Sunday morning 5:20 AM. My alarm goes off and despite the fact I didn't sleep at all last night I jump out of bed and under the shower. NEED to take a shower because it might well be my last for the next week. 5:45 AM I'm out the front door waiting for my trekking buddies. The streets of Thamel are already alive (who knew) and slowly as the streets fill with people, we make our way to the bus stop. 6:15 AM the bus leaves Kathmandu and we are on our way to Sundarijal. That's where we will start walking.
I have no idea what to expect and I feel a little nervous. I never really liked taking 'long walks through nature' and my condition is not that excellent. This trek is my first and could be my last. What if I can't keep up? What if I really hate it? What if I break down and cry? What if...?
We start walking around 8 AM and the first steps are already up, up, up! My God, I feel like my lungs are about to explode and sweat is already dripping down my face although it's still early and fresh. What have I got myself into?! But thanks to my buddies, Greet and Martine, they help me to find my pace. "Bistare bistare" (slowly slowly) I take one step after the other and try to match them with my breathing. I only focus on my steps and my breathing and after a while I find my rhythm. Everybody has his own rhythm. It can be slow or fast, with many stops or no stops, but steady. Mine is a slow rhythm, but I feel myself calming down and I have my breathing under control. After a while I even find myself looking around and enjoying the scenery. This goes on for several hours until we reach a first stop for tea. It's a small village where the women are making the local alcoholic drink, Raksi. This is amazing! It's so peaceful here, the people are so friendly and the air is starting to smell fresh! Waw!
After tea we go again and this time finding my rhythm comes more easy. I'm very lucky that Greet and Martine have a similar rhythm, so we walk together. Joke and Marieke have a much faster rhythm and so they go on ahead until the next stop. This time it's lunch, a noodle-soup, which will be our lunch every day from now on. It's time for a little check up and I take my shoes and socks off. Damned! There they are! Three huge craters in my heels. Only one of them is a little open, but the damage seems to be okay. Compeed, my friend, where art'thou? We cover it all up and then it's time to go again.
Walking is painful, but my 'rhythm' brings me in a state of trance. It's as if your body adapts to the pain and the pain becomes part of the rhythm. The scenery is beautiful and we are already quit high up. We reach the little village where we will spend the night and although our bedroom looks more like a stable or a barn than a room, this is perfect! You're so tired and happy to be there that it really doesn't matter that much. The food tastes excellent and the cold mountain water feels very soothing on my feet. The Compeed seems to hold only on one side, the other side the Compeed melted and my heel is uncovered. Only one solution: MORE Compeed!
At 8 o'clock we are tired and since there really is nothing to do in the mountains after dark, no electricity - no bars - no tv - only barking dogs - pitchblack night, we go to bed. This is the beginning of our new clock. The "clock of nature". Here you go to bed after sunset and you wake up at sunrise. So 6 o'clock the next day we get up, breakfast is at 7 and soon after that we start walking again. The mood is good. Although my feet hurt, we talk and laugh a lot. And I'm really enjoying this. Again we go up, up, up, but everything goes smooth. Except maybe when I'm being confronted with one of my old fears. A little puppy won't leave us alone (that is nothing to be scared of, I know!) and follows us along the trail when all of a sudden we have to pass a farm with a big dog out front. This dog is protecting the farm and so if you don't come too close you're fine. But the dog doesn't like the puppy tagging along and starts growling. Of course the puppy decides to look for protection in between our legs, and that's when I'm almost peeing my pants. If this big dog decides to attack the little puppy, my leg might actually be stuck in the middle. Okay, time to take a deep breath, calm myself down, focus on the road ahead and keep my rhythm.... pfff. I made it! The puppy turned back and the farm is far behind us! After that we bump into a couple of water buffalo's and the farmer makes us hide so they can pass without being scared. Yep, this time it's not me, but the buffalo's who are scared! ;-)
The rest of the day is smooth sailing and at night we reach the next village where we will spend the night. There was a little rain and it's becoming colder, the higher we are. Thank God this little lodge has a fire and after doing the necessary stuff for the night, like making your bed, taking your shoes off, we sit around the fire. There's two elderly French couples who are doing the same route as us and they stay in the same lodge. The men are both 75 years old, one of the women is 71 and the other is about 50. Waw, they are amazing, still trekking! It turns out one of them is a Guide in the Alpes, but still; they are here and they are doing it! Let's hope we can all be there at 75!
