A Life of Brian

After a last scenic visit to the toilet tents, we were on our way again, for what turned out to be the best day's walking of the trek.

First we were heading for the high point of Phalut, which is a small settlement on the Singalila ridge and marks the point from which we would start our descent to lower altitudes (good news for those suffering altitude headaches).

The path to Phalut started off as a lovely ridge walk, with a steep 1 km ascent at the end. Rather confusingly Gio is not looking in the direction of the trail; had he turned his back to the camera (which he thought would be rude) he would have be pointing in the right direction. Our path was basically along the left hand edge of the picture, then to a white blob on the right hand side of the distant mound, this being Phalut. Although Phalut appeared on kilometre marker stones, giving the impression of being almost a town, it was only about 2 houses in size which is why it doesn't show up in the picture.

We were first to the top, and while we relaxed waiting for the rest of the party to arrive, we looked back along the trail - and spotted our male minder half way up - look carefully and you should see a stick figure standing in a grassy area just to the left of the path - that's him!

We also took some time to get better acquainted with Ratoo who was ambulance horse for the duration of the trek. He mostly carried one of the party who was not at all well, but, for a short while he had a different passenger following a fall resulting in a banged knee.

We felt a bit sorry for Ratoo as he had to travel with the trekking party which meant he got separated from his fellow ponies in the baggage train and had a longer working day. As he lacked equine company we thought bear company might be the next best thing.

Talking of company, we had some great company of our own when we got introduced to Brian the Lion from Wales. We'd heard rumours that there was a fellow cuddly on the trip, but as we hadn't met him, he was either very quiet and shy or, he didn't exist.

We were very pleased to find a) that he did exist and b) that he was a most friendly and charming seasoned traveller. In no time at all we were getting on like a house on fire and we found we had lots in common. We were introduced at the lunch break and we had so much to talk about we were in danger of not doing the delicious lunch dishes justice. Fortunately Yorkie realised we were neglecting lunch in time, and rounded up some dishes before going into scary piranha mode.

We hope this wasn't going to put Brian off us. 

Lots of love, George, Gio and Yorkie xxx

Well Sited Toilet Tents

Oh dear, shame on us, no post for over a month, that's really bad ... but we have been off travelling again! News in a while.

Back in India ... there was no further rain overnight and thanks to our early night it was no hardship to get up at 5.00 a.m. for the wonderful mountain views.

Gio was rather taken with the sight of the first rays of the sun lighting up Kanchenjunga. You can see why the range is described as the sleeping Buddha, although sorry, we slightly chopped off the top of his head to the extreme left, an easy mistake given that we were still half asleep (well Yorkie and I were - Gio as usual was as bright as a button).

The walking that day was rather special. As we had left the jeep track behind, it was all off road walking, either across lovely green pastures - such as this one, where our rule train overtook us -

or dirt tracks which were easy to walk on.

As it was a shortish walking day, it wasn't worth having lunch on the way, but as it was going to be a late lunch by the time we'd reached camp, we had a soup stop en route. It was lovely hot soup with a choice of flavours and lovely japattis to go with it. We didn't really need our lunch proper after that!

We had free time at the camp after lunch so we went for a bit of an explore which was good to do as we were at a place where several paths converged and we could only leave on one the next day. The afternoon started off fine and sunny with blue skies, as you can see from our next picture ... Gio was pleased to find another collection of prayer flags on poles ...

... but the sunshine didn't last and quite early in the afternoon it got very cold and windy and a lot of mist rolled in. For the second day running we snuggled up in our tents to keep warm. The visibility got so bad that you almost needed a compass to find your tent again after venturing out for a visit to the dining tent or the toilet tents, and it was quite funny when one lady went into the wrong tent and gave it's occupant a bit of a fright.

The next morning the wind had gone and the mist had cleared. The sun was out again and the sky was blue. What's more, there was a treat in store going to the toilet tents - they were toilet tents with a great mountain view.

Lots of love Gio, George and Yorkie xxx