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Posts from the ‘Southeast Asia’ Category

Oct 8

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3 Passes — wait, make that 2

Ok — our trek.

Well — as you know, we finally made it to Lukla.  Once there, Katherine, Ben and I (we somehow lost Scott in the shuffle) started making our way to Namche.  Everyone pretty much has to go through Namche, no matter what trek they are doing.  Even though you technically start in Lukla (or in Shivalaya if you are trekking in instead of flying in — but more on that later), it really seems that the trek starts in Namche.  Lukla is quite a scene – porters and guides asking you once you arrive if you need them, gear shops galore and lots of ‘products’ everywhere.  There is a ‘starbucks’ there as well — not a real starbucks, but it looks very similar (inside and out) though the logo has mountain instead of whatever the real logo is. And the coffee wasn’t half bad!  It took us a day and a half to get to Namche — we got there on the second morning.  Imagine, hiking up in the hills when all of a sudden you come around a corner and there is a small village!  It was kind of a surprise — tons of guesthouses, internet cafes, bakeries, bars, gear shops and a market on saturdays!  I could see how people could get stuck there for awhile (plus the apple turnover and coffee we had there was awesome!).  It is also kind of a fun scene because there are people there from all over the world — well, ok, mostly French, German, some Israelis, Canadians, Australians and a few Americans.
We were in Namche for the earthquake — which was fairly exciting since we did not really know what was going on.  It was kind of scary since our guesthouse was kind of on stilts (Namche is set into the side of a very steep river valley — meaning that it is nestled into the hillside facing a huge valley that has cliffs and mountains far on the other side – pretty beautiful).  At first we weren’t sure if it was wind or mud or…. an earthquake!  But we all ran outside and then it was calm….  it was strange being some place where you don’t speak the language and something like that happens — you realize that life could change pretty drastically in a matter of seconds…..  Funny enough, we had found Scott earlier that day and Ben, Scott, Katherine and I were all hanging out talking when the earthquake happened!  A plane adventure, now an earthquake adventure….   seemed like it was time to hit the trail!
The next day — we all did just that and went our separate ways.  Katherine and I were headed to Chhukung where we would prepare to go over our first pass, Kongma La. It took us a few days to get there — which were spent traveling through landscape that could have been in Lord of the Rings (only made more so by the rain and clouds).  It is tough there because you can only trek so much in one day – you don’t want to go too high and risk altitude sickness.  So, that meant for some long days in the tea houses for us.  The tea houses mostly had sunrooms which were pleasant enough to sit in, though the rooms tended to be drab, damp, cold places.  We spent a lot of time drinking milk tea waiting for our next meal in the sun rooms.  At least in Chhukung there were some good day hikes – Island Peak base camp and Chhukung Ri (which was actually our highest point at 5546m)– a mountain that should have had amazing views — that is if it was sunny out!!!!  which it was not….  though we did get some views….  Did I mention that Chhukung is at the base of Ama Dablam?

it finally started getting pretty clear in the mornings!

Island Peak Base Camp with a huge amazing glacial pool (that is growing due to global climate change)

Ama Dablam

 Finally, it was time for us to go over our first pass – Kongma La which was at 5535 meters.  It was a beautiful morning, though unfortunately it did not stay that way all day…  that is also the day my camera battery died….

on top of Chhukung Ri – our high point of the trip

Early morning on the way up

beautiful morning

on top of the pass

So – we make it over Kongma La — it was clear on the way up, but clouded over by the time we reached the pass — you can see in the picture above that there was this awesome lake up there — but no real summits in view.

Coming over the pass, we dropped down to the Khombu side — meaning we had to cross over the Khombu glacier into Lobuche – which is where we met up with the Everest Base Camp trek folks.  We were so use to quiet – most people do not go over Kongma La — so the wave of people going to EBC was kind of crazy (and it wasn’t even busy season yet!).  Crossing the glacier was kind of cool — it was just so huge – and the moraines on either side were huge rock piles we had to cross.  It wasn’t dangerous where we were – but it was cool to hear the rockfall into the glacial pools that were forming where the ice was melting.

Once we dropped into Lobuche we could go to the actual base camp and Kala Pattar – which is a summit that people climb in order to see Everest.  We did go to both places.  Actual base camp isn’t all that exciting — though it is cool to see a place I have read so much about.  There were two parties there preparing to climb — though it is a heavy snow year (we ran into another group that had tried to go up Lobuche Peak and were stymied from all the snow).  It was pretty cool to see the Khombu Icefall – which I have also read so much about.  But you cannot see the summit of Everest from base camp – so it is just a mass of tents, really.

