13k up and down in 8 days part II

Second day was pretty hard. It started with rain. "it never rains this time of year!" said the locals. I had a chance to impress my sherpa by telling him with puppy eyes that I have no raincoat. But they told me in Kathmandu that I should just buy a windjacket. I guess having more common sense of my own would be benefitial. Gelu gave me his own. "it's better". He used his umbrella and off we went. As we were getting further up than the initial planning, my summer minisize sleeping bag became a joke as well of course. I felt like such a 'born for the mountains'. Next night I had to sleep with all my clothes on. There was no electricity and obviously no heating even in the dining room. At least I got some palinka from hungarians.
On day three it was clear I can make it to the top ie annapurna base camp. More commonly known as ABC. Everything had an abbreviation on this route. Sherpa and I were in a good mood. He was singing some nepali songs while we were walking and I felt like we were bonding. I called him by his name Gelu, he continued to call me "Hello", but I had got used to that and turned around any time somebody called my new name.
We met the estonian group at Macchaputchhre Base Camp (MBC!) on their way down, I continued up. At MBC you are standing art 3700 and around and very close are mountains of 6000+, 7000+ and 8000+ shining in bright snow. Beautiful.
As we were going up to ABC 4130m, i started to feel dizzy. Too fast too high. Once up, just took some few pics, but scared that I will soon loose conciousness I said to Gelu, lets better run down. Luckily no need for rescue helicopters. Once back at 3700 felt good again. Weird that 400m make such a difference. Anyway on the way down to catch group Gelu said something like that its good that I'm strong and if I don't like mountaineering. I took it as a compliment, although I often could not be very sure about what he meant. Classical example was when he declared 'it is a bit far'. More often than not it showed in practise that 'its close' not that its too far. What is too far for sherpas anyway?
In the afternoon we caught the group. Its funny to meet estonian group. In the beginning people seem to complain about at least something or be a bit negative. 'what was the point of all this running?'. But then when you give just a little bit of time, you get to know them. Everyone turned out really cool and sometimes I laughed even in my sleeping bag thinking back on some jokes over the evening tea and rum.
Days continued in their usual rhythm following the sun. Waking up at 6.30, breakfast at 7, starting to walk around 8. Finished by 3pm, dinner at 7 and going to bed latest at 9pm. Actually very easy to get to that rhythm. On the last day though the day started art 4am. We wanted to go to see sunrise from a place called Poon Hill (3193m). This is another viewpoint with postcard panorama. Walking under starry sky for one hour and then waiting for sunrise to show the beauty of surrounding mountain giants. As I did not have a winter jacket, I wrapped myself into a very warm borrowed sleeping bag. Not the styliest one of all. Then after I saw one Guy on shirt sleeves (it must have been around zero degrees) and my sherpa came to me, looked at me and with such an intonation asked me "what are you doing??", I decided to man up and pretend I'm warm in his raincoat. It was not too difficult. In fact difficult time still laid ahead. On that day we descended over 2km. This was not planned, but on the next day there was a big festival, so our guide thought we have better chances if our bus driver its still sober. This meant wet had to be picked up early morning next day.
At one point of this descending there where what felt like never ending staircases. 700m descending in a row only on stone stairs. That's like coming down the stairs of 300floors highrise!? Oh Joy. One muscle on my left thigh gave up, so I had to push through some tears and painkillers. There goes my future in mountaineering. My sherpa took my daybag as well while I slowmotioned downstairs. Some people from the group had earlier seen a woman put in a basket carried by a donkey, I did not want the same fate.
Everyone made it and next day it was time to say goodbye to our porters and guides. Guides being Monday, Friday and Saturday. For sherpa and some other nepali people the given name is the weekday of birth, no matter if its a boy or girl. My sherpa is Saturday. Hope he arrives home soon.

13k up and down in 8 days

Part 1
On the very first day of the trek (day after I arrived to Nepal) I was accompanied by my very own personal sherpa. We flew in half an hour with a model size airplane to Pokhara. Buses from Kathmandu will take you in 7 hours minimum. They say in lonely planet the views are marvellous. I guess going at a speed 29 km/h allows you to take in a lot of it.People that I talked to however were more curious about the price of the flight and not that fond of the road as lonely planet. One guy covered the distance in 12h bcs of several accidents on the road.
From the airport me and my sherpa were picked up by a taxi driver.i observed that driving in Nepal is not on the left hand side, but in the middle. There is no asphalt on the sides anyway. But its fun to slalom between the holy cows.
Trekking started from Nayapul at 1070m. As we started to walk I tried to get to know my guide a little bit more. Figured its going to be just me and him for the next three days. But he is not a man of many words. Anyway, meet Gelu. 34y old sherpa (one of many ethnic groups in Nepal). Sherpas are know in association with mt Everest. Tenzig was the first with Hillary to conquer it in 1953. My sherpa is by profession a climbing guide and he has been on top of Everest 5 times. 5 times! So there he was with me on a relaxing walk. He said after this he wants to go home to see his mother. To go home it takes 1 day bus ride and 3 days trekking. It took me less on the route London-Mumbay-London-Delhi-Kathmandu.
We were trekking pretty fast through rice fields and gaining altitude. It was fun to see local porters carrying a little chicken farm on their backs or women carrying huge (and I mean huge) baskets of grass to feed cows.
We did 7h of trekking and finished in a place close to natural hot springs. that was the warmest shower I got throughout the trek.
To be continued.