Again a good day passed and I go to sleep satisfied. The next day it takes a little longer for my feet to adapt to the pain. It's also still a little damp and cold, so it takes longer for you muscles to warm. But again we find our rhythm and off we go. This time it's more 'Nepali flat', which means it's not that steep anymore. And a few hours later we actually go up AND down, which is a nice change. After lunchtime we reach the lodge which is at 3200 meters. When I remove my shoes, my Compeed comes off and what we see underneath looks a bit scary. It looks worse then it is though, but because we are also at high altitude, we decide to take the rest of the day off and continue tomorrow. There's a fire in the lodge and we spend the rest of the day just sitting around; talking, laughing, drinking tea, an attempt to do yoga (which didn't work at all during the trek), a little walk... It's weird to be at such high altitude. I never knew what altitude sickness meant and even now we are not really high enough to call it sick. But you do notice that you are tired a bit faster and there is a slight headache. Not really a head - ACHE, but there is a airy feeling in your head.
We wanted to go to Gosainkunde, but because of my feet (sorry), the slight headache with a few of us, and mainly because of bad weather, we decide to skip Gosainkunde and make our way around Helambu back to Kathmandu. It's either 3 short days walk or 2 long ones. We can't decide right now, we will have to see tomorrow how things are going.
Early morning we wrap up my feet in Compeed. At this point one of my ankles has about three of them and the other one and a normal bandage. It's fine. We can't prevent anymore, we can't let it heal (no time), so all we try to do right now is minimize more damage. We start the walk and it goes pretty well. We go downhill today and when we reach the highest point (for us on this trek that was 3600 meters), we decide to continue and it's down hill now! Soon after we leave it starts raining and that really breaks the mood a bit. The first hours we can still talk and laugh, but the trek is taking longer than we expected. Also because of the rain, the path is slippery and all of us, taking turns, hit the ground. Greetje hits it hardest and her back is hurting a bit now. The leaves are falling covering the path, that was already slippery, and so you can't really see where you have to walk. It goes down very steep and we turn to silence. Concentration is needed and sometimes I have to hold my breath when we take the small steps along a ravine. On top of this we have to cross a few bridges. You know those bridges; Indiana Jones - bridges! Small walking bridges over a river miles below? Yep, you know those ones? Swinging left to right when you cross them? And I'm not that keen on heights! But what to do? Nothing, just freeze your brain and keep going. Look straight ahead, put one foot after the other and keep going. Waw, the thrill I feel when I cross is amazing! If you had told me before hand I would have to do this, several times, maybe I wouldn't have come. But I did, I did and after two bridges I even feel confident enough to take a look around me while crossing. And it's beautiful to see the water beneath you splashing through the rocks. Such fresh mountain water, almost blue! And then, a few hours later than expected, we arrive in the next village where we will sleep. The lodge is nice and the son of the house makes us an excellent Dahl Baath. There's not really a restaurant and we sit in their 'sherpa kitchen' to have dinner. It is beautiful and although grandpa is in exile in the barn, they make us feel welcome.
Day 5. Last day of walking for me. Joke and Marieke are still full of energy and they will keep going all the way down. Martine, Greet and me will walk to the nearest village where we can take a bus to Kathmandu. The 'nearest' village, you say? Really? Well, we didn't know that morning that the 'nearest' village was only 7 hours walking. Haha! Thank God I didn't know. Seven hours actually sounds worse than it is!
The action of the day was that we got to see the French people and their Nepali porters and guides before splitting ways (they kept going when we took the afternoon off). Yep, the Nepali porters didn't speak English but they looked really good. And when they decided to walk with us, at our slow pace, somehow it gave us some extra energy and so we went in the next gear! Haha! After splitting from the French we also had to say goodbye to Joke and Marieke. They were heading the same way as them and we were going to the other side of the valley.
