole we suffered very little from diarrhoea on the trek, mainly due to the excellent hygiene observed by the staff).
After the afternoon trek, often accompanied by staring locals, we gratefully entered our camp at a local school, where the tents were already up and the kettle on. As the children, all smart in their blue uniforms, finished for the day, they crowded round to show us their books and read to us in English. The school building consisted of bare rooms with the odd bench to sit on, a falling down blackboard, no desks or equipment. Once the sherpas had encouraged them to go home our tea was served in the mess tent. Hand-wash bowls of potassium permanganate water were given at all meal times and outside the loo. Our loo tent even had a loo seat over the hole in the ground! The evening was gentle conversation and plenty of laughs, with another good meal - at this rate we would put on weight not lose it, as normally happens. We exchanged our health news, it is so important that everyone knows how everyone is feeling, any signs of headaches, sickness, blisters etc. Tamding briefed us on tomorrow's trek and gave us a talk on altitude sickness. Had we drunk our mandatory 5 litres for the day? This is essential to keep the altitude sickness at bay, but the downside is that you are continually having to wee, not so easy for the ladies trying to find a discrete bush on a bare mountainside! Lavatorial discussions soon became commonplace and only stopped when we landed in UK.
6am Bed tea (brought to our tent)
6.15 Wash bowl
6.30 Breakfast-having packed our bags.
7.30 On the trail
11.30ish Lunch
2-4pm Arrive in camp
4.30 Tea and sort tent, already set up for us
6pm Supper, water bottle filling with boiled water, hot drinks, evening briefing
7.30- 8pm Bed!
Our walk-in took us 9 days, essential to help good acclimatisation. At first the weather got hotter and the shower they provided in the evenings( like a garden pump bottle that we would use for spraying our plants) was very welcome. Sleeping bags were too hot at night. Inevitably, as we went higher, the temperatures lowered and more layers of clothing were needed. With a fluctuation in and out of the sun, we spent much of the day stripping clothes off or putting them on. We passed through many pretty villages, sometimes stopping to buy provisions like chickens and eggs. We visited monasteries, saw a variety of flora, fauna and farm life, descended into numerous valleys (ooh, that's hard on the knees), climbed up weaving tracks and over hill tops and struggled over many ricketty bridges, spanning blue glacial waters churning in the rivers below. I say struggled-no, not all of us. Mark and Sandy had no fears, some of us were terrified and had to really psych ourselves up to get across. Mark was so sure footed and the narrower the bridge the better.When you are with people for a long time you get to know each other quite well and we all presented our little foibles. I was the late- getter-upper and really struggled each day to get on the trail.On the plus side I kept fit for most of the trek and acclimatised well. Mark was the young fit one who could keep on going for ever. Karine and Chris spent much of the trek in the loo tent, burning loo paper. Mike and Sandy were the jokers and we always knew when they were feeling off because their humour was not to the fore. Karine liked to walk at the front and acclimatised exceptionally well, Chris and I were usually at the back. Mark was often at the front, when he and Karine never stopped talking, but liked the quiet solitude of walking at the rear and was laid back throughout. I struggled on boulders and scree, but became more agile towards the end. Chris also found this hard, especially as her knees were troublesome for a few days. Mike had to be persuaded to put on enough clothes, but once he'd got the hang of it, was wearing as many layers as the rest of us!
As we ascended higher we were into big mountain country, walking over scree slopes, boulder rock falls and icey streams. Above us were snow laden peaks, below us dramatic steep valleys. On day 6 we arrived in Ghunsa (3540m) and it was here that it started to get really cold. The porters were issued with their cold weather clothing, not that some of them would wear it all-some would keep it to sell later. Porters are miraculous in what they can carry at such a high altitude. While we were puffing and panting, desperately trying to get oxygen into our lungs because of the altitude, they would be hopping over boulders and charging up the tracks, while carrying 30kgs on their backs. They use a doko (conical basket) secured to their backs using a namlo (headband). Mark and Sandy both had a go at carrying, both managed to stand upright but only managed a couple of steps before collapsing in a heap. With plenty of layers to keep us warm, we set off for Kambachen (4175m) where we were to have our acclimatisation rest day. We climbed through golden larch woods and over scary rock falls, across even scarier scree slopes (looking back the wimps amongst us wondered how we had ever managed it!) and started to see the stunning snow-laden mountains that were to be our constant companions for the next few days.
