Nepal and Everst Base Camp

On top of Kala Pattar with the boys



Freezing my ass off on the way down...ginger beard and all



The Tourist Base Camp



The real Everest Base Camp about a 20 minute walk from the tourist one across a glazier



From base camp the valley the expedition teams go up to Camp 1 Everest



Myself and Luke at EBC



Trekking by myself for the day from Pheriche. 5200m



The Kitchen in one of the small lodges we stayed in. The fire burned dried Yak shit.



Myself and our slave for the two weeks...Tashi the ledgend











Road to Kathmandu





Road to Kathmandu



Difficult road conditions



We crossed the border into Nepal at the crossing close to Birgunj and again it was a fairly straight forward process as all our paperwork was in order. Almost instantly we noticed a change for the better with regards driving conditions. Nepal is considerably more orderly and less chaotic. There are several possible border crossings between India and Nepal and we chose what we thought would be the most direct. Unfortunately for us we failed to notice that the most direct route went over a mountain range reaching a peak of 2800 meters and all the roads were switch backs, winding back and forth, up mountains and down into valleys. Progress was exceptionally slow as it was nearly impossible to do more than 25 mph. The initial part of the trip was amazing for us as it was so different from India. The landscape, so lush and green, the little villages along the road side so busy with the locals working in the fields and preparing there produce for sales in the nearest towns and cities. A big change was in the way the people look compared to their Indian or Chinese (Tibetan) neighbors.
While driving through the hills we came across two Maoist (Communist Party in Nepal) check points. The Maoists, labeled by the US as a terrorist group are raging what is called here a peoples war. For tourist it doesn’t really affect us much except when they have a strike day transport networks are shut down, which for us means we should not drive on the roads around the Katmandu Valley (The day of writing, 10th November is a strike day and the reason why we cannot leave for India until maybe tomorrow). Maoist main source of funding is said to be from robberies and extortion. At the first check point we came across we were ushered through without having to pay anything but at the second one a guy stood in front of the car and jestered us to pull in. Being kind of stupid and Luke shouting to “keep going” I put the foot down and raced up the hill. We were told later that it wasn’t a good idea as they could have thrown stones at the car or even worse shot at us....you live and learn I suppose...
Kathmandu was a welcomed site that evening and with all the white people walking around the streets of Thamal (Tourist area of Kathmandu) we knew we could get a good feed some where. We found our hotel for the few days at 500 Napali per night (100 = 1.12 euro) then headed straight to Kathmandu Steakhouse and order the biggest one that could be got. After eating noting but chicken and mutton over the past few weeks, a massive lump of cow was nice to see.

Our plan for Nepal was to try to trek to Everest Base Camp 5340 m and Kala Pattar 5545m (mountain from where you can see the top of Everest as you can not see it from base camp). In Kathmandu and on the Internet there are literally thousands of tour and trekking companies who are happy to take your money off you for a very straight forward trek that you can easily organize yourself once in Kathmandu. Prior to arriving in Nepal Luke had done a little research on the net and found out most of the detail of what was needed (TIMS card, climbing permit, flight tickets, renting trekking equipment etc.). We were definitely a little naïve when we arrived at first thinking that we could just walk to Everest base camp with our normal camping equipment we had for the trip plus an extra jacket but after talking to a few people they quickly put us on the right track.
In the end we rented a proper 4 season (good for -10 deg C, it was – 18 degC when we were at base camp), bought thermals, gloves, hats, boots and a few other bits and pieces and we were ready to go. There are hundreds of small shops around Thamal selling cheap/fake The North Face clothes, boots and climbing equipment. If you’re thinking about a trekking trip in Nepal and you need something for your trip buy it here. With our equipment sorted the next thing was to book flights to Lukla, the kick off point of out trek. From the main office we got flights for 200 US return each and finally after three days of running around we were set to go.

