The Band's adventures!: December 2011

Life long dream - tick!

A customer is not a nuisance

We were suspicious when we arrived in a country where there was a sign with Pip’s name on it at the airport (a life-long dream = tick!) and hotel staff, shopkeepers and taxi drivers that were glad to see us and regularly went out of their way to help. A stark contrast from the African continent we’d just left where on numerous times we saw signs in shops to motivate staff saying “a customer is not a disruption to your day, a customer should be treated with respect, a customer keeps the company in business and you employed”, which never had the desired effect with staff giving us at best a look of ‘you’re really interrupting me sitting here staring at the wall or texting my friends’.

After a day of familiarising ourselves with the congested, polluted maze of a city that is Kathmandu, Nat and Tom arrived safely from Mildura for three weeks of trekking the Himalayas together.

A bonding session that would made the NSW Blues proud

A sensible quiet night before a 4am flight

Pip and Nat met 11 years ago in Whistler where over a ski season they shared a bedroom with 6 girls in a house that peaked at 23 residents. While most of the gang (who pledged regular catch ups) drifted apart, Nat and Pip remained friends despite rarely living in the same city. So when Nat mentioned Tom and her planned to trek in Nepal around November we decided to alter our India leg of the trip to see some of the most majestical scenery in the world and put Duncan’s issues with altitude to the test again – see Kilimanjaro blog.

After a civilised first night with just a few after dinner nightcaps it was clear that Duncan and Tom, who’d only met briefing at respective weddings, were going to cement the camaraderie and make our trekking crew strong. So on the night before our scheduled departure we sensibly decided to have an early dinner to ensure that we fresh for

All aboard. Next stop hangover town

our 4am airport pickup.

Cut to Nat taking over the drum set of a band in a seedy bar (some would argue Tom had more rhythm), Duncan peddling us home in a cycle rickshaw and then trying to scale a balcony at 2am to retrieve our washing (which we’d planned to pick up after dinner. Instead of fresh faces, we had some very dazed and confused people being whisked through a hectic and very busy Kathmandu to the airport by our amazing trekking guide Dev and tour organiser Santaman.

‘With the toss a coin’

Before we took over the drums and rickshaws of Kathmandu, Duncan and I had gone on a trekking gear shopping spree – picking up sleeping bags, down jackets, smaller 50L back packs, socks and a host of other gear that all cost less than one sleeping bag rated to -10 would have at home. Granted it was all rip offs of the real deal, but our ‘North Face’ sleeping bags kept us warm when it got to -15 degrees and most importantly we looked the part.

Santaman, Nat and Dev...hoping to fly to Lukla while the
rest of us slept

The next day we had all the gear packed, three of our team asleep and poor old Nat being polite and chatting away to Santaman and Dev about the reality that flights hadn’t gone to Lukla for the last four days and now that we’d been waiting at the airport for five hours, they were unlikely to go today. Which meant we were at the back of the queue when flights did resume.
In various states of delirium after only two hours sleep we had two options. 1. Join the hundreds of people that had been turning up at the airport every day since their flights didn’t go and hope they did or 2. Hire a 4WD and drive for a day and a half drive and then walk to Lukla for five days. We were all useless making any kind of decision in our state, so the only rational option was to toss a coin. Heads we try for a flight tomorrow, tails we get a 4WD today. It landed on heads and everyone was disappointed – “best of three”. Clearly we were all keen to get going, rather than potentially spend a week at the airport like many other people already had. Luckily the next two tosses were tails.
So Santaman our ‘fix it man’ in Kathmandu somehow produced one of the only 4WD’s we saw and we bundled along for six hours before a night stop and another four hours of having our brains rattled around in our skulls the next day.

Tom and Duncan's boots undergoing some emergency surgery

These boots are made for walking….

