Trek to Mt Everest Base Camp cont. THYANGBOCHE

You can read part 1 & 2 of my trek here and here

yak in the snow

prayer flags

Day six, we arrived at Thyangboche as it started to snow! I hadn’t expected it to be this cold as it was technically Spring. Snow isn’t ideal conditions when you’re in sneakers but it was SO pretty. I’ve never been in proper snow before unless you count the couple of millimeters that fell on my balcony in Wellington two years ago.

SNOW

There is also an incredible monastery up in the mountains, it's the home of the Rimpoche of Tengboche  and the four of us were able to have the experience of sitting in on a two hour ceremony. Obviously it wasn't in English, but you could grasp what was happening. I'm not buddhist but it was still an honour to have yet another experience I couldn't have imagined, plus since I hadn't really read the itinerary it was a surprise! 

3867m in Nepal's spiritual center of Tibetan Buddhism (no pics inside allowed)

At this altitude I was starting to get mild headaches but the altitude sickness was nothing like some of the other trekkers that we met. A few were seriously unwell and one guy decided to turn back. The only thing with the height that bothered me was the cold. Since I’m neither outdoorsy nor do I live in a cold city I had to purchase a fair amount of gear, from my pack to clothing to walking sticks to metal drink bottles, and as the trip was last minute I hadn’t been saving and didn’t have time to shop around or wait for sales so I was trying to limit my spending. I decided that instead of spending $150+ on a sleeping bag I’d use the one at home. If I had throughly read my packing list I’d have known I required a four season bag that was comfortable at -10°C  … My bag was three seasons, none of which were winter! Waking up to ice on the inside of our cabin was all part of the adventure. I can honestly say that I considered attempting the remainder of the trek in my (pitiful) sleeping bag.

2 pair socks, 3 pair pants, 4 top half layers, puffer jacket, neck warmer, beanie & 2 hot water bottles

a pony that came to frolic in the snow with Karen & I

The next day, was one of the most beautiful walk’s of the trek, it was no longer snowing but we left quite early in the morning to avoid the other groups, and the resulting mud from the melting snow. I think this was the day that we saw quite a few other people, it wasn’t as crowded as it can get in the peak season though. The hike was chilly but not freezing as the snow had stopped falling. Our group had a few laughs with whacking snow laden overhanging tree branches so the snow dumped on each other. Admittedly I did muck it up and managed to get myself once! Didn’t make that mistake again! ..or did I? :-(

Karen and I

Current favourite track

Serbia! My 30th country!

So clearly I utterly fail at blogging! But today I left Sarajevo at 6am for Serbia! 

Six days in Bosnia was fantastic! And I will update about that at some stage! I'm excited about Serbia! Apparently the food is amazing and they have these gorgeous fields of sunflowers!

Current favourite track

Latest Shapeshifter single.

Boat cruise!

Currently on a four day boat cruise around the Turkish coast. 4 Turkish, 2 Italian, and Aussie a Canadian & me are on the boat. We've had stunning weather- it's been wonderful to spend so much time relaxing and enjoying the sun. I'm behind in updating everyone AGAIN! But Istanbul, Cappadocia & Olypmis were fantastic. My battery is dying so I promise to do a decent update sometime this week. 
I haven't got a clue where I will head to next after the boat docks tomorrow so I would love any suggestions! xx

(Looking up from a sandy beach)

Turkey!

TURKEY

To stay on in Kyrgyzstan for free, my visa requires that I have an overseas adventure every two months. Such a hard life I lead! So, I’m eating Turkish pide in a gorgeous café on the waterfront in Eceabat, Turkey! (It’s pronounced ay-JAY-ah-baht). The flight left Bishkek at 530am and we arrived in Istanbul to a beautiful day, Dad also needed an overseas adventure for his visa so has joined me a for a few days! Our first morning was spent wandering around the area near the Sultan Hostel where we stayed.

In the afternoon we spent four glorious hours drinking beer in the sun on a Bosphorus cruise. The weather here has been amazing, it’s almost like Turkish sky doesn’t know what clouds are! 

On the cruise

Information on all the historical sights was surprisingly interesting although please don’t quiz me on it :-D. As we didn’t sleep the night before I was in bed by midnight and up at 6am to head to Gallipoli!

 A five hour drive from Istanbul, Gallipoli has a large significance for us Kiwi’s (and the Aussies too). I’m not going to say too much about is as I think it’s best that you see it yourself but its incredible and very sobering to be at the site of the battles. Our guide was excellent, very knowledgeable and excellent English (RSL tours seem to be fantastic so far!). I’m going to do more research on Gallipoli as I always thought that it was a victory for the ANZACs when in reality it wasn’t. 

Now that I’ve finished a surprisingly delicious tea and fed a skinny stray ginger cat most of the cheese on my pide I’m off to Troy!

Trek to Mt Everest Base Camp cont. KHUMJUNG

PART TWO: The morning of our “rest day” we were to go and see the National Park Museum at the top of a hill behind Namche Bazaar at the break of dawn... Before you get to the actual path there are a few stairs. Definitely my most challenging steps of the whole EBC trek. It was early morning, pre pancakes, –we'd had a huge day prior, (more exercise than I do in a month squished into a day) and I was puffed by the 50th 6^th step. Fortunately, against all odds I survived and lived to watch a gorgeous sunrise up over stunning snowy peaks.

   

  

The following day we headed to Khumjung, on the way we viewed the Kunde Hospital built by our very own Sir Ed! Further a long the track is a school, also founded by him! It’s always awesome to be so far from home and to be blessed with opportunities be reminded of the incredible Kiwis that NZ’s produced! The school was built back in ’61, it was only a couple of classrooms back then but now it has nearly 400 pupils! The yeti skull (or scalp) displayed at Khumjung Monastery was a legitimate disappointment, I was well aware that yeti's aren't actually real, but somehow in my oxygenhotshowersleep deprived state I was expecting to see the bones of a monsters skull. Khumjung was a pretty chilled little village, we saw BABY YAKS, and the lodge was really quaint, it was the first time I was cold enough in the common room to get excited by the addition of dried yak dung being added to the fire. In the lodges/ tea houses that we stayed at along the trek there is a dining area and in the centre is a large pot bellied fire for heating. The yak dung stinks, but when it was that cold I was ready to go collect more poo and add it to the fire myself!

Boy playing at the Khumjung school

 In the late afternoons after the days walk we usually hung out as a group, to be honest it was all rather tame and not at all like my Contiki tour though Europe (I didn't that the trek would be overly similar to the Contiki, but I had hoped for the occasional themed dance party) Totally different story, turns out due to the altitude you can't drink alcohol at all, incidentally after all that walking and fresh air we were so tired that dinner was at 6pm sharp. The food was pretty terrible, the tea houses steamed their pizzas (yup, that makes them soggy) and as wood/gas are limited most of the food seemed a tad undercooked, my trick was just to get it down as quickly as possible before my poor tastebuds had a chance to notice what was happening! Food (even after we'd just eaten) was the main topic of discussion, quite torturous really. Prior to the trek I'd expected late nights, the reality was the four of us sneaking hopeful glances at the clock waiting until it hit 7pm- the earliest we felt we could fall into bed without feeling too geriatric!

Next stop: Thyangboche, where it SNOWED!