90 days granted

Just a quick update while I'm sitting in Asian Trekking office waiting Amar to explain me, whats his plan excactly to make me catch up with the rest of estonians who started their trek yesterday. Seems he has already booked a flight for me and my personal porter. Obviously i need to pay for both. I didnt really give an OK for that, but perhaps control over your own wallet is a bit overrated.
Anyway, I finally made it here and even my baggage. 17kg in total. So I made it within the limit of 20 :) We both were picked up at the airport and it was not at all as caotic as i had read in the books. Ok, gotta talk to the boss now. After that need to buy some trekking gear (Im hoping the walking sticks are gonna help me up the mountains, cause my preparation training has been modest ... and thats already overestimation), but the shops are closing and I have no idea whats a good price and completely dark outside with few streetlamps. I hope not to get lost. At least not too lost. Tomorrow 7am start. Probably wont have internet access until 29OCT.

the waiting game

Feel much better. Found myself a hostel yesterday and went to bed already at 7pm and slept 11 hours! That's pretty amazing considering it was a hostel room for 8 people constantly going back and forth, plus the traffic outside. Anyway at 6am I was awake and wondering how long I'm gonna stay in London for. But in hostel room there is always some distraction as well.7am alarm went off for a 120kilo hippo sleeping in the same bunk bed as i. After two minutes he heard it, shut it down, farted and went back to sleep.
Another guy got ready for his big day wearing real classy suit, shiny shoes and not did he only dry his hair with the hairdryer, but also straightened them. And we are talking about 5cm long hair.
I met also Chris from Washington DC.he is a poet footballer, who flew out to London for a football trial. Apparently there is a big event once or twice per year, where coatches come to hunt for new talents. Red some of his poetry as well, pretty cool for a footballer :)
Also talked to a girl from Asturias, she is out here looking for a job. A tiny crappy room, lucky if u have a window, to rent in London costs 100pounds per week. Minimum salary 6 pounds per hour.
You see you can learn many new things in a hostel. I also learned, that Pluto is no longer considered a planet, but is diminished in its title to a 'dwarf planet'. All I really want to learn though, is when the hell can I enjoy the next 9hour flight and how much it is going to cost.

Living a dream

Wrote this one on the plane ...
Living a dream is great. It feels fantastic, filled with positive vibes, feeling of zen , open tshakras and all that. It is not so great when the dream  is a nightmare. Like mine. Back on the plane, back towards London. Thought I will not get there before sept 2012. Well, isnt this just my lucky day. I will land there in 5 hours already. Asked for a whiskey, took it straight up, but had to settle for a minibottle, bcs of a hard day ahead. Devastaded as it is, hangover would not help.
Turned on my phone during the flight just to write this text. Seems the signal from the phone did not interfere too much with the flightcontrol system. We are still steady in the air. I cant sleep, Im too nervous.
Bloody hell, I had told my travel agent that i want to avoid needing a visa to india, so thats way i did not plan to go on land. While checking in at Heathrow, they also made some calls and double checked that indeed i dont need a visa for my transfer. So when the immigration officer first made a face, i just smiled. Thought is like the case when in Egypt the were commenting my online ticket as something very problematic.
This time it did not solve. After all the begging, reasoning, offering other routings. Nothing. Such a bitch there. Even the second, much nicer lady made faces. Maybe just to make me feel better.
Anyway, soon I was escorted on the plane back. Stunned. Now Im London. Next task is to find accomodation. Tomorrow shall bring some light. At the airport they were useless as it is restricted round the world ticket. On the bright side I still have the breakfast served on the airport saved. Cant seem to be able to eat. Off to pharmacy.

Location coordinates Nepali style

Today is the day I'm going to take a train to London to fly out tomorrow. Yesterday I wrote to the Nepali organisation again to get my placement details for voluntary work. I taught that maybe if I say, that I'm leaving the country tomorrow, would motivate them to give an answer. And they did! Now I know exactly that I will be placed in Lamjung district. This narrows it down to 1692 km2. Altitude ranges between 350-8162m so I might be in the jungle riding an elephant to school or freezing my ass off somewhere in the Himalayas. But he said all minor details will be explained during the orientation seminar in Kathmandu. I had also asked where and when should I come on the 7th Nov for the seminar. He gave an address (!) and time coordinates 11am to 3pm. This attitude to time and precision will be fun and something to get used to (and I have hanged out with Ecuadorians and Colombians quite a lot).

Before the after

The most fun part of planning a year off is deciding about the places to go and endorfins induced effortless smiles taking over your face with the speed of the outbound flight approaching.
There are also some practical things I learned or was confirmed about throughout the preparations process:
- Unless you are ready to settle down, buy cheap furniture so you loose less money when selling it before your departure
- When dealing directly with organisations/people in Asia, be prepared to leave your country with no final confirmation. Trust the first "yes, you are welcome". Dates and times are overrated details.
- Belgium debit cards are blocked outside the EU, so you need to call their customer service to unblock it. Otherwise no dollar for you my friend.
- Reading insurance papers' small script is a pain. It doesn't help if your potential graveyard is not in the country of health insurance.
- It helps that communication between different institutions is so bad, so you can leave your appartment contract, but still be registered in the commune with that address.
- Application procedure for credit temps complet with an allowance at the Brussels Employment Office is not too difficult.
- Vaccinations are not covered by health insurance and count around 150 euros for basics. Malaria medication Malarone is twice the price in Belgium than in Estonia.
- You will start hearing "Oh, I envy you" a lot. But mostly its about a choice.
Choose your future, choose life. They say so in a certain movie.