Melanie and Gavin's Travels

Getting ready for our trek

A big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to both Renee And Summer from today and in 4 days time.

I'm online at the moment doing a bit of trek planning. Yesterday we hung out with Gavin's friend who just finished the Everest Base Camp trek, so it was exciting to hear her and her friends speak about it. It sounds amazing. Most people fly into Lukla and spend about 12-14 days doing the circuit. A lot of people don't go to the Base Camp as it's just tents and mountaineers getting ready to go up, and you can't see Everest from there. We plan to hike Kala Patar, like most people, this is one day away and gives you an amazing view of Everest. So I think we will leave here on Tues AM by taking a bus to Jiri. That is 10 hours away and very bumpy, so I hear. There is also internet on the trails, quite high up so i won't be out of contact for a month or anything.

From Jiri we have an extra week or so added on, but it will help us acclimatize and strengthen our leg muscles. A lot of people use porters to carry their bags but we are trying it on our own! Wish me luck! We also plan to see some lakes in the Goykyo area, that is another few days added on. So in effect we could be on this big hike 24-28 days i think. That is away from any cars and honking (which there are a lot of here) and me in only 2 pairs of pants, 1 to sleep in and 1 to hike in. Should be an adventure like I've never had before!

We keep hearing different things about the trekking rules here. Apparently they are changing them and possibly from Oct 21st onward any individual trekker not with an organization will have to hire a porter (carries the bag, knows basic english) or a guide. We may do that for our next hike, which will be Annapurna Circuit by mid-end of November. The rules are hard to figure out and we are going to try and sort it out today. There is also the off shoot of government called the Maoists to contend with. They are sitting with the government now and talking but still are up in the hills and have check points and tourists have to pay them money. It's basically you pay or you don't go forward. I am a bit nervous about that and hate the idea of supporting someone because I have to. Who knows what they are doing with the money.

Kathmandu is an interesting city. We have been doing errands and just checking out the scene so I haven't seen any temples yet. We want to get hiking so we might do the temples etc after this trek. I think I am going to be mostly vegetarian while I am here as we saw the Nepali version of a butchers shop yesterday - chopped up animals parts including a head etc just sitting on a bench or in someone's living space with flies buzzing around waiting to be sold. No thank you! They have veg dumplings here which i love, and they call them momo's.

We also looked into doing an overland tour to TIBET for 8 days. It would be around $800 US so it's too expensive for us but we thought we would check it out. We have a 60 day visa to stay here and can extend it.

I am also trying hard not to buy anything, there are beautiful handicrafts here. A lot of wool sweaters, silver jewellry, Tibetan influenced goods (prayer wheels for ex), swords, books on the area, clothes. I will shop when we stop hiking as we will be sending stuff home from here anyways.

Okay, that's enough rambling from me today.

posted by melaniewilkes @ 5:27 PM