Cricket at 5000 metres

I think you might be interested in Dharma's next project (or next but one if he does a short trek with a returning Israeli client).

One of his UK (or I'd better say English) clients of a couple of years ago is returning on the 10th April with 50 (yes 50!) others with the objective of playing a one-day game of cricket on a patch of open ground at Gorak Shep. This is the last stop before EBC and is at 5140m altitude. Clearly the objective is to get into the record books as the highest game of cricket ever played, and no doubt to have some fun and new experiences on the way.

I am totally impressed with this mission and am really quite sorry that I won't be there to witness the occasion. This is the kind of thing that sets the Brits apart (or, again, the English- to give them their due).

Apparently the plan is to follow virtually the same route that Dharma and I have just completed - and I don't envy them the task of carrying all their cricket gear up there as well as the normal trekking basics. From what I understand there will be two teams of 17, named "Hillary" and "Tenzing", as well as various support people including medics and a BBC reporter or crew. It should all fit the bill nicely as one of those light-hearted slots at the end of the normal news bulletin.

Seriously though, altitude is a real issue, and I very much hope that they don't ht the headlines for the wrong reasons. Mind you, they might also stand the chance of hitting a record number of sixes!

I'll attach a couple of pictures of the "pitch" - taken before and after snow. It is just a big sandy patch of ground at the foot of Kala Patthar - normally used for overnighting the yaks or as an occasional heli-pad.

I think the big match is planned for the 20th or 21st April.

Good luck to them!

Yetis

Don't expect any dramatic breakthroughs here. The story goes that the yeti is vaguely human-like, lives around the snow level in Nepal and Tibet and hibernates in winter. Maybe they were still asleep when I was up there.

An impressive number of (respectable?) mountaineers and locals claim to have seen one or, more usually, their footprints. All I've seen are some of their hang-outs e.g. internet cafes, mountain lodges or (where we stayed at Gorak Shep) the Yeti Resort. See photo.

Oh, and there is the skull of course - housed as a prized relic at the Buddhist monastery at Khumjing. The monks let me take a photo (for a small donation). It is through glass and rather unclear, but you might find the accompanying story of interest.

Early in the trek I was chatting with Heiko (a German journalist accompanying Reiner Strauss) and we were each rather surprised by the other's blog title. His is yetitour.blogspot.com in case you understand some German and want a more journalistic approach.

Maybe I'll have more to report if I make it to Tibet. Right now that border remains closed - to humans anyway.

Everest report

I'm now safely back in Kathmandu after our early morning flight today from Lukla, and I'm ensconced again at the Nepal Encounter. I'm feeling good, with the benefits of lower altitude and two weeks of hard exercise. Kathmandu has had some rain in the meantime and so the air here is a whole lot better than when we left. The sky is clear and it is a pleasant 28 degrees or so.

The trek itself was pretty hard work. We has no rest days but stayed over on a couple of occasions in the same place for acclimatisation reasons (going higher and then back to base). As indicated earlier the weather could have been better. At the start of the trek we were told that the region hadn't seen any rain or snow all winter, but that has certainly changed now. We never really got soaked, because the days usually started clear, changing to rain or (mostly) snow in mid-to-late afternoon. Overnight it was always freezing cold and I needed a blanket or two in addition to my sleeping bag.
My diet was about 50% dahl bhat, 25% garlic or noodle soup and 10% porridge. For anyone with a lingering garlic soup interest, up in that region they normally include the chopped "green garlic" shoots and use some different spices featuring e.g. coriander, turmeric. I'm sure it helped me fend off the many of the bad colds with which so many others seemed to be afflicted!