And thank god they were because on day two they were put to the test with a gruelling 12 hour day that saw us walk in rain, sleet, hail and eventually snow whilst climbing up a kilometre in altitude, down a kilometre and back up a kilometre and so on. The walk from Jiri to Lukla is all up and down and is tough going for four people who hadn’t done any training on the advice that if you fly to Lukla ‘the days are short and you pick up fitness as you go’. We were forced to pick up fitness quicker than planned, unlike Chris our friend who we met along the way who despite having completed 28 iron men had been training in the hills of Queensland with a pack in preparation. Chris has seemingly inspired Duncan to complete an iron man, which along with his dry sense of amazement at the different life the Nepalese lived, our favourite quote “you should go and see where they are sleeping….it’s filthy!”, was a great fifth team member for parts of the trek.

Double victory

On the hellish day two Pip was close to breaking point after four stacks, adjusting to carrying a heavy pack along muddy/ snowy/ uneven paths and then having to do it all with only the light of a head torch after night fall. Thank god for Nat and Tom’s duty free stash of Toblerone. Officially by the end of the trek Pip was the winner of two competitions, the most stacks and the biggest looser. Pip managed to score five stacks, with Nat a distant second with one stack with the boys failing to get on the scoreboard, but there were some good slide outs.

Pip also took out The Biggest Looser, which developed after finding a huge set of baggage scales at our Kathmandu hotel. Duncan maintains that the competition was somehow rigged and that Tom was the victor, but the scales don’t lie...even if they are 50 years old and designed for bags, Pip maintains a victory.

There were four in the bed and the little one said roll over….

Well bedroom at least, although the gaps between beds some nights meant they might as well have been one bed. Walking in from Jiri turned out to be one of our favourite parts of the trek. There were far fewer tourists along the paths and the lodge owners and locals were even friendlier than the more popular routes up the mountain. The only draw back was the accommodation, although to be honest it’s what we’d expected for the whole trek. Dorm style rooms, freezing outdoor squatter toilets and no showers – so with the four of us frequently sharing a tiny room the bonding formed over our NSW Blues night was further cemented.

We found that once above Lukla airport the local people were still soul of the earth, but had been affected by the regularity of tourists. You could also buy almost anything up there, which is amazing given that most of it still gets transported by porters carrying it in hand-made baskets strapped around their forehead (it wasn’t unusual to see them with 100kgs of gasoline!). It looks painful and put our own discomfort in perspective as we climbed up and down, up and down…

GETTING ‘Packfit’

Aside blisters that looked a bit septic on Tom and Pip’s feet our main complaint was soar shoulders from our packs and we mean really soar. We learnt just how adaptable the body is, when four people who’d been in a terrible state at the airport only a few days before found themselves adjusting to carrying 12-15kgs on their backs for up to 12 hours a day while walking up and down ancient stone paths and steps at altitude.

Gokyo Ri

Clouds rolling in on Gokyo summit attempt 1

Our plan had always been to trek to Gokyo, which leaves from the same point as Everest Base Camp but looks across the Ngozumpa glacier at Everest and four of the other highest mountains in the world, rather than just getting to the tent camp where people who’ve paid $60,000 begin their ascent to the top of the world. Most accounts from fellow trekkers base camp is somewhat of an anti-climax. Like everyone else though we did want to be able to say we’d been to base camp, so originally planned to take the Chola Pass across, but due to walking in for five extra days because of the cancelled plane we had to scrap that plan and focus on the main game.

Let the sun shine

Everest (furthest left), Ngozumpa glacier and one
of the Gokyo Lakes from top of Gokyo Ri

It wasn’t until day five that we got a glimpse at what we’d come to see – the Himalayas and even from our relatively low vantage point the only way to describe the mountain ranges is cliché. Spectacular, mesmerising, vast, heaven like and so on. Really words cannot describe the beauty of the Himalayas and photos don’t do it justice.

When the sun did finally break it hung around or a few days, before closing in and opening up again over and over during our trek. We just had one request for the sun god – let us get to the top of Gokyo Ri at 5360 meters and get a 360 degree view over Everest, down to the Gokyo lakes and onto the huge Ngozumpa glacier.

