Scootering out of Sen Monorom. Waterfalls, steep trails and red dirt jungle roads.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Angkor Wat Cambodia
Jungle taking back the ruins.
So, Angkor Wat and Siem Reap have changed (of course) since we were last here in 2006. Lots more of a tourist infrastructure in Siem Reap...feeling almost like a more civilized Kho San in Bangkok...we are relaxing along the banks of the Kampot river in sw Cambodia, a truly beautiful spot and at 6 bucks per night cheap. We share our room with a bunch of Cambodian wildlife inc spiders and bats and something large crapped on Lori's sleeping bag yesterday. Big changes at Angkor Wat since our last visit...Cambodge looks absolutely rich compared to 8 years ago which is fantastic as these folks are truly wonderful people that have lived through hell. Its too bad that Angkor has really been cleaned up...lots of the best old ruins that we visited previously are out of bounds. None the less biking around was a great experience. Phnom Phen was a revelation...it is full of tourists, many with kids and or ancient like us. It is almost like another Bangkok and beer is 25 cents a glass. We then took a bus from Hell to the mountain town of Sen Monorom where we rented scooters 7 bucks per day, and had a great time exploring some remnant jungle patches and waterfalls. So it has been good so far.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Kathmandu & Everest!!!
A few days in Pokhara and its time to bus to Kathmandu...the capital of Nepal. Many people hate this place but Lori and I love it...Thamal is a "run down" ramshackle, ancient part of town full of funky stores selling everything one can think of and some great eateries....Nepalese food is fantastic...definately one of the things that have really improved in this country since 2003. We should also mention "power shedding"...another way of saying that there isn't enough electrical output in Nepal to keep the country in power...so every day the power shuts off for up to 10 hours! Imagine trying to run a business etc. without power...but the Nepalese seem to have adapted and have more solar power, independent water generators etc. than any country we have ever been in!
I might as well throw in our overnight visit to Bhaktapur: this city of 80,000 is a World Heritage Site (the entire city) and lies only 15 km from the outskirts of Kathmandu. An absolutely amazing place which consists of the most beautiful old temples and huge rock carvings that date back well over 500 years. What really amazed us is that the entire city is constructed of ancient brick and rock and honestly a good fart would bring down most of the buildings! Given the fact that Nepal has numerous earth quakes it seems inevitable that this city will be destroyed and at a huge cost to the people living in it. In the meantime it is a living legacy to what life must have been like 500 plus years ago...amazing!
EVEREST HIKE
So one of the major reasons we are in Nepal is to torture ourselves with a hike (or trek if your yuppie foreigner!) in the Everest region. The first step is probably the toughest...we decided to fly into Lukla....and this in itself proved to be a tough undertaking. Needless to say after two days of cancelled flights in a very overcrowded KTM (Kathmandu) airport we knew the airport better than we ever wanted to (but it was interesting watching the pigeons fly and shit inside the airport buildings!) The third day proved lucky and we were rewarded with a very bumpy ride in an ancient Canadian twin turbo Otter aircraft into the Lukla air strip. NOW this is an airstrip worthy of note...less than 300 m long, located on the very lip of a 1000 foot cliff and with the strip at a plus 20 percent grade she is interesting to say the least. The pilots put the otter down HARD and uphill you shoot THEN a 90 degree turn (while you are still speeding along!)-slam on the brakes!
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| Lukla airport |
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| that's Everest in the background with the spindrift |
So we are hiking by 11....again there are lots of changes since our Annapurna/Langtang hikes...and in this case we have to say the changes are positive! First of all the lodging is way better quality and same goes for the food! Without going into details we can say that the Everest and Gokyo hikes offer much better mountain scenery that any of the Annapurna hikes (circuit and base camp)....this hike takes in most of the worlds top ten mountains in height. Secondly the hiking is relatively easy with very short days (because of acclimatization) compared to Annapurna. The flip side is that you end up spending much more time at elevations over 4000 meters...not a problem if you can handle elevation but the fact is that any elevations over 4500m are a real bitch (even if you don't get sick, have headaches etc.)...it is really hard to imagine how hard it is to climb even one step at 5000m...literally a 4 inch step every 2 seconds is doing great! Both Lori and I seem to adapt easy to elevation but not so our travelling companions (two very fit young German fellows who had to bail out at 4300m).
