Monday, January 11, 2010

A Tale of Two Halves

30th December - 1st of January

After probably my best sleep so far of the trek I woke to discover that my poor roomie KTP had not been so lucky.... turns out she had to visit the bathroom multiple times for a bit of a vom vom. She really did not look well but decided to attempt to carry on none the less and so we started our journey towards Phortse.

Obviously after expelling all her previously eaten food KTP was feeling a little on the weak side so it was a pretty slow journey with Torbs joining us up the back as well. The trek itself was a 'Nepali flat', which means it was mainly flat with a few ups and downs... this was probably the most maintained track we've come across so far - and halfway along we came across a guy who had apparently done all of the work himself... through donations from tourists like ourselves - so I happily donated a few hundred rupees to his cause... (even thou I doubt he'd be able to do anymore work on the track based on his advanced age!!)

We eventually made it past all the prayer poles and stupas to our first rest stop - a small tea house kinda in the middle of nowhere. KTP pretty much looked like the walking dead at this point so it was quickly decided that both her and myself would spend the day her to allow her to recuperate before moving on any further.

Luckily for us the Intrepid itinerary diverts from the main Base Camp trail to Phortse, which means we could travel an easier route over the next few days to catch up with the crew in Dhingboche.

While Alicia was a bit conflicted, we encouraged her to stay with the rest of the group as she was the strongest out of us and two people would be much easier to manage than three. So after leaving us with a guide, Nara & a porter we bade farewell to the rest of the group & Alicia and put KTP straight to bed... AND while KTP slept... I pretty much read and lazed around in the sun... (for what happened to Alicia & the rest of the group... you'll just have to wait till she's bothered to blog about it.... possibly never!)
The next morning we both awoke to the fact that it had SNOWED overnight (something like 6 inches!)!!! In fact a small pile of snow had built up in our room's window still. After her day of rest KTP felt quite ready to continue on our journey so we headed out into the snow(and somehow resisted the urge to create snow angels!)

The morning walk to us down toward the river - and to be honest it was the most fun I've had so far. Neither of us could imagine a better place in the world to be at that moment! I managed to get KTP with a good snow fall a few times by just tapping the trees above us with Hesus 2.0 (my walking pole), but don't worry - karma paid me back as I stacked it big time into the snow! Our poor guide, Nara, seemed a lil under prepared for the snow as we had to stop a few times for him to remove the snow that had built up in his sneakers!!

Once down by the river we had a quick break for some tea before beginning to climb (OMG CLIMB) 400 m straight up to the Tengboche Monastery.... There's not much to say expect it was hard, we did it very slowly and we took LOTS of breaks... and that we made it up there... eventually.

We ate lunch at a teahouse just across from the monastery and meet a Sydney-girl, Marissa Ward, who by pure coincidence I share a few mutual friends with. She was actually 'snowed in' as her group was unable to head to their next destination as it was to unsafe for the porters to carry all their gear!!

After lunch we headed toward our final destination - Pangboche - by again heading back down to the river and then climbing back up agin (this happens WAY too often for my liking). The main 'exciting' event of this trip is me having to the whole 'crap in the woods' thing way too literally as I suffered from the 'runs'. We finally reached Pangboche (to my great relief) late in the afternoon - both KTP and I were so tired we actually had a nap before dinner... and then as soon as dinner was over headed back to bed.... though not before celebrating Sydney New Years (~7PM Nepal time) with a hands raised "HAPPY NEW YEAR".... oh yeah... we're party animals.

The next morning we woke up relatively early again to make on way to Dhingboche - where we would finally meet up with the rest of the crew. It was a relatively pleasant morning walk in the snow-covered hills and we passed a few people who wished us a 'Happy New Year.' We stopped to have morning tea in this teahouse that was basically in the middle of nowhere with snow-covered ground as far as the eye could see.
We reached Dhingboche just around lunch time - with both Raj and Kevin coming outside to meet us... we are both still sorely disappointed that Alicia did not come out and greet us with open arms!! She claims she was told that we would not arrive for another hour or so... thou we believe she just couldn't be bothered leaving her sunny position in the dining room :D
We did however enter the dinning room to a round of applause - which was both very nice and made us feel like we had been missed. Sitting back and having lunch with everyone again I think made both KTP and I aware of how much we had missed our social interactions with the rest of the group. We also were
Today was an aclimatization day for the group - so they spent the morning climbing some 300 m up o a Tibetan prayer pole on the hill behind the teahouse. In an attempt to make up for it, both KTP and I did our own aclimatization walk - though as we had already climbed some 500 m... we decided we would not go as far up as the group had.
First we made our way up to the stupa directly behind the teahouse - which was probably around about 100 m up, we then made our way to the right to where some prayer flags had been strung together to make it about 200 m. It only took us ~ 1 hour and as we made our way down the hill we ran into Torbs who had gone out searching for us so he could do some extra walking... next time Torbs!
Once inside the teahouse we found most of the group intensely playing Phase 10 (some sort of American card game similar to Gin Rummy) so KTP and I started playing Shithead (name of the game I swear) and we taught it to Raj... who then proceeded to kick our arses!
All in all a good day! Tomorrow - Loubche!!

Brennan (KTP & Fang)

No comments:

Post a Comment