Due to our increasing fitness and good acclimatisation we picked up two days on our way up to Gokyo and arrived just before lunch on a day with sunshine. We were almost delirious with our good fortune and quickly refuelled with a quick Sherpa stew (potato, rice, pasta and sometimes vegies in a broth) to fuel our ascent to the top of Gokyo Ri. Only about a filth of the way up the clouds closed in and it looked pretty unlikely they’d clear again. Never mind we decided to go about half way for acclimatising, being total fitness junkies by this stage.

Extreme gloves

The only problem was it was freezing and seriously hard work on the lungs. Eventually Pip, who struggles in the cold, pulled the plug and we retreated back to the lodge at Gokyo for another night desperately trying to stay warm from a fire fuelled by yak poo. Once away from the warmth of the dining room it was freezing. Really freezing. To give you an idea not only was there ice frozen on the ground, but peoples upset bowels frozen to the squatter toilets and pee frozen all over the bathroom floor. We slept in pretty well all our clothes, in our – 10 degree sleeping bags with additional blankets, beanies and neck warmers and still we were cold. Particularly when we inevitably had to go outside to the toilet during the night (altitude makes you pee more) and risk life on the ice rink that was the squatter.

Duncan, Tom, Dev, Pip & Nat at the summit in sunshine!

When you don’t succeed try again

After a freezing night Pip and Tom woke up feeling a bit average, but the sun was poking through the clouds so after a hearty breakfast we set off again for the summit of Gokyo Ri. Walking over stepping stones on the edge of the lake was monstrously harder in the morning with ice covering them, but narrowly we all made it slowly across to the base and began our snail paced ascent. Tom plagued not only by a cold, but also bad knees was doing it the toughest of the group but we all struggled with the lack of oxygen, cold and exhaustion. The clouds played with our emotions, rolling in and out a few times, but perhaps because we’d been diligently spinning the Buddhist prayer wheels and walking around the mani stones correctly for the past few weeks the clouds parted for half an hour when we summated Gokyo Ri. Despite being near freezing we trotted around taking photos and taking in the amazing view across the worlds highest mountain range and down onto the vast valleys and crystal clear turquoise waters of Gokyo lakes. Amazing!

Altitude sickness is no joke

Super trendy trekking gear

At Macherma (a town below Gokyo) a medical centre had been set up following a porter from a tour dying after being sent down the hill alone with some altitude sickness and dying alone a day later. The facility had two Dutch doctors and provided free shelter for porters that can’t find it in the high season (previously they slept in caves and when we were there it was -10 degrees and we were using the best gear and still froze inside). The facility also gave free talks about altitude sickness and other related conditions, such as HAFE aka expanding air in the intestine or continuous farting – which unless their were a lot of high altitude barking tree frogs around we were pretty sure Duncan had. The talk was great in that we learnt that anyone can adjust to altitude, some people just take longer. Taking 15 days to reach 5100 definitely is the more sensible option than 4 days to reach 5900 as we’d done on Kilimanjaro, which didn’t work out that well for Duncan (or anyone behind him).

The night of the talk while the four of us played cards, perplexed at the 14 European men who literally didn’t exchange a single word to each other between 5pm and 9pm when their was some commotion and a group of people rushed into the only yak poo heated room. A lifeless figure slumped over with porters frantically rubbing her hands and insisting they had to wait for her friend to catch up before going to the medical centre. Tom put into words what we

Not as trendy as the silent Euro's though

were all thinking “if you don’t get to the medical centre you could die. Take her their now”. A few minutes later her friend arrived and Tom raised the stakes “she might have a cerebral anemia. You have to get her to the medical centre”. We all nodded agreeing, but trying a few more comforting remarks all of which were ignored. Thankfully the South Korean girl was ok, just stupid having ignored the advice of her guide days earlier who could see she was suffering from altitude but refused to spend a night acclimatising. We only hope that her and her rude friend gave the porters a serious tip for carrying her in the dark from Gokyo, which would have taken at least 4 hours in the freezing cold and she wasn’t a light looking lass.