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| Namche Bazaar |
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| lodging on the way |
So outside of the elevation issues the other major consideration when hiking is the timing of your hike. We did our hike in late Feb early March...which is out of season. The rewards: virtually no hikers...the downside...insanely cold (minus 25 at 5000m) which truly makes life a bitch after the sun goes down! (Not to mention long drop toilets that are a sheet of ice...enough to make you hold your bladder until your ready to blow! Another down side is that the few, but gorgeous alpine lakes are all frozen over...and not the beautiful picturesque blue shown in all the summer photos. The real downside of hiking during the tourist season is people...literally thousands of people and the resultant dust, traffic, full lodging etc. Bottom line is that you DO NOT want to hike the trails during tourist season (up to 2000 people on the trail at one time.
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| at the top of Kala Patar |
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| memorial area to Everest climbers |
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| made it! Everest base camp! |
Pokhara...Nepal
Its time to head to Pokhara...tourist bus this time and she is a JOY. The changes to Pokhara are amazing...all of the small villages we drove through back in 03 are now one large city and new construction is occurring everywhere! No doubt about it this is the "tourist capital" of Nepal and there are Chinese folks everywhere! Pokhara is located on Lake Phew the second largest lake in Nepal (and it is small!!) There is lots of do around town and we did a couple of really enjoyable local hikes to the top of some viewpoints. From here we get a good glimpse into the latest recreational pastime in Pokhara....para-gliding...the skies are full of para-gliders (up to 35 at a time!). We also rented bikes and pedalled out to some bat caves about 15 km out of town...pretty neat as their are thousands of Horseshoe bats in these caves which also feature a narrow/claustrophobic climb through which I could fit my skinny ass through!
on to Nepal and Chitwan
Hello everyone...we have decided its time to head to Nepal so we book a seat on the Darjeeling Toy Train...running on two foot wide tracks and in operation since 1918 the coal fired train follows the existing road and literally runs down main-streets inches away from buildings etc. Today only two small carriages are attached to the smoking locomotive but the intricate wood work on the roof and velvet lined interior spells back to a time when British Royalty "owned" India. Unfortunately our ride only lasts for 35 km (but 3 plus hours...its a slow carbon filled ride!) as landslides have torn out pieces of the track. From the train we transfer to a jeep for a ride down the "hill of doom"...these drivers are amazing and know this 10 km hill like the back of their hand as there are only a few places that vehicles can pass each other...each hairpin is negotiated by constant blaring of horns and in a few hours we roll onto the flats and the BUDIC (big ugly dirty Indian City) of Silaguri. Come morning we are fortunate to grab a jeep ride to the border...only 30 kms but well over an hour as our 4X4 jeep dodges a seemingly endless morass of potholes.
Checking out of India was a pleasantly easy exercise and across a bridge in a pedal rickshaw (we always feel guilty when riding these rickshaws as they are inevitably powered by a 50lb Indian about 50 years old that has to jump out and push at the first hill!)
Kakarbhitta, Nepal is a typical border town (read: craphole!) and after the Nepalese visa's drained us of all our Indian Rupees and US dollars AND not one of the 3 ATM's in town were working we were more than a little worried as we piled onto a local bus for the ride to Janakpur. Take our word for it...you do NOT want to ride on a local Nepalese bus...as hard as it is to believe this thing is worse than any bus in India. First off the bus stops every 10 to 30 m in the cities (people do not congregate in any single spot and sometimes the bus literally stops every 10 m to pick up someone!) Thus the 8 hr bus ride ended up being well over 10 hrs and there is no way one can leave their seat or it is immediately taken...in which case you stand with well over 40 other people absolutely packed like rats in isles, seating spaces etc. As Dylan would say: "She's a shit show!"