On the 25th of October we flew to Lukla for our 15 day trek to EBC and Kala Pattar. Because we had a lot of stuff with us and neither of us would have had been able to carry it up the trail, when we arrived in Lukla we hired a porter to carry our Rucksack (Porter normally costs between 6-8 dollars per day but you need to bargain). This was our plan all along and we got very lucky with the porter we got. His name was Tashi a twenty year old Napali guy with Basic English but lots of fun. Normally porters hang around the airport waiting for the tourists to arrive, once they get a client they will show them the direction to start walking and set you off. These guys can travel over the trail twice as fast as any tourist as they do it every day so it’s not a good idea to try and follow them. The porter normally just carries your bag to a pre-organized town of village where you'll stay for the night but in our case Tashi stayed with us all the time and pretty much acted as a guide more than a porter. His incentive I think was to improve his English and practice being a guide so it works out on both sides.
All along the route to EBC and Kala Pattar there are lodges and guest houses where you can stay and get fed for about 10 Euro per night, but it does get more and more expensive the higher you climb

The first three days were difficult for both of us. After spending most of our time sitting in a car for the previous month neither of us was properly prepared for the long walks over rough terrain. After the initial shock to the system we were feeling better and better every day until we got to about Tengbouche 3700 meters. On the fifth day Luke started getting headaches which is a initial indication of altitude sickness, he started taking diomox which are tablets that help with this problem. The next day we trekked up to 4200 meters and Luke still wasn't feeling well so we called into the Medical center that is situated in Pheriche a small village in a massive valley. The volunteer doctors at the center told him that he should be fine as long as he took a rest day in Pheriche and then only if he was feeling ok to continue the climb to the next village.
I was lucky that the altitude didn't affect me at all so while Luke and Tashi (they got very close on the trip) rested for the rest of the day I decided to climb one of the mountains beside the hotel. It was nice to be out by myself going at my own pace. By the time I reached the top I had climbed 1000 meters up to 5200 meters and the view from the top was unbelievable. The air wan notably tin but once you rested and slowed your breathing you were fine after a few minutes. To help with the acclimatization they say that it is good to climb to a higher altitude during the day then you will sleep at that night. Once I went back down to Pheriche I was tried but feeling pretty happy with myself.
The next day Luke was feeling better, well enough to continue up the trail, so we pushed on the 4 hours walk to the next village Lobuje 4800 meters. From here on up it started to get notably colder even during the day when the sun was shining and the wind picked up a little. Normally during the day you were quite warm as you were moving around and the sun was fairly strong but at night it was very cold and you had to stay inside the cabin. Getting up to go to the toilet at night was a bitch.
From Lobuje we trekked 3 hours up to our final stop Gorak Shep. Once there we left our bags in the guesthouse and continued up to Base Camp Everest. There is an old and a new base camp. The old one is for the tourist to take a picture at the sigh which we happily obliged but then we headed across the glacier to the new base camp where we could see from where all the expedition start from. At the time we were there there was a small expedition ongoing. A film crew was hiking up to camp two to get some footage. It was interesting to see what a real Everest attempt might look like from the start.
That night we went back to Gorak Shep and slept there. It was not easy to sleep as I kept waking up feeling out of breath which is fairly normal for that altitude until you acclimatize. The next morning we were up early to tackle Kala Pattar and get our first proper view of Everest. It was bitterly cold on the way up and with the altitude the trek was made incredibly difficult. Once on the top we hung around for a few minutes, tock some photos then got the hell out of there.
Getting back to Lukla was considerably faster than going up. This is mainly because on the way up you need two acclimatize/rest days where you stay in the same town for two nights and naturally you can go down a lot faster than going up. In all it took us 4 days to get back to Lukla and flew back to Kathmandu the next day.

