Knebworth to Namche Bazaar is quite a journey

Mick dropped Sue and I off at Heathrow and it felt quite a moment (particularly for Mick and Sue). As we waited in Terminal 4 more and more people sporting the unmissable Jagged Globe red bags gathered at the check in. The flight left more or less on time and the flight to Delhi was as uneventful (good) and boring as most long flights and the flight to Kathmandu was fine.  We like Kathmandu (what we have seen of it) and the Summit Hotel is lovely. I know that when the trip is coming to an end we will look forward to seeing more of the city and the relative luxury of the hotel.  Nepal is simply stunning.  The scenery is majestic and the people are lovely. The flight from Kathmandu to Lukla is something else.  It is real Indiana Jones stuff - tiny prop plane weaving through the mountains landing on the shortest runway in the world with a mountain at the end of it - the runway is uphill which presumably helps.  At Lukla the red bags were tied onto yaks and off we set.  We were all a bit taken aback by how hard the first day was.  We ended at the same elevation at Monjo but hadn't realised that there were absolutely no flat bits at all.  We mastered our first suspension bridges with style and aplomb but were a tired little bunch at the end of the day.  The lodge was fairly primitive (though I suspect there will be worse to come) and we wondered what we had signed up for.  We were nervous about the next day to Namche - I had had a text from Roger saying how hard it was and had built it up in my mind.  It is a long uphill but more of a steady up than an up and down and the scenery is indescribable.  We had our first glimpse of Everest and Nuptse.  We are at Namche for 3 nights to acclimatise so today we did a relatively short walk up higher to a place called Everest View - sadly there was cloud around Everest but we had a stunning view of Ama Dablam. The place we are staying is a real mountaineering place and has a picture gallery of all the sherpas who have summited Everest, our and Roger's sherpa amongst them.  We also all got excited as staying with is a group of climbers who are doing Island Peak and Ama Dablam led by Kenton Cool who is apparently famous.  Sue and I are having a great time so far - we are both really well which is encouraging.  However we are already a little chilly so wonder how we will fare higher up!  We learned today that we leave at 4.30 in the morning on the day summit Kala Patar (5600) so that will be challenging.  This may be the only chance we have to use good internet so don't worry if nothing else appears!

Chris and Roger cross the states

We are on the plane waiting to take off and this may be the last post for a while. Everything so far is going smoothly and it looks like we will take off on time. The staropramen in the airport bar tasted excellent and may be the last decent beer before the diamox routine kicks in. We have spotted the unmissable red jagged globe bags across the airport so let's hope they all turn up safely in Kathmandu.

A week to go

pre-trip weekend in Snowdonia

This time next week Sue and I will hopefully be at Heathrow meeting up with our group to fly out to Kathmandu via Delhi. This afternoon Roger set off on his trip and has hopefully now met with his fellow travellers at the airport. It felt rather strange saying goodbye knowing we won't meet up again for four weeks. I think I'm also going to have to remind myself that I have another week at work to go so I can't get too de-mob happy yet.

The work schedule looks particularly hectic so tonight I'm going to write my packing list and see if anything else needs to be bought - I hope not - I think I have bust the recession in consumer spending as a one-woman band.

I have no idea whether it will be possible to keep this blog while we are away - for my last trip in the Himalyas I wrote up the blog when I got home but it will be good to have the record so in any case I will give it a go.

Just as I was about to publish this post, Roger phoned from the airport. He is in the checkout queue and has met lots of Everest Base Camp people but not anyone from his group yet - that will doubtless happen. Although the instructions are to meet at the desk, the Jet Airways check is enormous so a Jagged Globe leader is rounding up people and getting them into line.

It all sounds exciting and I can't wait till next week!