Janakpur is well known for its gorgeous temples and they are indeed impressive...but none of their 4 ATM's worked...so we are down to our last coppers! The bus drivers have taken us under their wing and its a good thing that Mr. Kamikaze gets behind the wheel as the ride to Chitwan National Park is FAST!!
Chitwan is our first taste of the Nepal we came to visit...its changed a lot since our last visit with Terisa in 2003 and the winds of change are creating a "tourist trap" (for instance the lovely beaches along the Rapti River (sunset beer!) are being cut up by a dirty road!!!)...but it is still fantastic and the number of animals we saw is significantly more than in 2003...good job Nepal!!
We took a shortened Jungle walk (shortened because we got hit with an unusual 24 hour monsoon like rain shower that proved that our Indian "gortex" jacket is not only "not breathable" but also "not water resistant"!) None the less we saw Rhino's (the Indian one-horned rhino is my favorite Indian animal and is the fourth largest land mammal in the world) sambar deer, Chital (including 3 huge bucks) deer, Hog deer, Jackal, Mugger crocodiles and lots of new bird species...really nice! Next we spent a day riding pedal bikes into the 20,000 lakes area and again tons of wildlife as well as gorgeous old-growth Sal forest. Our elephant ride revealed 6 rhino's including one mother with a youngster and at least 20 mugger crocodiles, some of which are huge! (not to mention lots of deer and wild boar) The elephant breeding center is still a great place to visit and learn all about the Indian elephant of which only about 150 exist in thewild in Nepal. Again there have been some pretty significant changes since our 2003 visit...the biggest now being that one cannot play with the young elephants like we did "back in the day"! Lori checked out the elephant dung paper making "factory"...how about bear shit paper?...
Checking out of India was a pleasantly easy exercise and across a bridge in a pedal rickshaw (we always feel guilty when riding these rickshaws as they are inevitably powered by a 50lb Indian about 50 years old that has to jump out and push at the first hill!)
Kakarbhitta, Nepal is a typical border town (read: craphole!) and after the Nepalese visa's drained us of all our Indian Rupees and US dollars AND not one of the 3 ATM's in town were working we were more than a little worried as we piled onto a local bus for the ride to Janakpur. Take our word for it...you do NOT want to ride on a local Nepalese bus...as hard as it is to believe this thing is worse than any bus in India. First off the bus stops every 10 to 30 m in the cities (people do not congregate in any single spot and sometimes the bus literally stops every 10 m to pick up someone!) Thus the 8 hr bus ride ended up being well over 10 hrs and there is no way one can leave their seat or it is immediately taken...in which case you stand with well over 40 other people absolutely packed like rats in isles, seating spaces etc. As Dylan would say: "She's a shit show!"
Janakpur is well known for its gorgeous temples and they are indeed impressive...but none of their 4 ATM's worked...so we are down to our last coppers! The bus drivers have taken us under their wing and its a good thing that Mr. Kamikaze gets behind the wheel as the ride to Chitwan National Park is FAST!!
Chitwan is our first taste of the Nepal we came to visit...its changed a lot since our last visit with Terisa in 2003 and the winds of change are creating a "tourist trap" (for instance the lovely beaches along the Rapti River (sunset beer!) are being cut up by a dirty road!!!)...but it is still fantastic and the number of animals we saw is significantly more than in 2003...good job Nepal!!
We took a shortened Jungle walk (shortened because we got hit with an unusual 24 hour monsoon like rain shower that proved that our Indian "gortex" jacket is not only "not breathable" but also "not water resistant"!) None the less we saw Rhino's (the Indian one-horned rhino is my favorite Indian animal and is the fourth largest land mammal in the world) sambar deer, Chital (including 3 huge bucks) deer, Hog deer, Jackal, Mugger crocodiles and lots of new bird species...really nice! Next we spent a day riding pedal bikes into the 20,000 lakes area and again tons of wildlife as well as gorgeous old-growth Sal forest. Our elephant ride revealed 6 rhino's including one mother with a youngster and at least 20 mugger crocodiles, some of which are huge! (not to mention lots of deer and wild boar) The elephant breeding center is still a great place to visit and learn all about the Indian elephant of which only about 150 exist in thewild in Nepal. Again there have been some pretty significant changes since our 2003 visit...the biggest now being that one cannot play with the young elephants like we did "back in the day"! Lori checked out the elephant dung paper making "factory"...how about bear shit paper?...