Thinking back now I enjoyed the trek but at the time it was hard work and getting food poisoning on the way down didn't help the fun factor of the trip. Jumping in to the bushes or behind rocks just off the trail for a quick evacuation didn't add to my experience. The one good side to trekking like this is that you get a chance to meet a lot of interesting people, from experienced climbers on there way up, to normal tourist like ourselves. On the other side we meet an inconceivable amount of fat Americans, loud Germans and old Japanese tour groups that just get in the way....
On our way up we did meet one guy from Kazakhstan who had attempt to climb Everest the previous spring and reached Camp 4 but then got sick and had to descend. It was fascinating to hear his story which he obviously told a lot. Suppose if you spent $35000 on an attempt and didn't reach the top, telling everyone your story would be one may of getting your monies worth. He was going to Everest base camp to organize the removal of his friend from the mountain who had died in an avalanche during there expedition Not sure of all the details.
We also heard that the guy from “Touching the Void”, Simon Yates, the one that cut the rope, was two days behind us on the trail but I think people talk a lot of shit when there up in the hills.

Back in Kathmandu we just chilled out for a few days, eat well, slept a lot, sent some emails and basically done fuck all. The one thing I did do was get the flat tire in the car fixed. There was such a big piece of metal stuck in the old tire that it was useless, a new tire was needed. Apart from that we just eat, drank and slept.
.

India Part 1

View from the Hotel in Dehli



Eco my ass



A happy sign after a dry month



Cosy







Just over the border...some massive building


With about 8500 miles on the car we arrived in India by chance just in time for Diwali (Hindu equivalent to Christmas). We crossed the border from Pakistan at ...............with out any problem and from there headed to Delhi. Once over the border you could really tell that you were into another country. The people, the landscape and more annoyingly the road conditions were far more difficult. In general the road surfaces are ok and you can see that money is being spent on improving the road network but the way motorway and roads are used makes driving anywhere difficult to say the least. People, bicycles, tuk tuks, rickshaws, tractors trucks and animals form the majority of the traffic on the motorways, leaving you with endless surprises when someone decides to walk across the road to speak to there neighbor or a cow decides to sit in the middle of the road to catch the evening sun. It seem like a national sport to drive in the wrong direction down the “fast lane” of the motorway at night with no lights on. There are police around but they have bigger problems with the numerous overturned trucks, smashed up cars, bike and probable people you see on a regular basis.
The biggest change is the amount of people this country has. They are every where and anywhere and when you are not used to being in such a busy environment it can be and was difficult to adjust. In Pakistan I don’t think is much different in this respect but driving was made easy by having the escorts clear the path in front of us but in India we had no such luck.

The first evening in India was difficult driving. It was eight or nine hours to Delhi from the border and with our progress on the roads being so slow and unfortunately our first flat tire...(a flat piece of metal about half the size of a credit card sliced through the rubber) we stayed in a road side hotel for the night. The next morning we got up early and left for Delhi. Previously Luke had downloaded the Satnav maps for India so Susie was back in action. The maps are not as detailed as the ones I had thought Europe but they were still handy to have when we arrived into Delhi. With the help of the bible (Lonely Planet India book) and Susie, we were able to find our hotel for the few days with out much problem. We stayed in the budget or backpacker region of the city which was fine but trying to get through the crowded narrow streets with the car was torture. Having not washed the car since I left home I think really help getting passed the crowds with the layer of dirt almost acting as a force field around us. It was comical when someone would brush off the car and relies that there clothes were cover in crap.

As Incredible India is such a massive tourist destination and after Iran and Pakistan both of us were looking forward to a few beers and a good night out. In Delhi it was a change to see so many tourists “white people” which we hadn't seen for about a month. I almost stopped to talk to the first one I seen but quickly found that they were every where.
We arrived in Delhi on Diwali which is a festival with enough fire works to finish off any issues in Afghanistan. Delhi was fine but the constant harassment by people trying to sell you stuff really annoyed me at first. You get used to it but sometimes it can be hard work, for example if you get lost or are looking for some place you will find people come up and ask if you need any help...they will help you by leading you to the shop they are working for or there mates shop.