Kala Pattar was beautiful on the way up.  We started up at 4:30 in the morning – hoping for clear skies.  It was clear on the way up — but just about the time we reached the summit – it clouded over….  of course.  I did get a glimpse of Everest and there will be pictures coming.  We ran into Scott up there and he had some good pictures and Katherine has some as well.

I can’t say we were sad to leave that scene — it was definitely kind of crazy — everyone trying to get to base camp — which is strange because there are just so many amazing other places to go up there.

Ok — i will continue the rest of the trek story later.  Enough for now!  I will leave you in suspense on the rest of the story!

Take care – love – AK

Oct 8

Patan

I promise to blog about the trek soon but first I wanted to let everyone know about where we are staying in Kathmandu.  For those who don’t know, I have a good friend from college who has been living in Nepal for the past 15 years.  She lives in Patan, which is technically just outside of Kathmandu to the south.  It use to be it’s own kingdom, but now it is inside of Ring Road, which circles the outside of Kathmandu.  We are staying close to her – which has been awesome and convenient.  Great to be able to see her (for instance, we ran into her last night on our way to pizza) and she has stored our extra stuff when we are out trekking.

Today was our first day of really getting a chance to explore the city.  We have been wanting to go to Dubar Square (Dubar is the name of where the king lived – so there are Dubar Squares in Patan and Kathmandu and probably elsewhere!) for awhile, but each time we were here we were too busy getting ready for trekking.  So today was the day!  After an amazing breakfast of coffee, fresh fruit, pancakes with cream and syrup (eventually our metabolisms will slow down and that will not be a wise idea….), we found Dubar square.

It took us some time to figure it all out – but since right now is festival time (Dasain – which is Nepal’s biggest festival – meaning that most people are out visiting family and many shops are closed, restaurants that are open (which aren’t many) have limited menus, and life is pretty quiet here in the city) it was much more mellow trying to get around by foot.  Normally, it is slightly scary — bikes, motos, buses, taxis and pedestrians are all headed towards us and there is honking constantly.  Not that it was silent today, but not quite as overwhelming!!!

As with all older cities (meaning older than what we have in the US) – I am amazed with the history that you find around any given corner.  Today was no different.  Yes, we were walking in the historical part of town, but the shrines – both Buddhist and Hindu – were beautiful.

But it is pretty interesting about how Buddhism and Hinduism in this area have some shared beliefs and shared icons.

Then, we found Dubar Square and wandered around there with all the other tourists for awhile.  I checked out the museum, which had some great displays explaining the differences between the Buddhist and Hindu gods and goddesses.

Following that adventure, we headed back to our guesthouse — well after a visit to the grocery store for some peanut butter, chocolate and cookies!  As I mentioned, our metabolism is still quite high….  it is good to feed just about every two hours!  But, it won’t be long before that changes…..  though with restaurants closed it is tough to be eating out all the time.

Katherine leaves on the 13th so we are planning to head out and sight see as much as possible the next few days.  As for me…. on the 14th….. who knows….

I promise to get trekking pictures up soon — it just takes forever to load the pictures but I promise that will be next!

take care –keep the comments coming!

love – AK

Oct 7

Just getting there….

It was quite an adventure just getting to Lukla to start our trek….

As you know, our first attempt did not work out well for us….  we were at the airport for about 8 hours before we were sent home to try again the next day.  So, the next day, we showed up – ready for a long wait.  But no sooner had we sat down and prepared ourselves to buy an overly sugared shot of coffee that you can buy at the airport (which is not quite coffee but more colored water that is WAY sweet) – than the ticket guy came by and waved us on for the plane!  Yes — we are going to Lukla!

Aboard we got on the twin otter (sits maybe 20?) and away we go.  It is a beautiful flight – over wooded valleys towards the mountains.  We can just barely make out the mountains although it was pretty clouded over.  About 15 minutes in, we notice that the plane is taking a nose dive into the mountains (on purpose) and  we seem to be headed right for the ground!  Since Katherine and I are seated right up front, we can see the mountains and then all of a sudden a short grassy runway – and bam, we are on the ground.  The 6 of us or so on the flight who are not nepali are slightly confused – is this Lukla?  When all of a sudden, the pilot turns to us all and says – this is not Lukla.  The Lukla aiport has closed.  We are in Phalpu.