Friday, February 10, 2012
Sikkim
We have really enjoyed our stay in Darjeeling but its time to head North (into the cold??) and check out the northern state of Sikkim. A delightful change in transportation consists of using small Jeeps vs. the usual bus and or train. Actually this is the only way that you can get around as the roads are too narrow, steep and curve filled to allow bus travel. Even with a pedal to the metal comfy jeep it takes about 6 hours to drive the app. 115 kms from Darjeeling to the capital city of Sikkim, Gangtok. Like Darjeeling Gangtok is spread over a very steep hillside...guaranteed to get one in shape lugging a pack around town!
We found a decent hotel and explored town...she is definitely "worn out" looking, but even cleaner than Bengal (state)...some facts: It is illegal to smoke any where in public anywhere in the entire state of Sikkim. It is illegal to wrap anything one purchases in plastic bags in Gangtok (and numerous other towns in India...a neat idea and it is amazing what they can wrap up in old newspaper)
It is evident that winter is NOT the time to visit Sikkim as virtually all of the mountain roads are closed to vehicle traffic due to snow and there are no tourists...so no one to share trekking costs with etc. And Sikkim does offer some fantastic trekking opportunities...even though the very best area near the northern border with China are completely closed to all foreigners!
We had heard that India has the second largest army in the world (second only to their unfriendly neighbour China) and we can believe it after seeing the army activity in Sikkim. Hundreds of large Tata 4X4 trucks are rumbling up and down the roads as the border area in northern Sikkim is under dispute with China.
Anyways..back to Gangtok...we were amazed to see this incredible street MB Marg (Mahatma Gandhi Street..very city has a street named after MG)...beautiful stone work super-wide streets with no traffic and all of the tourist facilities of a much larger city...in stark contrast to the remainder of the city which looks "rough" to say the least. Gangtok also featured some nice parks with great views and a beautiful orchid garden. We really enjoyed our short stay in town but decided to skip on exploring the remainder of Sikkim simply because outside of monasteries and its mountains (not accessible) the state does not have much else to offer until the snow levels drop...so its back to Darjeeling!
One of the resons we loved Darjeeling is the great "chill-out" room in our hotel...wood heat, comfy chairs, lots of books and fellow travellers (along with great food) makes for happy travellers. Leaving Darjeeling we decided to take the "toy train"...running on 2 foot wide rails this train has been in operation since the 1800's and despite a rock slide that prevented us from taking the entire 8 hour ride (only 4 hours to cover 35 km!) The train (which is coal fired steam driven and yes...one hell of a smoker!!) runs right down the main road for most of its length...which is kind of interesting as we literally pass within inches of hundreds of shops, vehicles and thousands of kids, goats etc. It is obvious that the daily passing of the train is an event as people and kids wave constantly as us passengers (about 30 or so on the train). We decided to go first class (120 R (3 bucks) vs 20R for regular)...our seat recline a bit more and not much else...but the interior of the small car is a piece of art dating back to the days when everything was hand carved out of wood...exquisite designs on the roof of the car, velvet everywhere etc....they don't make them like this any more!
We took a "hairy" ride off the Himalayan foothills to the Tehri flats and the squalid city of Siliguri...this hill makes the Bella Coola hill look like the flats (literally!)...it is obvious that the jeep drivers know the road by heart as most curves are single vehicle width only but each driver knows exactly where to pull over and allow literally an inch of space between vehicles as backing uphill is not an option! Siliguri is a crap hole...but we have to stay overnight before heading to the Nepalese border on one last shot to living hell/ pot-holed Indian Road...we are at the border and through India customs in no-time. Into NEPAL at 8:15 in a pedal rickshaw (no motor rickshaw's in Nepal) (Feb 4th)
India was a great experience! There was definately some very tough times...virtually all realted to travelling from one place to another. The people have been great and the variety of our experiences amongst the best we have experienced in our travels. NOW its time for NEPAL!!
