Our Trek - Day 16

20th April, 2008 - Back to Kathmandu from Lukla on our twin otter plane loaded to the hilt. Got on the plane, jumped in my seat and guess what - NO SEATBELT to be found. I think I went into shock. There was absolutely nothing I could do as the only spare seat on the plane had been broken by some big guy just a moment ago. He was moved to a double seat at the front! Brad just kept me calm and we eventually landed in Kathmandu with no probs. In actual fact it was a pretty good flight with amazing views.......I just kept focusing on those views.

Once back in Kathmandu we were met by our Sherpa Guide, Dawa, who helped us back to our hotel through the crowds, beeping horns and polluted streets. Aaaah Kathmandu - It felt like coming home. Shower was first thing on the agenda....then absolutely nothing.

Our Trek - Day 15

19th April, 2008 - A day in Lukla...........well we thought that staying in Lukla would be a good idea as there seemed that there would be a few things to explore - WRONG! Our Sherpa Guide, Dawa managed to get himself onto a flight back to Kathmandu that morning but we were to hang around until tomorrow. The Porter, Kaljar stayed with us in order to help us get ourselves to the airport in the morning. Soooooooo our day was spent sun-tanning in the court yard of the hotel reading our books and watching the planes come in and out of Lukla. We did see a few sights though - the amount of children around the 35kg weight, carrying goods from the airport into town (weights of approximately 50kg) on their backs. Training to be Porters maybe!!!!!! Very hard work. We also met up with a few people whom we had met somewhere along the trail and had a few drinks with them. The next day we were to fly out to Kathmandu at 8.00am - I think we were both now ready for that....a hot shower, a warm double bed!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Our Trek - Day 2

7 April 2008 - Today we set off from Monjo at 8.00am, after having apple pancakes for breakfast - mmmmmmm stodgy! This trek proved to be a lot harder even though it was to be a shorter distance of approximately 4 hours. We had to deal with some pretty grueling slopes whilst ascending to an altitude of 3400m, finally reaching our destination of Namche Bazaar at approx 12.30pm. It was half way to Namche Bazaar that we saw our first view of Everest - what a beautiful sight it was.... We were in oar of its greatness. Our lodgings for the next 2 evenings was a place called "The Holiday Inn" - it sounds good doesn't it? Well it was another simple tea house which suited us fine, as we were able to interact with the local Sherpa people and have some fun. We were to use tea-houses as our accommodation for the duration of our trek.

Brad and I both had slight headaches on reaching Namche and I had slight shortness of breath, which is quite a normal given the altitude we were at. We were advised that if symptoms arise just to treat the symptom with panadol or something similar and wait to see if things settle down. Apparently if you still have a headache in the morning you don't go any higher. The saying goes - Dont take a headache higher! Anyway for us it was good news, after a good nights sleep we were both fine, also we were to have a rest day in Namche to help with the acclimatization. We spent our rest day buying up some more warm clothing, as everyone we met was telling us how cold it gets from here on in - good advice as we were to find out down the track.