Of course we encountered some fantastic scenery all along our route, surrounded by some of the highest mountains in the world and passing through a complete range of terrain from pine and rhododendron forest to barren glaciers and moraine. Everest itself is pretty elusive, often largely hidden behind Lhotse. We had some good views of it from a distance but it was cloudy and started snowing when we were at Base Camp. Our ascent of Kala Patthar for early morning sunrise views was again rather spoiled by cloud - but it is still very impressive to see our biggest mountain and its glaciers looming through the mist!
I'll include a few photos, but I'm afraid they don't really do justice to the experience. As well as Everest, there are shots there of Lhotse, Nuptse, AmaDablam and Thamserku.






























I have no complaints about the lodges we stayed in. They are usually very basic in many ways, but always pretty sociable places, with people generally huddling around the central stoves burning (usually) dried yak-dung or (occasionally) wood!
I need to make special mention of some friends we made en route. Peter and Christina from Denmark - taking time off from a year of voluntary work in Bangladesh and sharing my view that it is most important to "teach the teachers" rather than just to come and act as stand-in teachers.
Jenny and Nikki from Devon and the rest of their team for the repeated friendly encounters and the "spoons" lessons. Reiner from Germany (chairman of a German/Nepali NGO) for his encouragement re the WDT. Arthur from Switzerland for his sense of fun, and for our work on developing our (long term) vision of Nepal as the "Switzerland of Asia". Wu Zheng for his advice on travels in China.

And I can't finish this piece without giving lots of credit to Dharma. For me, having a 1:1 guide was definitely the right choice for the trek, and Dharma did a great job in every respect. He was as helpful and informative as I could have wished. In case you want to use his services he can be reached at bmdharma@yahoo.com.
I look forward to taking up his invitation to meet his wife and family for dahl bhat at their house sometime in the next week or two.

Mission (more or less) accomplished

Just a quick note again as we pass down through Namche. We made it to Base Camp and to Kala Patthar peak at 5550m. Weather has been pretty bad; so the views have been less than perfect. Nevertheless it has been an unforgettable experience in a great place amongst some wonderful people and meeting many new friends along the way.

I'll report more when I get the chance in a day or two.

Tengboche

Just a quick report to say we have arrived here - after a long walk down and then back up again to about 3900m. All is well - despite falling snow for the last half hour of the walk. The best plan seems to be to get up early and enjoy the good weather till it all changes in the afternoon. That's the plan for tomorrow anyway - with especially good views in prospect! Over ond out - at 20 rupees/minute on a slow connection!

Acclimatising

I'm back in Namche, after a stroll up to the Everest View Hotel today - and a visit to the Sagarmatha National Park Museum. This got us up to about 3900m, with very light packs, and now we are back where we started - which is the secret of gradual acclimatisation. Certainly the air feels pretty thin already after our fly-in.

The Everest View Hotel is a very upmarket place, built largely for the Japanese market, but I suspect it is a bit of a financial flop, judging by the numbers there today. It was certainly badly named for today - because there is a lot of cloud around. I managed a photo of Thamserku (at 6600m) to give you an idea of what it is like up here. Yesterday's snow has disappeared from Namche, but it remains very cold, and I'm very glad to have the down jacket. That's a view of the place as we came back down the hill.

This time tomorrow we should be in Tengboche.

Namche Bazaar

Made it today to Namche Bazaar after a 7 hour rather slow plod up to 3440m. We will spend an acclimatisation day here tomorrow - taking a walk up a few hundred metres to a first Everest viewpoint. I feel I reallly need this, having come to a fairly high altitude quite quickly. We had some rain last night, and today our last two hours of walking were through falling snow!
All this after a drought of over 6 months in this region!
I need to say here that internet connections are expensive, slow and unreliable; so I'm afraid I won't be dooing much posting of photos for a while. I'll add a brief entry when I can but don't be concerned of you don't hear from me for a while!

Kathmanduu to Phakding

Thre trek is off to a good start. Dharma and I got our early flight to Lukla, which must be one of the most special airflields in the world: short and steep. The pic shows the two of us halfway to tonight's stop of Phakding. You pronounce it! His "front" rucksak is full of salt and spices for the folks at our first lodge - 'cos these things are a tenth of the price down in Kathmandu: about the same ratio as there is on internet access! No yeti sightings yet, but they clearly have their own airline, and (just down the road) their own internet cafe.