We found a decent hotel and explored town...she is definitely "worn out" looking, but even cleaner than Bengal (state)...some facts: It is illegal to smoke any where in public anywhere in the entire state of Sikkim. It is illegal to wrap anything one purchases in plastic bags in Gangtok (and numerous other towns in India...a neat idea and it is amazing what they can wrap up in old newspaper)
It is evident that winter is NOT the time to visit Sikkim as virtually all of the mountain roads are closed to vehicle traffic due to snow and there are no tourists...so no one to share trekking costs with etc. And Sikkim does offer some fantastic trekking opportunities...even though the very best area near the northern border with China are completely closed to all foreigners!
We had heard that India has the second largest army in the world (second only to their unfriendly neighbour China) and we can believe it after seeing the army activity in Sikkim. Hundreds of large Tata 4X4 trucks are rumbling up and down the roads as the border area in northern Sikkim is under dispute with China.
Anyways..back to Gangtok...we were amazed to see this incredible street MB Marg (Mahatma Gandhi Street..very city has a street named after MG)...beautiful stone work super-wide streets with no traffic and all of the tourist facilities of a much larger city...in stark contrast to the remainder of the city which looks "rough" to say the least. Gangtok also featured some nice parks with great views and a beautiful orchid garden. We really enjoyed our short stay in town but decided to skip on exploring the remainder of Sikkim simply because outside of monasteries and its mountains (not accessible) the state does not have much else to offer until the snow levels drop...so its back to Darjeeling!
One of the resons we loved Darjeeling is the great "chill-out" room in our hotel...wood heat, comfy chairs, lots of books and fellow travellers (along with great food) makes for happy travellers. Leaving Darjeeling we decided to take the "toy train"...running on 2 foot wide rails this train has been in operation since the 1800's and despite a rock slide that prevented us from taking the entire 8 hour ride (only 4 hours to cover 35 km!) The train (which is coal fired steam driven and yes...one hell of a smoker!!) runs right down the main road for most of its length...which is kind of interesting as we literally pass within inches of hundreds of shops, vehicles and thousands of kids, goats etc. It is obvious that the daily passing of the train is an event as people and kids wave constantly as us passengers (about 30 or so on the train). We decided to go first class (120 R (3 bucks) vs 20R for regular)...our seat recline a bit more and not much else...but the interior of the small car is a piece of art dating back to the days when everything was hand carved out of wood...exquisite designs on the roof of the car, velvet everywhere etc....they don't make them like this any more!
We took a "hairy" ride off the Himalayan foothills to the Tehri flats and the squalid city of Siliguri...this hill makes the Bella Coola hill look like the flats (literally!)...it is obvious that the jeep drivers know the road by heart as most curves are single vehicle width only but each driver knows exactly where to pull over and allow literally an inch of space between vehicles as backing uphill is not an option! Siliguri is a crap hole...but we have to stay overnight before heading to the Nepalese border on one last shot to living hell/ pot-holed Indian Road...we are at the border and through India customs in no-time. Into NEPAL at 8:15 in a pedal rickshaw (no motor rickshaw's in Nepal) (Feb 4th)
India was a great experience! There was definately some very tough times...virtually all realted to travelling from one place to another. The people have been great and the variety of our experiences amongst the best we have experienced in our travels. NOW its time for NEPAL!!
