Bhaktapur is the most amazing city in the world that no one has heard of. It’s old quarter is a UNESCO World Heritage location and it is overflowing with outstanding history, culture, architecture and religion. But when people think of Nepal they think of the capital Kathmandu or more likely the Himalaya mountains and the great trekking. Bhaktapur is only a few kilometres from Kathmandu and probably gets lost in … Continue reading →
Mt. Everest may have been behind us but we still had a couple of days trekking to get back to Kathmandu and then some exploring of the ancient capitals of the old Himalaya kingdoms. And we knew in the middle of all this was that exciting flight from Lukla back to Kathmandu and a return to hot showers, cold beer and civilisation.
Continue reading →The idea of turning around and going home when you’ve invested so much time and effort in getting there doesn’t sound that attractive at first glance. But when you are in the middle of the Himalaya and you have four more days of trekking along a new track through beautiful mountain ranges before you hit civilisation you know it’s going to be spectacular. And we’d conquered Everest Base Camp so … Continue reading →
When it comes to life above 5,000 metres clouds can be bad, if for no other reason they block the view of everything above you. But when the wind picks up to knock-me-over levels and the clouds take on a sinister gray look and cover you like a blanket you know you’ve got a new situation. And after eight beautiful days of blue skies and only three hours trek … Continue reading →
The word most commonly heard and repeated in Nepal is the friendly greeting “Namaste”. There can be no better way to start the day or say g’day to fellow trekkers and locals than a cheery Namaste. And so it was, over and over, every day. But the words we really came to respect with a little bit of dread and a lot of excited anticipation were “zham zham”.
Continue reading →The town of Namche Bazaar was our home for two nights as we paused to have an important acclimitisation day, which is basically a day by which we punish our bodies to the max and build up as many red blood cells in as short a period of time as possible. Or as Arjan our guide said, “Go high, sleep low”. We didn’t know what that meant until we started … Continue reading →
Trekking to the Everest Base Camp is all about going up. From the roadless mountain town of Lukla and its amazing airport at 2,830 metres we were to spend nine days climbing to the base camp which is at about 5,400 metres (almost 17,000 feet). In those nine days we expected to have to deal with the relentless uphill hiking, we expected to deal with the debilitating altitude sickness and … Continue reading →
The 2007 movie The Bucket List immortalised a new term which is now synonymous with people wanting to do a select list of special things before they die. I imagine most people have come up with some sort of their own bucket list since the movie or has said, “That’s definitely on my bucket list”. Well, full disclosure here, one of the top items on my bucket list has always … Continue reading →