Kambachen was a very restful interlude with a gentle walk and time to sort our gear and do the washing. Mike had a really bad 1st night at Kambachen with splitting headaches, nausea etc. all the signs of altitude sickness. We had already taught him how to breathe to compensate for the lack of oxygen but he was obviously suffering and we would have to review how he was in the morning. Unless he was feeling better it would be dangerous for him to go any higher. With a combination of painkillers and Diamox he had an excellent 2nd night and was fully fit to trek up to Kangchenjunga base camp at Pangpema. En route it was Mark who was the next to suffer, both at Lonak and initially at Pangpema, but with the same treatment he recovered well and both he and Mike were remarkably fit for the remainder of the trek. Life at that altitude is so fragile, only the week before a Japanese guy had died because he went up too quickly and didn't acclimatise. The most frightening part of our trek came just before Lonak. Having already developed a dread of the ricketty bridges we had to cross, here was a couple of planks high above a raging, freezing torrent. The only way I successfully managed was by talking my way across ' I'm going to be alright' repeated over and over again. I was too proud to give in and do a bottom shuffle across. If only they had built a hand hold.
Pangpema (5140m) was beautiful. Our tents looked out over the magnificent north face of Kanchenjunga and it's glacier. With a full moon and star-studded sky, the night time views were stunning. We ventured down onto the glacier and had great fun playing on an ice lake, having sword fights with broken stalactites and shying ice at those that remained. A chance to really let our hair down after the rigours of the trek. We saw tracks of the elusive snow leopard as we returned to camp for a relaxing afternoon in the sun. Everyone had achieved their 1st goal and we were looking forward to the next stage of our adventure. The next few days were to take us back down to Ghunsa, up over the Sinion La, a high pass at 4660 metres and down an incredibly steep face to Tseram which would then lead us up to South base camp. After our descent my knees were absolutely screaming and I was convinced at that point that it would have been better to go the other way round. Our final route up to Ramche (4615m) led us past tranquil glacial lakes, through yak pastures and beside the massive Yalung glacier. After an exceptionally cold night (-20 degrees) survivable because of our excellent Everest sleeping bags, we woke to clear blue skies, a totally frozen tent (even Sandy's watch had frozen), but a beautiful day for our final ascent up to Oktang and sight of Kangchenjunga from the south. Oktang is literally a Buddhist chorten with prayer flags, juniper, money and food offerings, small brass jars and tridents to the god Shiva. Our Sherpas gave up some offerings and said a few prayers as this gives good Khama (luck) to the mountains. Before us was the magnificent face of Kangchenjunga, highlighted against the deep blue sky.
Around us we could hear the grumblings and creaks of the glacier and the occasional crash of small avalanches down the snow-laden slopes. Part of the beauty of this trek is the remoteness, the stillness and often total silence and the absence of people. At both base camps we swelled the population by 100%.
From now on it was looking forward to the trek out and downhill all the way. Wrong! Although generally we decreased in height, there were many days when we descended 1,500 metres to the bottom of a valley, only to climb 1,500 metres to the next ridge! We slowly descended back to lush vegetation and terraced fields. We wandered through villages and were back to the smiling faces of the locals. The Nepalese are a very gentle people, always smiling and friendly. In camp the children would gather round to stare into our tents, watch us as we ate or hope for a free handout. They were fascinated looking through our camera lenses and seeing the equipment we carried. Unlike the more popular trekking routes in Nepal, passing foreigners were a rarity. Towards the end of the trek I was getting quite weary, it had been a demanding 25 days. I was looking forward to our hotel in Kathmandu and a rest before our flight home. But would we ever get there? Low cloud gave us the usual problems as we tried to fly out of Suketar. Eventually the pilot of our small aircraft was seen in the distance making a heroic effort to find to find a window in the cloud. He circled and circled and to the cheers of the population at large ( the whole town, plus trekkers, Sherpas, porters etc. were out in force) he managed to make a perfect landing.
Kathmandu was dominated by the happiness of the wedding. Chris and Mike were still up for the wedding, even after all the trials and tribulations of the trek! They rushed about in a flurry, organising rings and a sari for Chris. Our agents in our absence had organised the Monastery but on the day, in usual Nepalese fashion, the Abbot was out of town. Many phone calls and a lot of heartache later, it was all systems go. Dolled up in our only remaining clean clothing, the bridal party set off with our Sherpas in tow to help smooth the path. Chris looked beautiful in her blue sari and Mike, of course, really handsome in his maroon dragon T-shirt. The ceremony involved ritual tea drinking (Tibetan tea made with salt - you just have to keep face while you drink it and the proffered biscuit helps to ease it down). After much chanting , banging of drums and trumpeting, a brief ceremony of blessing was held and Chris and Mike were finally Mr and Mrs Falcus. The wedding breakfast was held at KCs and sadly I was on fluids only as for the first time I had succumbed to the dreaded lergy! However, it was a fitting end to what had been a marvelous, if physically demanding holiday, with our Sherpas amongst us and a chance to repay some of the hospitality they had extended to us. It had been rather a novel and adventurous way of escaping the floods of England!