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Darjeeling
Greetings from a very cool (as in weather cool) Darjeeling! Our journey starts with a auto-rickshaw ride from Varanasi to the train station-a hour long journey that included a stop for some "holy flowers" (to protect the driver on the Hwy. full of full size junkers that we have to drive on!) At the train station the Indian train is on time...that is plus or minus 10 hrs. Today we are lucky...only 7 hours of counting the herds of rats that infest the station track area...actually quite entertaining which gives you some idea of how boring it is to sit for hours on end in a dilapidated Indian train station! The overnight train is pretty good and we arrive in JNP only 10 hrs late but in no time have a rickshaw (human powered and we always feel bad when we see some skinny Indian pedaling his guts out...and this trip was over an hour long! The jeep ride to Darjeeling was an insane combination of one tight switch back after another for over an hour but we had a great time as the jeep load of locals were entertaining and we laughed with them for the entire trip. Darjeeling is another world...so typical of India...the diversity of experiences terrain etc. has to be seen to be believed. West Bengal state is primarily made up of people of Tibetan and Nepalese origins and it shows...very clean (at least compared to the rest of India!), no cows and the people are super friendly but very quiet and respectful...no hassling over prices etc. Our hotel the Dekeling is fantastic with the neatest "chill-out" room (mainly because it has a great wood heater!
So for a change of topic we will talk about taxidermy! Our visit to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute today brought to light the fact that the Indians may be very good at a lot of things but stuffing animals (taxidermy) is not one of them! (we also saw this in the Mumbai Natural History Museum etc.) The stuffed animals bear a close resemblance to animals that have be shot with a 12 gauge about 5 times from 10 feet away then left to dry out..after which they are pasted to a wall in a local museum to display. I believe this is one of the reasons that most of India's wildlife is either extinct or close to extinction...if I thought our wildlife looked liked the stuffed animals I would also do my best to eradicate them!
In addition I noticed more than a few errors in identification...take the Himalayan marmot we saw today. It definitely was a weasel BUT with no eyes, 80 percent of its fur missing, big fangs and "dried" into a position that god never intended (unless it was hit by an Ambassador car full of 15 Indians and 500 lbs of luggage on the roof)....however I digress...back to Darjeeling!
This place is really nice but the weather has been cold and very foggy. You probably know or have heard of Darjeeling Tea...guess where it comes from? One of the more interesting things we have done since we arrived was a 4 (was supposed to be 5) day trek into the Himalayan mountain region near to Nepal. In fact we spent over half of the 79 km hike in Nepal and overnighted twice in Nepal. Most of the walk took place between 3000-4000 meters...a good warm up for Nepal. We were especially impressed with the 3rd day of the hike when the skies cleared and offered us incredible views of the Himalayan Range and we spent most of the day looking at the south face of Everest and Kanchenjunga and in fact 4 of the worlds 5 tallest mountains (only K2 was missing). This was against a backdrop of incredible ancient gnarly Abies well over a hundred feet tall, huge grasslands (and our first Yaks this trip), small diameter Rhododendron forests and NO people or villages! The last 15 (of a 30 km day and we had a 30 lb plus pack) we dropped close to 2000 meters...first through a forest of huge conifers with a bamboo understory then into a dripping wet (literally raining on us) fog shrouded very eerie forest of massive Rhododendron trees and finally our destination the small mountain village of Rammam. This is the most impressive scenery that Lori and I have ever witnessed in a single day...before India was thrashed it truly must have been heaven on earth...AMAZING!
Back to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute....because it is one fantastic museum! Firstly it puts the Himalayan Range in perspective: Simply put the Himalayans are more impressive than all of the mountain ranges in the world combined! (not counting anything under the ocean) They extend 2000 km and are 150 km wide and contain OVER 90% of the world tallest mountains! (this includes the Andes, Alps Rockies etc.) They had a neat display showing the tallest 30 mountains on each continent and only Aconcagua ( SA) would have even come close to making the list from Asia. McKinley and two Mexican volcanoes are the only NA mountains that rate in the top 100 as well as another 3 in SA...the other 94 are from the Himalaya!