We stayed in Delhi for three nights, drank and eat well, meet some good people and even done some tourist stuff but in general I wasn't overly impressed. Too many people, a lot of poverty, very dirty and just crazy.
We planned to go to Nepal to trek to Everest Base Camp so from Delhi we drove north east, stopping one night in ....... and another night at the shit hole border town of.........Our night in ..........was short but we found an excellent restaurant, even if the waiter had a hard time saying the words ..yes and no, instead he chose to jerk his head in some weird way to the left. Think we figured out that two jerks meant yes and one meant no. If you asked a few questions one after the other it was like he was having an epileptic fit.
The night at the border was crap. We had people following us around trying to get us to stay in there friends hotel or chance money and the sickening thing is that they closed the border for the night just minutes before we arrived, not that the town on the other side was any better but we could have saved some time the next morning. I can’t describe how bad the roads were the closer we got to the border. I think the worst thing about that whole section of India is that we will have to cross back through it once we leave Nepal for Mumbai.

Pakistan

This was the best of the road coditions on this day



Lukes new friends



Security check point Pakistan style



This truck driver didnt get out of the way fast enough so our escort smashed his wing mirror...that some rights the gardai dont have



If you dont pay at the tool bridge this guy will use his pumpaction shot gun on your ass...thankfully we were on government business so we didnt need to pay the tools. The escorts did come in handy some times.



Some of the military that pulled us over



These guys slept outside our room for the night in Jacobabad, they even brought there pjs for the occasion



One of the many friendly police escorts



First stop in Pakistan

Pakistan was a bit of a shock. Before going or during the planning stage of the trip, Pakistan was just a country I had to cross in order to get to India. Although this is practically what happened on this trip I definitely would like to return sometime in the future.
Crossing the border as Luke said was like a time warp, from the relatively well maintained, compact buildings and customs yard on the Iranian to the heavily littered desert for custom and almost mud shacks for buildings on the Pakistan. As always we were led to the front of the queue at the immigration were easily 100 people were waiting to be seen. From there we drove literally through the desert to customs who were very laid back and sent us on our way within 15 minutes. The next port of call was to the police station to pick up our highly trained security guard that was supposed to protect us from the local bandits. Not quite a navy seal but at least he had some bullets for the gun. Once through the border the goal was to get to Quetta, the largest city in the west of Pakistan. I knew it was going to be a difficult drive especially in a car and the trip turned out to be a lot harder than expected. It took us 16 hours of driving through desert, dirt tracks and countless road works.
Due to the unstable situation in Pakistan at this time the Pakistan government required us to have an armed guard or armed police escort with us at all times and we felt it was obviously safer to have someone with us then going it alone. What normally happened with the guards was that every 20 or 30 kilometers there would be a police check point where we would fill in our details and pick up a new guard. At the beginning this was fine but sometimes we would have to sit around waiting for the guard as he was delayed or we would have an escort that would only drive at 40 mph. This annoyed me a lot partially when we new we had a lot of difficult miles ahead. On several occasions if the road was good enough I just put the foot to the floor and left them behind. Sometimes they would race after us and shout “more slowly more slowly” then over take us and return to 40 mph other times they would just stop, turn around and go back to there base.
We arrived in Quetta at 11 pm and found our hotel which was fairly miserable with the exception of the food. Starved with the hunger as we didn't eat for the whole day we had our first introduction to Pakistani food. Basically much the same as you can get in India, (curries and rice) but after a month and a half of kebabs it was a happy site to see.

