Here in Namache Bazar

Sat in Namche Bazar after 10 days trekking from Jiri to arrive here. Rest day today after sfuffing my face with donoughts and buffalo steak with chips last night. For the factual peeps 7080m of ascent to get here and 5470m of descent. It rained for 3 days and everything was wet but has kept the planes from arriving at Lukla so it's pretty quiet here. Saw a goat have his head chopped off before breakfast a few days ago but our appetites are huge so still ate all my breakfast you'll be pleased to know. Have come up through lush tropical lowlands and now feel we are entering into the mountains proper as we can see high snowy peaks. Feels like stage 1 of this bit of the trip has been successful and my knees appear to stll be working so heres hoping. Greg

KTM traffic

KTM

Hurrah just bought lots of really cheap drugs.
All from the chemist, a hospitals worth of anti-biotics and Diamox for six pound. Head to the hills on Friday via a 12 hour chicken bus which will be nice.

Arrival in KTM

My main memory of the journey to KTM was watching the boys cleaning the windows inside the Delhi Airport Terminal. We left Liverpool at 10.48am on Monday morning and caught the train to London. Problem was we found out there was also a tube strike planned the same day. Greg no happy at this point and Liz concerned that Greg no happy. You see my main rucksac was huge and I had managed to get everything in it including plastic boots and walking boots (20kg worth). Anyhow, we made a bit of a dog leg and succeeded on getting onto some express thing which we has to pay extra on 'cos we had wrong tickets. Doh!
Checked in and chilled out. Take off at 5.40pm and arrived at Delhi at about 6.30am Indian time (5.5hrs ahead). As we were in transit to another plane we didn't get Indian visas. This is when it started to get a bit confusing as we couldn't follow the rest of the passengers to baggage collection. We simply had to wait it out until our airline staff came on duty. Will we ever see our bags again - well at least I had a toothbrush and spare knickers ready for the occassion! A couple of hours wait and we were called through. Our bags had were to go to the plane and we would see them in KTM. Great. We are now really knackered and hence the memory of the window cleaners. I'm lying on a seat in and out of concsiousness looking out the window at my first view of India, when a really young boy (about 14-15)in a full body climbing harness walks past me with a green bucket. He pulls himself up to a metal horizontal piece of window frame and then reaches up to the next and clips two lanyards with industrial size karabiners together from the one above. The distance between each horizontal is about2.5m. He steps into a loop of his rope and continues to a height of about 60m above us with his bucket to start cleaning the windows. Flippin heck where's the H&S Manager? In between unclipping from one section in order to clip into the one above he is unprotected and standing above me with a load of glass. below him. Oh yeah....his bucket is not clipped in too. Wouldn't want that landing on my head! Pics to follow as he was joined eventually by three others. We were under the impression Delhi Airport was entering the Cleanest Airport Terminal FinalS. We were surrounded by the Housekeeping Team (with dusters), the Maitenance Team (with spanners) and the Green Team (yes, they dust the plants)! Hope it's not all fur coat and no knickers!
Anyhow, luck found us guided towards our First Class seat (complimentary drinks and everything) on Kingfisher Airlines and landing in KTM at about 3.30pm Nepal time (+5.75hrs). Showers, food and sleeps followed in a variety of orders.

Pictures by Jasmine age 3 and a half

This is Aunty Lizzy and Greg on the aeroplane (with some ther people too)

OMG it's the day before we leave!

Time has been speeding up over the last few days and I don't think the realisation of what we're doing actually hit me until I woke up on Wednesday morning and didn't have to go to work!
It's been an absolutely brilliant social whirl over the past week. I feel really humbled and delighted at the kind wishes and number of friends, colleagues and family who turned out to share a goodbye meal out with us. Made me feel like a very lucky lucky person.Love 'ya all xxx
I think the packing is now complete. Here's a list for nerds like me who always wonder what people have in their rucksacs.
New 65L rucksac
4 season sleeping bag, silk liner and travel pillow
washkit and travel towel
First aid stuff, painkillers, compeeds etc
plastic boots (to be portered in)
trekking boots
Crocs
soft shell pants
fleecy pants
long johns
lightweight trekking trousers
smartwool T shirt and polyprop one
smartwool baselayer
smartwool midlayer
primaloft jacket
3x trekking socks
1x super thick mountain socks for plastics
loads of foot and hand warmers
camera
freeloader and camera battery charger
ipod
mobile phone
guidebooks and reading books
notebook and pen
glacier glases
normal sunglasses
compass
2 x thin gloves
1x thick gloves
down mitts (to be portered in)
Thick winter Buff
balaclava
trekking poles
platypus bottle
nalgene bottle (Greg has the Steripen)
down jacket
fleece mid layer
5 pairs of underwear
1x smartwool underwear (Aunty Lizzy's wooly knickers - family joke)
sportsbra
normal bra!

...and stuff for later on the trip
lightweight quick dry shirt
bikini/takini
trainers
really lightweight baggy pants
cotton long sleeve top and 1 T-shirt

Bet I've forgot something.
In total my check in weight should be 20Kg with a little fold-away day sack on my front just for hand luggage bits.

The itinery starts with a flight to Delhi and then taking a connection to Kathmandu. Sometime in January we will be going to SE Asia, then Australia, New Zealand, Chile (Peru, Bolivia). The later parts of the trip are not really worked out in detail yet.
In Nepal we plan to do the 3 Passes Trek and then we will attempt to climb island Peak. We're meeting our climbing crew on November 12th, so there's still time to get fit.
Next post should be from Nepal!
Liz x

September - the clock is ticking