The other thing that is apparent is that these old mountaineers were TOUGH! They had gear from hundreds of climbs of Everest: from Hillary and Tenzing's first summit of Everest on May 29th 1953 to 2009 expeditions (which by the way can be had for 29,000 US excluding all air fares) The boots used in the 50 and 60's were just leather and had hair on the outside...the oxygen cylinders look like 50 lb propane cylinders and I would have froze to death last night in our Darjeeling hotel with the sleeping bags they used!!!! I guess that is why today the biggest challenge meeting Everest climbers is the weather...good weather and getting through the traffic jam at the top of the mountain are big problems and climbing Everest, Lotese, Kanchenjunga brings in millions of dollars to the Nepalese and Indian economies!
So for a change of topic we will talk about taxidermy! Our visit to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute today brought to light the fact that the Indians may be very good at a lot of things but stuffing animals (taxidermy) is not one of them! (we also saw this in the Mumbai Natural History Museum etc.) The stuffed animals bear a close resemblance to animals that have be shot with a 12 gauge about 5 times from 10 feet away then left to dry out..after which they are pasted to a wall in a local museum to display. I believe this is one of the reasons that most of India's wildlife is either extinct or close to extinction...if I thought our wildlife looked liked the stuffed animals I would also do my best to eradicate them!
In addition I noticed more than a few errors in identification...take the Himalayan marmot we saw today. It definitely was a weasel BUT with no eyes, 80 percent of its fur missing, big fangs and "dried" into a position that god never intended (unless it was hit by an Ambassador car full of 15 Indians and 500 lbs of luggage on the roof)....however I digress...back to Darjeeling!
This place is really nice but the weather has been cold and very foggy. You probably know or have heard of Darjeeling Tea...guess where it comes from? One of the more interesting things we have done since we arrived was a 4 (was supposed to be 5) day trek into the Himalayan mountain region near to Nepal. In fact we spent over half of the 79 km hike in Nepal and overnighted twice in Nepal. Most of the walk took place between 3000-4000 meters...a good warm up for Nepal. We were especially impressed with the 3rd day of the hike when the skies cleared and offered us incredible views of the Himalayan Range and we spent most of the day looking at the south face of Everest and Kanchenjunga and in fact 4 of the worlds 5 tallest mountains (only K2 was missing). This was against a backdrop of incredible ancient gnarly Abies well over a hundred feet tall, huge grasslands (and our first Yaks this trip), small diameter Rhododendron forests and NO people or villages! The last 15 (of a 30 km day and we had a 30 lb plus pack) we dropped close to 2000 meters...first through a forest of huge conifers with a bamboo understory then into a dripping wet (literally raining on us) fog shrouded very eerie forest of massive Rhododendron trees and finally our destination the small mountain village of Rammam. This is the most impressive scenery that Lori and I have ever witnessed in a single day...before India was thrashed it truly must have been heaven on earth...AMAZING!
Back to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute....because it is one fantastic museum! Firstly it puts the Himalayan Range in perspective: Simply put the Himalayans are more impressive than all of the mountain ranges in the world combined! (not counting anything under the ocean) They extend 2000 km and are 150 km wide and contain OVER 90% of the world tallest mountains! (this includes the Andes, Alps Rockies etc.) They had a neat display showing the tallest 30 mountains on each continent and only Aconcagua ( SA) would have even come close to making the list from Asia. McKinley and two Mexican volcanoes are the only NA mountains that rate in the top 100 as well as another 3 in SA...the other 94 are from the Himalaya!
The other thing that is apparent is that these old mountaineers were TOUGH! They had gear from hundreds of climbs of Everest: from Hillary and Tenzing's first summit of Everest on May 29th 1953 to 2009 expeditions (which by the way can be had for 29,000 US excluding all air fares) The boots used in the 50 and 60's were just leather and had hair on the outside...the oxygen cylinders look like 50 lb propane cylinders and I would have froze to death last night in our Darjeeling hotel with the sleeping bags they used!!!! I guess that is why today the biggest challenge meeting Everest climbers is the weather...good weather and getting through the traffic jam at the top of the mountain are big problems and climbing Everest, Lotese, Kanchenjunga brings in millions of dollars to the Nepalese and Indian economies!
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