The little path brought us through villages, over mountains, along waterfalls, across the river... the sun was shining today and butterflies everywhere showed us the way. All colors of the rainbow where represented in the butterflies and the flowers and it's hard to describe how little you feel when surrounded by so much beauty and greatness. We take a break eating cookies together with three little girls taking their oxes out on a walk (??), they are so cute and at the end they even start singing. Later that afternoon we stop for lunch. By now we already know that this walk is gonna be longer then expected, but we just have to continue until we get there. There's no point in stopping now. We can't! Can we? Well... just for a little while we feared logistic problems would prevent us from continuing! After lunch we see that the 'path' ends at the next house and the 'road' starts. For years they've been building roads in the mountains and apparently this is how far they have come now. There's a big bulldozer and men working. But where is the path? Gone. Where is the road? Not built yet. So where do we go? Well, Nepali style they tell us to just 'go'! Go where? There's a steep pile of sand that goes straight into the ravine! You want us to just 'go' and cross that pile? My knees start feeling a bit weak, but it seems that there is no other way. A drunk guy and an older man try to show us how it's done and they cross, but even then it looks so terribly dangerous. One wrong step and we just fall into the deep. The Nepali are laughing because for them this is a piece of cake, but after explaining to them that we don't have 'Nepali feet' they understand our problem. A few whistles, the bulldozer turns around, we quickly have to step out of the way, and a path is being made! Yep! You heard it! The bulldozer built a path along the pile for us to cross! They built a road, just for us! Yihaaa! This is Nepal! This is hospitality! My heart is singing and the mood is perfect again! Although it is hour 8, it is raining a little, our knees hurt from going down the whole day... they built a road for us and we see the finish! Silence disappears and the rest of the walk passes in a cheerful way. The lodge where we end up is nice, the food is just excellent, the best we had so far and the family running the place really makes us feel like home.
We made it! And tonight we even celebrate a little bit by sharing a beer between the three of us! And that's enough to get us slightly dizzy and ready for bed!
Friday morning; the bus is early (there might be another one coming, but you never know, so we have to take this one), but they wait until we are ready. The driver looks like he wouldn't be allowed to drive yet in Belgium, and at one point he switches places with a truck driver just for the kick of it, but he brings us back safe in Kathmandu. It took 5 hours, but the drive is beautiful. Along villages, down in the valley, up in the mountains... When we get back to Kathmandu I feel like I'm glowing. I'm tired as hell, and after a shower and removing all the Compeed the craters look bigger than expected, but I feel so satisfied and calm. Happy that I did this and that I made it! I love trekking! It is worth all the suffering to see all that beauty and to experience that relaxing rhythm that completely clears your head from all worries! Wow, this was my first, but not my last! Nepal... I promise I'll be back! x
I have no idea what to expect and I feel a little nervous. I never really liked taking 'long walks through nature' and my condition is not that excellent. This trek is my first and could be my last. What if I can't keep up? What if I really hate it? What if I break down and cry? What if...?
We start walking around 8 AM and the first steps are already up, up, up! My God, I feel like my lungs are about to explode and sweat is already dripping down my face although it's still early and fresh. What have I got myself into?! But thanks to my buddies, Greet and Martine, they help me to find my pace. "Bistare bistare" (slowly slowly) I take one step after the other and try to match them with my breathing. I only focus on my steps and my breathing and after a while I find my rhythm. Everybody has his own rhythm. It can be slow or fast, with many stops or no stops, but steady. Mine is a slow rhythm, but I feel myself calming down and I have my breathing under control. After a while I even find myself looking around and enjoying the scenery. This goes on for several hours until we reach a first stop for tea. It's a small village where the women are making the local alcoholic drink, Raksi. This is amazing! It's so peaceful here, the people are so friendly and the air is starting to smell fresh! Waw!
After tea we go again and this time finding my rhythm comes more easy. I'm very lucky that Greet and Martine have a similar rhythm, so we walk together. Joke and Marieke have a much faster rhythm and so they go on ahead until the next stop. This time it's lunch, a noodle-soup, which will be our lunch every day from now on. It's time for a little check up and I take my shoes and socks off. Damned! There they are! Three huge craters in my heels. Only one of them is a little open, but the damage seems to be okay. Compeed, my friend, where art'thou? We cover it all up and then it's time to go again.
Walking is painful, but my 'rhythm' brings me in a state of trance. It's as if your body adapts to the pain and the pain becomes part of the rhythm. The scenery is beautiful and we are already quit high up. We reach the little village where we will spend the night and although our bedroom looks more like a stable or a barn than a room, this is perfect! You're so tired and happy to be there that it really doesn't matter that much. The food tastes excellent and the cold mountain water feels very soothing on my feet. The Compeed seems to hold only on one side, the other side the Compeed melted and my heel is uncovered. Only one solution: MORE Compeed!
