The itinerary, and Zhangmu in Tibet..
18th May 2006.
On the 17th, at the office of Gurkha Encounters, we finally met Mr. Suresh, who was the Nepalese counterpart of the Tibetan agency with whom we were travelling with. He briefed us in with the itinerary, which I'm stating below (please do not mind the formatting part of this post, I shall rectify it when I get back to Pune, right now I'm blogging from Zhangmu in Tibet where the locale of the machine is set to Chinese and I'm more than crippled to even change it).
The itinerary as per the plan is as follows (Day 01 to coincide with May 18, 2006):
Day 01: Drive from Kathmandu (1300m) - Nyalam (3750m)
Day 02: Stay at Nyalam (3750m) for acclimatisation
Day 03: Drive from Nyalam (3750m) - Tingri (4200m)
Day 04: Trek from Tingri (4200m), hit Geu-La (5170m), get down to ~4500m, camp (tent)
Day 05: Trek from ~4500m, go via Upper Dzaka valley, get down to ~4500m, camp (tent)
Day 06: Trek from ~4500m, go via Cho Dzom, get down to ~4500m, camp (tent)
Day 07: Trek from ~4500m, reach Rongbuk Monastery (5100m), camp (tent)
Day 08: Trek from Rongbuk Monastery (5100m) to Everest Base Camp (5220m)
Day 09: Trek from Everest Base Camp (5220m) to Camp I (5670m)
Day 10: Trek from Camp I (5670m) to Intermediate Camp (5970m)
Day 11: Trek from Intermediate Camp (5970m) to Camp II
Day 12: Trek from Camp II to Advanced Base Camp (6400m) and return to Camp II
Day 13: Trek from Camp II to Everest Base Camp (5220m)
Day 14: Drive from Everest Base Camp (5220m) to Nyalam (3750m)
Day 15: Drive from Nyalam (3750m) to Kathmandu (1300m)
Today morning, we left Kathmandu at 0625 hrs Nepalese standard time (NST). NST is 15 minutes ahead of IST. In our bus, we had 2 Sherpas viz. Rinji Sherpa and Lakpa Sherpa amongst other folks. Both these Sherpas would be our cooks on the trek, who are specially coming with us from Nepal to serve us vegetarian food (else we would have had Tibetan cooks). We have taken a huge amount of material with us packed from Kathmandu. It includes wheat flour for chapatis, tinned food, soup material (garlic soup is the most recommended food for high altitude treks), other raw material, sleeping tents, kitchen tents, toilet tents and utensils to prepare food.
We had a bus tyre failure at 0737 hrs NST. After getting that fixed, we drove to Kodari (1690m) after reaching an all time low altitude (770m) in Nepal. Kodari is the Nepalese immigration border post. Here we had to pay INR 200 each as bribe to the officers since we had no Kathmandu "Arrival" stamp on our passports. Indian nationals never get one stamped on their passports on arrival in Nepal, and they took advantage of it, those crooks. We departed from Kodari, walked over the Friendship Bridge (connects Nepal and China) and "arrived" into Tibet, China. After completing the formalities at the Chinese immigration, we drove up to Zhangmu (2220m). At the border itself, we met our Tibetan guide (Mr. Wong Dui) who would be our "leader" of the expedition upto Everest Camp III (Advanced Base Camp).
The first day of our itinerary has already been altered, we could not go any higher than Zhangmu (2220m), from where I'm posting this. We should have been spending our night in Nyalam (3750m) today, but from what we got to know from our Tibetan guide, Mr. Wong Dui, is that the permit processing (I don't know how many documents they got to process as yet) would be taking quite some time today. Hence we are forced to spend our night in Zhangmu, 1500 metres in altitude lesser than where we should have been.
We are partly thinking if this will hamper our acclimatisation schedule, I sincerely hope all 3 of us keep well in the coming days.
Zhangmu is 2 hrs 15 mins ahead of NST, so we've suddenly gained time and we didn't have a morsel of food since morning till we had a lunch + dinner in Zhangmu. I plan to doze off now, I'm getting sleepy..
More about where we are to follow in later posts. I do not know if we will get a chance to post hereafter, because now we really will be landing in hell. Well, if you suddenly are wondering why I said that, we're reaching Nyalam tomorrow, and Nyalam means gateway to hell.
We are thankful for all our well wishers and your wishes will go a long way. Your comments do encourage us, so please keep posting them generously ;-)
From Zhangmu in Tibet,
Aniket "Nike" Anikhindi
posted by Aniket Anikhindi @ 12:27 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Great going guyz... and dont get dishearted at this unplanned break. Remember if seemingly bad things happen, they just take place earlier to leave the better (good ) share for later! If you recall the previous EBC trek, we were forced to stay back in Kat. for 1 day prior to the trek, but we completed the whole trek in good speed and style. The halt just helped us. So I am sure, this pre (sortof) acclamatization is a boon in disguise for you guyz! From what could get worst, you might end up with an additional acclamitazation ... possibly at Tingri (since thats your last un-tented stay. Post that its just tents all the way ) or worst at Rongbuk Monastery. So nothing really is going way against you. I do understand an exrta day might spell extra $$... still uguyz are having a ball!
Boy are you guyz gonna have a Ball! Rock on! (Remember to dance to some stupid hindi song in the tibetean mountains :)... and on quiter indoor ocations try singing "Suhani Raat..." rather than metalica if you guyz are requested to sing! Anpy has a good hindi collection at his disposal anyways .. "If you know what I mean hain hain hain" :)
nJoy
-Vindy
And we are thankful to you for taking all the time out to blog what is going to be one hell of a journey to ABC. Definitely goes a long way in helping us follow your movements closely.
Go conquer ABC!
wow! you might just see migrating barheaded geese flying overhead! and god knows what raptors!
good luck and take care,
And we are thankful to you for taking all the time out to blog what is going to be one hell of a journey to ABC. Definitely goes a long way in helping us follow your movements closely.hotel booking in kathmandu
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