Of course, that means nothing to any of us – other than we are not in Lukla.  We all sort of look at each other and then people make a move to get off the plane.  There is a lot of confusion outside of the plane and a lot of standing around.  Lots of rumors are going around (stemming mostly from the fact that we do not speak nepali and even the nepali seem confused!).  We are not sure if we are getting to Lukla that day or….

so — there we stood for awhile (like 4 hours) just waiting for word.  at first it sounded like we would be going later that day.  then it sounded like we would have a choice to whether we wanted to go back to Kathmandu or stay the night in Phalpu.  One german woman decides to leave with her guide.  They are going to walk to Lukla – we hear it is a 3 day trek (later confirmed by Katherine and I when we do it – but that is getting ahead of the story….)

ben, scott, katherine and I playing farkle to pass the time

At this point, we have made friends with the two other trekkers – Ben from Australia and Scott from the states.  We tell stories, drink tea that some one has brought down (he brought down a cup of milk tea for all of us waiting there) and play farkle.

When it is decided that we are staying in Phalpu for the night, the pilot and crew head back to Kathmandu – katherine has the pilot promise to come back and get us in the morning.  We all (meaning everyone who was on the plane) head up and find a guest house — who were not prepared for 20 guests!  Ben, Scott, Katherine and I go find food and go for a walk – as we are all stuck in this tiny town for the night.

The next morning as we were getting ready to order breakfast we got word that the plane was going to be arriving so we skipped breakfast and hurried down to the airfield.  We excitedly watched a plane fly in, circle over a few times and then….. fly way….  There was all sorts of conversations, Nepalis are talking to each other, we of course have no idea what is going on…..

Then word comes to us that there was no one in the tower.  The guy is late for work.  So, people go off searching for him while the rest of us just sit there… hungry, wondering when we will get to lukla….

Finally, they find him.  He took a different path to work and got lost.  you know….  as it happens sometimes.

anyway— a few hours later, another plane arrived, picked us up and 15 minutes later we were in Lukla having breakfast and drinking coffee (at starbucks!).  No problem.

There is of course lots and lots more to tell….  i will be getting to it over the next few days.  Kat and I are going to go explore the city (and drink coffee and eat donuts and walk as little as possible!).  Good to be back and good to be in touch!  much love!

Sep 29

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all is well

this is a quick post.

we are still trekking – we have done 2 of the 3 passes — just one more to do.  we were going to go this morning but the cold, wind, snow and possible earth quake damage kept us in our bags (since it was 34 degrees in our room).  but our location in gokyo could not be more beautiful.

we have survived a surprise landing in phalpu (b/c the lukla airport closed on our way there), survived the earthquake, survived a 14 hour snowstorm, made it up two 5400 + meter passes (first people up one after the snowstorm — which kicked our asses), and now just one more pass before we start the trek to jiri to catch a bus to kathmandu.

we are both tired –‘ ready to be done trekking and ready to eat something else other than dal bhat and chapatis.

ok.  talk to you later.  miss and love you all.

Sep 16

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Two sights from yesterday

1. On the way to dinner we passed a meat stand. Just a booth with chunks of meat sitting out for you to purchase. It usually includes all the parts – even the heads. But whatever, that was not the part that struck us. It was the four goats – live goats – that were tied up out front. We weren’t sure if they were next for the butchering block or for people to buy and butcher in their own. There is a big festival coming up that involves sacrifices.

2. While waiting at the airport yesterday, there was a monk also waiting. He made us laugh when we noticed he has his iPad out and was on facebook. Awesome.

Ok… Off to the airport for attempt #2! Send good thoughts!

Sep 15

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A full day’s work

we just got back from 7.5 hours at the airport waiting for our flight to Lukla. They kept delaying the flight since the airport in Lukla was closed due to bad weather. You could definitely tell the Trekkers in the room – lots if gortex, quick dry, and backpacks (versus saris and salwar kameez).

The airport at Lukla is notorious for delays and cancelations…. Though we hear it is up in the mountains with one of those, you know, short run ways(I.e. Jones- you would not like this flight).

Our flight is refinements for tomorrow and we really hope we can make it out but we have definitely already heard horror stories of people taking 6 tries to get out of town…. That is a lot of taxi fare and sitting around!

It is interesting – the crowd (at the airport at least) seems to be different than the Annapurna crowd. Not sure what but definitely a bit more amped up. Everyone talks about heading to EBC ( everest base camp). Which we will be doing as part of our trek but it is not the central part if ours. I guess there is not even a view from EBC …. Not that I am knocking the trek – we will go over our highest pass on the way (over 5500 m!). Now we just need to get there!