Cabin fever

After a successful summit of Gokyo Ri we wanted to take the Rangos pass and return to Lukla another route, but the weather had once again rolled in. In retrospect luckily so as Tom’s knees and Pip and Tom’s colds worsened and climbing back up to 5300 meters over ice would have been too much for us. So we decided to get back to Lukla early to try and get on a flight if they started again. Like when we’d wanted to fly in flights had been cancelled for four days.

Lukla was backed up with people trying to get out, so we waited out a night a days walk before moving

Flight path out of Lukla...we had to walk in and
desperately didn't want to walk back out!

down to Lukla where we spent three nights increasingly anxious whether we’d make our international flights and generally going nuts sitting still after three weeks of walking all day every day.

The only relief was after three weeks with no drinks we allowed ourselves a few Gin & Tonics each afternoon in one of many seedy bars that catered to the trapped tourist. One of which encouraged people to write on the walls, with many mentions of people who’d been trapped for up to 12 days! In a particularly inspired moment we found a clear section of wall and noted “there are no low points on top of the world”. Like a good omen it got us out of there a day later with some rupees left in our pocket for a final hoorah back in Kathmandu after surviving taking off from the worlds most dangerous airport – check out this clip!

Tom, Nat, Dev, Pip and Dunc on route

Our main man Dev

A big thank you to our tour organiser Santaman and guide Dev, who thanks to a tip off from a colleague of Pip’s made our trip amazing. If anyone is ever thinking about going to Nepal ask us for their details!

17 days with Dev really cemented him as our main man and we were all inspired by the diminutive, softly spoken Nepalese man who worked hard as a guide, studied at university and was instrumental in setting up projects in his home village to build a school and improve facilities. He also waited on us day and night, somehow hearing from the other side of the room if we mentioned that honey would be nice and quietly appearing with it. Dev also taught us how to eat Dahl Baht with our hands. Dal baht is a staple of lentil stew, rice and sometimes vegies that we ate most days, not only due to the taste but also because generally it is a bottomless plate. We only opted to miss the spoon once, because our slow hand technique didn’t give us sufficient time to take advantage of the refills.

After only a week together watching Dev literally take time to smell the roses, respect nature and be the gentlest man in the world we all knew we wanted to help him somehow. We hope to connect with some of his previous clients when we return home to get some fundraising going for his village projects and for Dev the four of us are now the proud funders of his sons schooling which has just begun. We never got a chance to meet Unique Thing (we kid you not!) but we can’t wait to learn of his progress in school over the next twelve years.

Our awesome trekking crew!

Parting is such sweet sorrow

We had all fallen in love with Dev and were sad to leave him, but had already begun making plans for return trips. We were also sad to be parting with Nat and Tom, who were the perfect trekking team.

Kathmandu airport is as you’d expect not a duty free shoppers dream, so after our flight kept getting pushed back and back we were quickly eating our way through our remaining rupees at the only snack vendor when finally the word came around that our flight was cancelled.

The next two hours were a comedy of confused and some outraged passengers being fuelled by a total lack of communication about what was going on. Our favourite a Russian who insisted because she was a tour leader a private plane be chartered for her. Despite repeated calls from Duncan that we should just buy another ticket, Pip held strong that it would work out and we ended up being put up in the best hotel of the trip and treated to an extensive buffet dinner and breakfast which we really took advantage of, likewise the hot water actually coming out of a shower head and bath products! It was a great break, particularly for Pip who by this stage had developed a full-blown sinus infection thanks to the minus 15 degree temperatures of Gokyo.

We continue to be impressed that even when things go wrong on this trip, they somehow end up being great. Go with the flow and look for the omen is our new motto. It seems to be working.

More Nepal trekking photos