At 8 o'clock we are tired and since there really is nothing to do in the mountains after dark, no electricity - no bars - no tv - only barking dogs - pitchblack night, we go to bed. This is the beginning of our new clock. The "clock of nature". Here you go to bed after sunset and you wake up at sunrise. So 6 o'clock the next day we get up, breakfast is at 7 and soon after that we start walking again. The mood is good. Although my feet hurt, we talk and laugh a lot. And I'm really enjoying this. Again we go up, up, up, but everything goes smooth. Except maybe when I'm being confronted with one of my old fears. A little puppy won't leave us alone (that is nothing to be scared of, I know!) and follows us along the trail when all of a sudden we have to pass a farm with a big dog out front. This dog is protecting the farm and so if you don't come too close you're fine. But the dog doesn't like the puppy tagging along and starts growling. Of course the puppy decides to look for protection in between our legs, and that's when I'm almost peeing my pants. If this big dog decides to attack the little puppy, my leg might actually be stuck in the middle. Okay, time to take a deep breath, calm myself down, focus on the road ahead and keep my rhythm.... pfff. I made it! The puppy turned back and the farm is far behind us! After that we bump into a couple of water buffalo's and the farmer makes us hide so they can pass without being scared. Yep, this time it's not me, but the buffalo's who are scared! ;-)
The rest of the day is smooth sailing and at night we reach the next village where we will spend the night. There was a little rain and it's becoming colder, the higher we are. Thank God this little lodge has a fire and after doing the necessary stuff for the night, like making your bed, taking your shoes off, we sit around the fire. There's two elderly French couples who are doing the same route as us and they stay in the same lodge. The men are both 75 years old, one of the women is 71 and the other is about 50. Waw, they are amazing, still trekking! It turns out one of them is a Guide in the Alpes, but still; they are here and they are doing it! Let's hope we can all be there at 75!
Again a good day passed and I go to sleep satisfied. The next day it takes a little longer for my feet to adapt to the pain. It's also still a little damp and cold, so it takes longer for you muscles to warm. But again we find our rhythm and off we go. This time it's more 'Nepali flat', which means it's not that steep anymore. And a few hours later we actually go up AND down, which is a nice change. After lunchtime we reach the lodge which is at 3200 meters. When I remove my shoes, my Compeed comes off and what we see underneath looks a bit scary. It looks worse then it is though, but because we are also at high altitude, we decide to take the rest of the day off and continue tomorrow. There's a fire in the lodge and we spend the rest of the day just sitting around; talking, laughing, drinking tea, an attempt to do yoga (which didn't work at all during the trek), a little walk... It's weird to be at such high altitude. I never knew what altitude sickness meant and even now we are not really high enough to call it sick. But you do notice that you are tired a bit faster and there is a slight headache. Not really a head - ACHE, but there is a airy feeling in your head.
We wanted to go to Gosainkunde, but because of my feet (sorry), the slight headache with a few of us, and mainly because of bad weather, we decide to skip Gosainkunde and make our way around Helambu back to Kathmandu. It's either 3 short days walk or 2 long ones. We can't decide right now, we will have to see tomorrow how things are going.
Early morning we wrap up my feet in Compeed. At this point one of my ankles has about three of them and the other one and a normal bandage. It's fine. We can't prevent anymore, we can't let it heal (no time), so all we try to do right now is minimize more damage. We start the walk and it goes pretty well. We go downhill today and when we reach the highest point (for us on this trek that was 3600 meters), we decide to continue and it's down hill now! Soon after we leave it starts raining and that really breaks the mood a bit. The first hours we can still talk and laugh, but the trek is taking longer than we expected. Also because of the rain, the path is slippery and all of us, taking turns, hit the ground. Greetje hits it hardest and her back is hurting a bit now. The leaves are falling covering the path, that was already slippery, and so you can't really see where you have to walk. It goes down very steep and we turn to silence. Concentration is needed and sometimes I have to hold my breath when we take the small steps along a ravine. On top of this we have to cross a few bridges. You know those bridges; Indiana Jones - bridges! Small walking bridges over a river miles below? Yep, you know those ones? Swinging left to right when you cross them? And I'm not that keen on heights! But what to do? Nothing, just freeze your brain and keep going. Look straight ahead, put one foot after the other and keep going. Waw, the thrill I feel when I cross is amazing! If you had told me before hand I would have to do this, several times, maybe I wouldn't have come. But I did, I did and after two bridges I even feel confident enough to take a look around me while crossing. And it's beautiful to see the water beneath you splashing through the rocks. Such fresh mountain water, almost blue! And then, a few hours later than expected, we arrive in the next village where we will sleep. The lodge is nice and the son of the house makes us an excellent Dahl Baath. There's not really a restaurant and we sit in their 'sherpa kitchen' to have dinner. It is beautiful and although grandpa is in exile in the barn, they make us feel welcome.