We are staying with a very fine Sherpa family, and I've just had the best Dhal Bhat yet. Tonight of course it will be garlic soup!. That's Pasi in her kitchen.

Ready to roll

This time last year ABC stood for Annapurna Base Camp. According to the front page story in the Kathmandu Post today it now stands for "Asian Brown Cloud" - which is reportedly what this place is suffering from at the moment. As far as I am concerned this is just another name for pollution. Apparently there has been no rainfall in the city here for 5 months; so it is not much wonder that the place is dry and dusty and that this is compounded by emissions of various sorts. Lots of people, both locals and tourists, are going around with breathing masks. Definitely time to get out and head for the hills I reckon! As predicted I've had an expensive day, but I'm happy with my new rucksack, down jacket and outer jacket as well as a few other things - like replacements for the iodine tablets I left at home.
Lillian and I had another pretty good meeting with Chuda this morning - this time at his home here, where he and his wife were extremely hospitable. They live in a rather unusual "oasis" in the city, adjacent to the fisheries ministry and its varous experimental fishponds. There is now a small but useful sum in the bank account we have set up for the WDT trust and school - but we will wait till after my trek to decide exactly what to do with this. There are so many needs! Let me know if you would like to add to it in the meantime.
Tomorrow I'll be up at 5:30 for an early flight to Lukla together wih Dharma for the start of our Everest trek. These flights are notoriously unreliable; so I just hope we don't end up hanging around the airport for hours (as happened to yesterday's travellers).

Meetings and a decision!

I seem to have been busy with meetings these last couple of days - and have decided to head for Everest BC sooner rather than later. I have chosen to team up with a guide on a 1:1 basis - with a man called Dharma, who came highly recommended by Lauren from Canada. We met up yesterday evening and decided to go ahead ASAP. One reason is to escape the rather polluted and dusty atmosphere of Kathmandu. It shouldn't really be like that at this time of year, but climate change is being blamed again - this time bringing dusty winds up from India and making things worse than normal. The other reason is that it is still relatively early in the season and we will avoid the worst of the large numbers who head for Everest these days.
Yesterday evening I also met with a man called Ram Kumar Khatri (introduced by Philip Hoyle). There was the prospect of doing some English teaching or tutoring with some members of the new government, but the timing for that is bad right now. Nevertheless he seems to be very well connected and will help identify many potential opportunities to teach English if I choose when I return from the trek. My few weeks may not really be enough though.

Today Dharma and I have been getting our permits sorted out. I need two different kinds of permit to trek to Everest BC. And I have purchased air tickets for us to fly in to Lukla as the start point of the trek. Sadly not on Yeti Airlines though! We leave early on Tuesday.
This afternoon I had a long meeting with Chuda (just off the bus from Chitwan) and with Lillian. We had a pretty comprehensive discussion about the WDT and the NMV school - broadly confirming the priority needs which Chuda had previously expressed. Tomorrow morning we will continue at Chuda's home here.

Aside from that I will be purchasing some gear for the trek, and have been around one or two of my favourite shops. I think I know now what I want to go for and will no doubt be spending another pile of money tomorrow!

I'd file a picture of myself and Dharma doing some planning, but again the computer limitations prevent that for now.

Nepal 4: Sri Lanka 2 - on penalties

I managed to get in touch with Lillian today - one of my contacts who have some direct involvement with the WDT and its school. She is from Canada, but has now quite a wide range of ties with Nepal. Very coincidentally, she knows the people at my hotel well (the Nepal Encounter); so we met here and decided to head for an all-important football match. This was the final of the Prime Minister's cup (essentially a tournament of the lesser Asian teams). Nepal had beaten Pakistan in the quarters and Thailand in the semis, and this was the big one. Ayway it turned out to be a great experience - and a pretty good match. It was still 0:0 after extra time; so we had the drama of a penalty shoot-out. And the right team won.
The whole thing was certainly much better than the Aberdeen v Kilmarnock match I saw just a couple of weeks ago! Send out the scouts.