Ok- we are off to get food. We ate all our provisions this morning (our left over pizza and chips) too early thinking we would not have to wait that long! Now we’re hungry!

Sep 14

and other happenings….

there was great news about my school this past week or so when Governor Patrick visited:

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2011/09/patrick_makes_first_of_two_sto.

Glad to see Renaissance getting the good word it deserves!

Also, tomorrow, we fly to Lukla to start the three passes trek – which will take us a little over 20 days – so we will be out of touch again for awhile…. we are hoping we get some good views and some sweet tea and probably more dal bhat than we can wish for (though I do love the tibetan bread and momos!)

here is a NYT article about the trek:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/travel/10explorer-everest.html?scp=1&sq=three%20passes%20trek%20everest&st=cse

but then, from there, who knows what I will be doing….  the plan will evolve I am sure.  I have had moments of definitely missing home and my community, but glad to be pushing myself out here!

Sep 14

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Annapurna (the long version)

Alright….  the afternoon rains have started here in Kathmandu, time for me to post about the Annapurna trek.

Just getting there was an adventure!  We took a public bus to the bus stand – we were so proud of ourselves for figuring it out….  though others on the bus were not so thrilled with our big packs!  We had to take ring road (which goes around the city of Kathmandu) to the bus stand.  Well….  it wasn’t so much a bus stand – but various vendors on the side of a very busy road – with lots of people seeing opportunity when they saw us!  We had lots of offers for taxis, buses, and probably other items that we were unaware of!

Finally, we got a bus to Besi Sahar where our trek would start.  Our bus, a ‘micro’ was basically a 15 passenger van, but it can fit up to 21 people (as evidenced on our ride out).  our packs went up top and away went. People got in along the way, people got out, loud Nepali music blared, we passed trucks and buses on blind curves, we bumped over potholes, kids puked.  Lots of good times. and then 6 long, hot, dusty hours later we arrived in Besi Sahar – ready to start our trek the next morning.

The trek starts in what are called the Middle Hills, lush, green hills that are filled with villages, terraced rice paddies, and waterfalls.  Oh, and leeches….  yes, we are trekking at the end of the monsoon season, so there are leeches — because everything is wet and hot and humid and we were walking in puddles and sometimes streams….  we realized it on day two when Katherine had blook soaking through her pants on her calf.  I hesitantly pulled up my pant legs and … EEK!  No leech to be seen, but plenty of dried blood on my leg!  then, later, when I pulled off my socks — three more leech attachs — though we have no idea where the leeches went — probably just took their fill and lept off!  ewwwww…..

Have to say, we were happy to get out of the middle hills — though it was pretty — it was HOT and HUMID and sticky and we were ready for some mountain time…. The higher we went, the cooler it got and the air did get some what drier…. (did I mention that we were trekking at the end of the monsoon?!)

Also, the higher we went, the further north we went, the more buddhist it became.  Every little village we came to had prayer wheels and chortens (or stupas) at the entrance.  Each spin of the prayer wheel sends your prayers to the gods.

All the while we were hiking at this point, we were folowling a river up through a steep canyon – with water falls thundering down every couple of hundred feet.  Finally, we started to climb out of the river valley and up onto a ridge.  We found a nice guest house up on top of the ridge – it seemed like it would have a great view — but of course, everything was hidden in clouds.

[side note — you might be wondering where we stayed each night.  The Annapurna circuit is famous for a lot of reasons – the views being one of them, of course, but it is also a great trek because there are tea houses all along the way that you can stay at.  Katherine and I would pick a place where we wanted to stay when we got to a village – and we had our choice since it is before the trekking season really starts.  Each guest house has nice enough rooms and you eat at the restaurant downstairs.  We usually ate dal bhat – but there were other options though we thought the dal bhat (lentls) was a safer option since that is the local food!)  Here is a picture of Katherine finding us a guest house before we got into town:

If we didn’t do our research ahead of time, people would be calling out to us left and right and it ended up being really confusing.  But, for the most part, all of our guest houses were really nice.]

Ok — back to the guest house on top of the ridge….  Well, the guest house was at about 3670m – which meant that the air was getting thinner.  Neither of us slept really well – from the air or from the excitement of being up high – not sure!  But, in any case — morning came and….. THERE WERE THE MOUNTAINS!!!!  our first real view of them in the morning light!!!!