Day 5. Last day of walking for me. Joke and Marieke are still full of energy and they will keep going all the way down. Martine, Greet and me will walk to the nearest village where we can take a bus to Kathmandu. The 'nearest' village, you say? Really? Well, we didn't know that morning that the 'nearest' village was only 7 hours walking. Haha! Thank God I didn't know. Seven hours actually sounds worse than it is!
The action of the day was that we got to see the French people and their Nepali porters and guides before splitting ways (they kept going when we took the afternoon off). Yep, the Nepali porters didn't speak English but they looked really good. And when they decided to walk with us, at our slow pace, somehow it gave us some extra energy and so we went in the next gear! Haha! After splitting from the French we also had to say goodbye to Joke and Marieke. They were heading the same way as them and we were going to the other side of the valley.
The little path brought us through villages, over mountains, along waterfalls, across the river... the sun was shining today and butterflies everywhere showed us the way. All colors of the rainbow where represented in the butterflies and the flowers and it's hard to describe how little you feel when surrounded by so much beauty and greatness. We take a break eating cookies together with three little girls taking their oxes out on a walk (??), they are so cute and at the end they even start singing. Later that afternoon we stop for lunch. By now we already know that this walk is gonna be longer then expected, but we just have to continue until we get there. There's no point in stopping now. We can't! Can we? Well... just for a little while we feared logistic problems would prevent us from continuing! After lunch we see that the 'path' ends at the next house and the 'road' starts. For years they've been building roads in the mountains and apparently this is how far they have come now. There's a big bulldozer and men working. But where is the path? Gone. Where is the road? Not built yet. So where do we go? Well, Nepali style they tell us to just 'go'! Go where? There's a steep pile of sand that goes straight into the ravine! You want us to just 'go' and cross that pile? My knees start feeling a bit weak, but it seems that there is no other way. A drunk guy and an older man try to show us how it's done and they cross, but even then it looks so terribly dangerous. One wrong step and we just fall into the deep. The Nepali are laughing because for them this is a piece of cake, but after explaining to them that we don't have 'Nepali feet' they understand our problem. A few whistles, the bulldozer turns around, we quickly have to step out of the way, and a path is being made! Yep! You heard it! The bulldozer built a path along the pile for us to cross! They built a road, just for us! Yihaaa! This is Nepal! This is hospitality! My heart is singing and the mood is perfect again! Although it is hour 8, it is raining a little, our knees hurt from going down the whole day... they built a road for us and we see the finish! Silence disappears and the rest of the walk passes in a cheerful way. The lodge where we end up is nice, the food is just excellent, the best we had so far and the family running the place really makes us feel like home.
We made it! And tonight we even celebrate a little bit by sharing a beer between the three of us! And that's enough to get us slightly dizzy and ready for bed!
Friday morning; the bus is early (there might be another one coming, but you never know, so we have to take this one), but they wait until we are ready. The driver looks like he wouldn't be allowed to drive yet in Belgium, and at one point he switches places with a truck driver just for the kick of it, but he brings us back safe in Kathmandu. It took 5 hours, but the drive is beautiful. Along villages, down in the valley, up in the mountains... When we get back to Kathmandu I feel like I'm glowing. I'm tired as hell, and after a shower and removing all the Compeed the craters look bigger than expected, but I feel so satisfied and calm. Happy that I did this and that I made it! I love trekking! It is worth all the suffering to see all that beauty and to experience that relaxing rhythm that completely clears your head from all worries! Wow, this was my first, but not my last! Nepal... I promise I'll be back! x