What made it even better is that we didn't pay to get in (we just joined a kind of crush where we encountered a friendly polis), and ended up squatting right at the edge of the pitch. Here's a picture of a Nepal corner to give you an idea what the place was like. The flags in the background are of the competing nations. NB the picture was posted a day after the comments. Most computers here still date back a few decades - and the power is very dodgy. There is a published schedule of outages (or maybe it should be put as when power is actually available) - and at least this timetable seems to be pretty relaiable.

I have made contact with Chuda (of the WDT), but he is stranded in Chitwan province. So our meeting won't be for a day or two at least. There seems to be a major "banda" on the go in the Tarai districts - including Chitwan. This is a big protest strike against a variety of government failures.

Arrival

Just a quick note here to say that I successfully arrived in Kathmandu this afternoon - after a few hours of uncertainty in Delhi. I had to go into the city to get an onward flight booking and chose to head for the Ajanta Hotel where I stayed last year. This is a great little place with very helpful staff. I was prepared to stay there for a day or two for the right flight (and price) but we got it sorted quite quickly (and at less than half the price of alternative offers). It was good to see the hustle and bustle of Delhi again - somehow more acceptable second time around - and it really was quite impressive to see how much development is going on in preparation for the Commonwealth Games in 2010, e.g with the ongoing construction of the new metro express link out to the airport and the new terminal there. Glasgow take note!

Kathmandu remains quite a contrast even with Delhi. Nepal appears to remain stuck in a serious poverty rut, and the new government seems to have failed to live up to expectations in quite a big way. The big differences I've noticed in my few hours here so far are that the Royal Palace is now a museum, and that the daily power cuts have strecthed to about 16 hours!

So far I have just had a wander round Thamel, eaten at Pilgrim's book store (still a great place) and had my Nepal mobile reinstated and topped up. The number is 977-9803-882986, but I don't expect many international calls. I think, in fact, it won't accept them. Email will be a better way of reaching me if you need to.

Tomorrow I'll be in touch with Chuda and Lillian (from Canada) to set up an initial meeting about the WDT/NMV.

Sorry no pics to post today - except maybe this one Elaine has sent me waving goodbye to Arran last Summer!

Preparations

Yes I'll be off on my travels again in just a couple of days time. I leave for Delhi on Thursday 12th March. That's the day after tomorrow. I'll book the last leg (Delhi - Kathmandu) when I arrive, but hope to be able to move on quickly. I plan to do the Everest Base Camp trek, hopefully hooking up with some like-minded folks in Kathmandu, but I already have the offer of partnership from Gyan - our Annapurna Circuit guide from last year.
I expect to be away for about 4 months in total, with about half of that time in Nepal. Aside from the tourism and trekking, I'll be doing some voluntary work to try to assist the Namuna Mahila Vidyalaya school and the Women Development Trust - which I got involved with during my last visit to Nepal. I have stayed in contact with them over the last year and have been in touch with a small number of others who also want to help. I've put a description in the side-bar here. Of course what they really need is some practical help and most of that can be provided by funding. I don't want to turn the blog into a begging letter - but at the same time I can't miss the chance to invite your contributions. Just ask me for the bank account details and your money will be with the school in no time! I promise that 100% will go to their assistance.

These last few days before I depart are, of course, pretty busy - getting sorted with visas, jabs, packing etc - and a last-minute dental check-up this morning. Today has been a fine early Spring day in Glasgow - as you can see in my pictures from the Botanic Gardens this morning. I had a very enjoyable lunch with cousin Fiona in Princes Square. Our Auntie Betty is in hospital in Aberdeen just now. We have each visited her separately in recent days and of course we wish her a speedy return to the comfort of home.