It was pretty amazing up there….  we all just spent awhile staring and taking pictures (not knowing when this would happen again – which, as it turned out to be, not another clear day!)

Our days became increasingly shorter the higher we got — the reason for this is that you just cannot go too high and not expect to get sick from acute mountain sickness.  This is all well and good, however, it lead to some rather boring days….  3 days in a row we hiked for roughly 2-4 hours before we came to  our guest house….  and since we are early risers, this meant that we sometimes got in before lunch — which meant a whole lot of sitting around – reading, journaling, playing farkle.  It often rained in the afternoon, as well, which limited the number of hikes we could (wanted) to do.  But eventually – it was pass day.  The day we hiked up to Thorung La – the high pass before you descend down to the other side (which meant that the trek was over for us – since we were just doing the first half of the trek).

The hike up to the pass was not too bad – neither of us were really feeling the altitude too bad – though we did take it slow on our approach.  It took us about 3 hours to get to the pass and then another 3 hours of straight down to reach the ‘end’ of the trek (though more about that in a moment).

yep — that reads 5416m (close to 18,000 feet!!) which I think is the highest I have ever been.  It was pretty sweet up there — though there were NO views….  which was too bad.  but it was cool to be up there….  then, as I said, we headed down down down to Muktinath — which is very dry.  It is in an area called Mustang which is not all that far from Tibet (and reminded me a lot of Ladakh).  After we got to Muktinath, showered, ate a lot of food, visited the Muktinath religious center (it is a place of pilgrimages – see the photo of some of the 108 waterspouts), the next  day we made the long dusty walk to Jomson where we bought a plane ticket to fly to Pokarh in order to come back to Kathmandu.

All in all, the trek was pretty great — though they are building a road on the east side (the one on the west side is complete) and that was sometimes tough to take (all the road walking and road construction) — but all in all a great trek.

Some other highlights:

more mountains….

Suspension bridges (they were all over and pretty amazing and sometimes scary!):

lots of mani stones (I think that is what they are called — that are engraved and sitting on chortens or prayer wheel ‘stations’ as you enter or leave town):

and I will leave you with a picture of katherine and I at the pass:

of course there are gazillion moe pictures but it takes forever to upload them…..  i will figure something out!

Sep 13

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Back from Annapurna

we made it back from Annapurna today. The trek was great – everything from high passes to rice paddies to snow covered mountains in the distance to leeches! And lots of dal bhat!

Hopefully a long post tomorrow with pictures….

Sep 1

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Kathmandu

what a welcome sight to see Yogatara (my college housemate) waiting for me at the airport when I arrived this morning!  After so many years of hearing about nepal, it is good to finally be here!

She took me to the guest house where katherine and I are staying — it was great to have Katherine walk out to greet me — two of my favorite people in the world — right there to meet me on my first day in country.  Then we walked to breakfast (brunch?  lunch?) and got oriented and made a plan for the day – change some money, go get permits, take a nap, take a shower, take another nap….  🙂

Yogatara left us and went to work – we came back to our guest house and prepared ourselves to venture out alone.  we had our map and knew where we wanted to go, though we weren’t totally sure how to get back (there are no real addresses here).  Katherine suggested taking a bus — but that seemed a little overwhelming since we cannot read sanskrit and did not know where the buses were going….  so we grabbed a cab, negotiated the price and headed to the Tourisum building.  There we had to get our trekking permit and our annapurna permit.  of course you need a gazillion passport pictures (which is two more than we had) – so we have to go back tomorrow to get the rest of the permits (we need one for each trek we are doing — each costs a little over 20$).  then we will get our bus tickets and hopefully head out on our first trek on saturday — we are going to do the first half of the annapurna circuit (which has valleys and mountain passes and views of annapurna — should not suck!) .  that trek will take us about 10 days and then back here before we fly to the everest region for our second trek (3 passes).

I think, having been to india before, kathmandu is not as overhwlming as it could be….  we are not in kathmandu proper, but in Patan,  a suburub of Kathmandu.  the streets are busy and noisy and smelly — but nothing like delhi.   sure, there is a lot of honking and mopeds and bikes and people walking in the streets or on the streets or next to the streets — but there are not cows and dogs and auto-rickshaws and all the rest of the craziness of india….  this feels relatively calm.

tomorrow, our goal is to see a little more of the city — there is a walking tour that we read about in the guide book that we are going to check out.  of course, that is after we visit the tourism agency _again_ and give them lots of money!

as of right now, though, this tired girl needs to go to sleep….  it’s been a long time….

peace friends.

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