We left Quetta at 9am the next morning with our new escorts who weren't so happy that we turned up an hour late for our prearranged departure. While on the way out through the city our escorts changed from the Police Toyota Hilux 4x4 with 4 armed police in side to a police motorbike with one armed guy riding on the back. This was quite normal as they would use different vehicles all the time but the funny thing about this situation was that while we were driving out through the crowded streets of Quetta a Military convoy passed us by going the opposite direction. There were two 4x4s loaded with heavily armed soldiers at the front of the convoy and the two at the back. In the middle were two new army landcruisers occupied by some fairly important people we assumed.
Once they passed us we continued on down the street trying our best not to kill any of the locals and more importantly not to scratch the car when all of a sudden, with sirens blaring the convoy we had passed, pushed us over to the side of the road and surrounded us. At first I thought I was in there way so I pulled over to let them by but when they also pulled up around us and soldiers hopped out of the jeeps and surrounded the area. There was easily 10 - 15 heavily armed soldiers around us. I was thinking either im going to pay a massive bribe or there were just going to blow the shit out of us. After about a minute of panic on our side, this bloke jumps out of one of the land cruisers, walks up to us and knocks on the window. He was some high ranking officer in the Pakistan army who had seen us driving by and just thought he would see if we were ok and if we needed any assistance. His English was excellent, obliviously educated in England or lived there for some time from his accent. He asked us the normal questions about the trip and once he figured out that we already had a police escort coordinated all the way to the Indian border, he wished us happy travels and speed away as quickly as he arrived. It was a strange experience but we couldn't stop laughing about it for the rest of the day.
That night we had to stay in a city called Jacobabad which with no surprise turned out to be a dump. In Jacobabad the local police didn't leave out side the whole time we were there. If I went out to get something from the car or when we when for dinner they were beside us all the time carrying fully loaded AK47s, (No manners, bring a machine gun to the dinner table just isn't European). That night two officers slept on chairs out side our room. After dinner, which again was quite good, we asked if we could have a look around the town by ourselves but they said this was not possible but they would be happy to escort us around. We didn't really want this as we thought it might draw too much attention to us. Thinking back now, two white boys from Ireland walking down the street in this part of western Pakistan would have drawn far more attention that two armed guards. That night in our hotel, we were visited by several high ranking police officers in the local area, none of them with much to say, they were probably just bored and wanted to know why we were in there city. We asked on several occasions if we were safe to travel through Pakistan by ourselves and the answer was always yes but the escorts were just there so that our government didn't need to worry about our security while in Pakistan.

We spent two more days in Pakistan but because of the security situation and the fact that we always ad to have a security escort with us we felt the sooner we got over the Indian border the better.



Not the only Irish reg in Pakistan.00 WX 1378, suppose this is were all the old trucks around Ireland get sent to. We seen 3 or 4 Irish reg trucks on this road.

Rest of Iran

Filling up on cheap fuel before we leave Iran , as always with some help from the locals


We spent ten days in Tehran in total mainly waiting on our Indian visa. It was touch and go whether we would get it or not as the Indian ambassador thought that we should apply in Pakistan instead. After waiting a week in Tehran already at this stage, that wasn't an option for us as it would have meant wasting more time. Thankfully due to a little gentle persuasion and a stroke of luck our visas were issued.
On our last night in Tehran we were invited out for the night by some local who I ad meet via the couch surfing website. It turned out to be one of our best nights in Tehran.

After waiting so long in Tehran, with only 7 days left on our Iranian visas and still having to travel south east to the bottom of the country to the Pakistan border crossing at Taftan, we hadn't a lot of time to see much. We headed straight for Esfanhan, one of Iran's most beautiful cities. From Esfanhan we moved on to Kerman where we only stayed one night but again using couchsurfing we meet up with some locals who took us out for food and a small party with some home made wine. It was a nice night but unfortunately we didn't have enough time and could stay longer.
The following day we headed for the Pakistan border, via the infamous Zadahan. Apparently a fairly dangerous place for bandits and robbers but as we breezed through there at 80 mph at 8 am I didnt see any, maybe they were hiding from us. Just outside Zadahan we picked our first of many security guards. It was funny because the guy who hoped in the car looked about twelve and had no gun on him,how he would protect us I don't know. The one thing he did do was polish off our biscuits, the only food we had in the car for a day in the desert.