You know there are times when you can just over prepare for some things and this I reckon this was one.

After a few days in Kathmandu trying to arrange park permits (yes, Mount Everest is in a National Park). This wasn't so successful as it was a weekend. So I then had a mad rush to delay the flight I had booked to a place called Lukla. Just as well because the original day I was scheduled to fly turned out cloudy and no flights actually left. As one pilot said, "We don't like to fly around the Himalaya when the weather is bad, the clouds have rocks in them."

So eventually I arrived in Lukla on Tuesday, March 19, and still we were delayed because of fog at Kathmandu airport. The trek started pleasant enough, walking through Sherpa villages in green valleys. I walked for about 4-5 hours before I was tired enough to find a room in one of the many lodges/teahouses that line the route.

That evening I got the first taste of Sherpa food and it was awful. Fried rice with veg, not cooked nice. Bed time is around 8-9 pm. During the night the temperature drops to around freezing so a good sleeping bag comes in handy.

Next morning I got up at sunrise. It was hard getting out of a warm sleeping bag into the frozen air. After getting ready, I had to use the local loo which is a wooden hut with a hole in the floor built out over the river bank. Very modern, no?

Today's trek was up a huge mountain to the capital of the Sherpa territory, Namche Bazaar. Climbing the hill was torture, the air is thin so you have difficulty breathing and carrying my huge pack was not helping matters. One plus though was the stunning mountain scenery. Eventually, by mid-afternoon, I stumbled into Namche Bazaar, found a hotel room and promptly went to bed.

Namche is quite developed in a Sherpa sort of way. They have bakeries, bars and restaurants, but it is still miles from any real development so TV's, telephones and computers are scarce or non-existent. I was planning to spend two nights here to aid with the acclimatisation.

The next day I took a day walk to the Everest View hotel, where supposedly you can see Everest (figures because of the name, duh!), but not this day as it was cloudy.

On Friday, March 22 I left Namche for the Buddhist Monastery of Tengboche. This monastery is quite famous for its festival held in Oct/Nov. No such niceties for me, I was starting to feel the effect of the high altitude by now. Walking took all my effort and it was getting harder and harder to breathe as the air got thinner and the cold was getting to me.

For the next three days life took on a slow kind of routine. Walk-sleep-rest day-sleep-walk-sleep. All the time I was getting higher and higher into the Himalaya. In Loboche, one day from the turn around point, the altitude finally got to me. I had a blinding headache, I hadn't eaten for three or four days and I was quite sick, unable to keep even water down (it tasted awful anyway). That night I took a Diamox, a drug which aids acclimatisation.

Next day I felt good enough to continue onto Gorak Shep. It was a 2½ hour walk uphill over some rugged terrain and glacier ice. Once at Gorak Shep we found a very nice lodge with a sun room where we were able to rest up and recover in relatively warm surroundings. So much so that by the afternoon I took a three hour walk to Everest base camp. This was without packs of course, but even so the going was tough.

The next morning was going to be the highlight of the trek when I climbed Kala Pattar, a large hill. At the top you can see Everest in all it's glory and it's the place where all the famous photos of Mount Everest are taken. But first I had to climb this damn hill. About halfway I thought I was going to die. It was a clear day but the cold and lack of air made it tough going. I kept having to glance up and see more and more of Everest appearing from behind Nuptse (a slightly smaller mountain nearer to Gorak Shep). When I saw Everest I just said to myself I am not going to come this far and give up. Eventually I got to the top and the views were magnificent. I hope I got some great photos.

After staying at the top for about an hour I decided it was time to get off the mountain. I descended back to Gorak Shep, collected my pack and started to head on downhill back the way I had came. Fortunately, the trek which took eight days to reach the top can be done in four days going down. Unfortunately, the full effects of altitude sickness hit me on the way down. I had still not been eating properly, the Diamox that I had taken has a nasty side effect and had given me a bladder infection and I was being sick just about every night.

But I made it down in one piece. Back at Lukla we again had to wait for a flight back to Kathmandu. I should mention the airstrip at Lukla, it looks like a postage stamp stuck to the side of a mountain. It has a steeeeep slope, to (1) slow the landing planes down (2) help the taking off planes speed up. The planes that are used are 16 seaters with twin propeller engines. The view you get of the Himalaya from the plane are awesome. Also it's interesting to see the contrast in the landscape as you fly away from the Alpine region of the mountains back to the Kathmandu valley which is almost tropical.

I am now back in Kathmandu trying to get an earlier flight to Bangkok. I think I need some rest time on a Thailand beach. There is a lot of Maoist trouble in Nepal at the moment so flights are all full. Also the Maoists have called a 5-day national strike so things are going to be pretty dead around here. I reckon I will just go to the airport and see what comes up on standby.

That's should keep everyone up to date. Next update will be from Thailand if I can get there. I don't want to hear anything about the damn cricket and the Stormers aren't doing so good at the Super 12 either.

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