Party Time

The Lodge had a fine dining room which we'd discovered when we went there on arrival for tea and biscuits. We were especially impressed by 2 lots of framed words from the Dalai Llama that were on the walls - how's this for an example - are you inspired or not?

One moment we were planning to eat our final trek meal in the dining room, then the next moment we weren't. What had changed? Dilip had discovered that we would be sharing the dining room with the the other trekking group, the 'hoorays'. This didn't meet with Dilip's approval at all, and the next thing we knew, the dining tent - which we thought had been put well away, not to be seen by us again - was coming out and being erected on the main lawn ...

We all thought this was great, as the dining tent was so familiar and it was where we'd enjoyed every other trek dinner.  Being in the dining tent that evening was even better than on the trek, as there was a crate of Sikkimi beer (pretty strong at 8%) to enjoy (pacing ourself at that strength of course!).

As always the meal was tasty and filling and for pudding we had a special treat. Manilau, the cook, had baked a special Singalila Trek cake - served an a silver salver no less. We had to take a photo quickly as it didn't hang around - it was cut and consumed pretty quickly.

After dinner came the serious business of final speeches and tips and thank you's to the trekking crew, who had done such a fine job of looking after us ...

Then came singing and dancing: first a Nepali song, then a western one, and so it went on, alternating, for a while. As we went outside for the Hokey Cokey (what else?) everyone was having a great time and we were mixing well across our respective cultures. We looked across to the dining room where the Hoorays didn't look to be having anything like as much fun.

And after the entertainment there was a proper bed and a bathroom to look forward to - what more could anyone want?

Lots of love George, Yorkie and Gio 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

Flowers and a Flood

And now back to India, where we'd just reported on camp wars with the hooray Henries.

Now the good thing about being on a no frills tour was that we could get off a lot quicker in the morning: after all we had no showering and shaving to do and no cafetieres of coffee to linger over, (although we always had a perfectly fine breakfast). Probably the most important thing was that we had no hangovers to nurse!

We left camp feeling bright and chipper, unlike the hoorays, and looking forward to the day's walk. It was only to be a short walk as we were climbing up to the highest point on the trek and we needed to acclimatise.

It was nice to have the time to linger to look at the flowers ...

... talk to the locals ...

... and take lots of time to admire the views ...

As we climbed, we found ourselves occasionally above the clouds; it was a very long way down. The walking was very much Gio style i.e. plod, plod, plod which is the perfect way to walk. Part way through the morning we were overtaken by the hoorays, charging along at top speed and making quite a racket. We completely disapproved - what was the point of their trek!

The high point of Sandakhphu at 3,636 m was reached before lunchtime. There was very little there apart from a few tea houses. We borrowed one to brew a cup of tea. Sandakhpu is at the end of the jeep track, so it where most Indian tourists finish their trip, as they're not walking. Things were about to get a lot quieter.

As we left the settlement we were now on a walking path rather than a driving path (not that we'd have driven the driving path!) We walked for another 30 minutes or so then got to our campsite. As it was a wild camp we had it all to ourselves. The tents were up and waiting for us, so we grabbed one in the front row, dumped our gear then went to the dining tent for lunch.

While we were having lunch it rained hard. In fact it rained all afternoon, so we were all holed up in our tents, snuggled in our sleeping bags. We emerged from time to time for a quick sprint over to the dining tent for such delights as tea and the most delicious pakoras. The tent entrances got quite flooded and we had a damp floor. Our spirits remained high though and we enjoyed reading our booksand watching t.v. programmes on our iPads. 

We were early to bed in view of the weather and so as to to be ready for the call to 'mountain view' at 5.00 a.m. the next morning. We'd been promised a good one. 

Lots of love, George, Yorkie and Gio xxx

Camp Wars

So, when we left you last time, we were just about to arrive at our campsite, not far from that lovely lake adorned with prayer flags. We passed a friendly yak on the way ...

We couldn't see the lake from our tents but it was a lovely spot nonetheless. The official camping ground was the far side of the dirt track in the middle of our first picture ...

.... but we were't there. Yes, you can see tents, but they weren't ours. We had been beaten to the camping ground by another trekking group and while there could have been room for us all, if they had pitched their camp sensibly, and thoughtfully, they didn't, and placed their dining tent in the middle of our half, effectively shutting our group out.

Our crew decided that these were people we didn't want to squish in with, so set up our camp on the grazing slopes the other side of the track. It was fine, and mini terraces meant we weren't going to slide down the hill during the night. The only downside was that we did have to navigate round a fair bit of animal spoor every time we stepped outside the tent.

Our picture was taken from the entrance to our tent, so we had pole position for getting to the dining tent in front of us, but the furthest walk to the toilet tents.

We did some great people watching from our tent entrance, and we're referring to observing the antics of the other trekking group. It was clearly luxury trekking for the rich and pampered. We watched cafetieres of coffee being taken round the tents, with aperitifs served from a silver salver a bit later. They also had shower tents with mirrors set up on easels outside and when they sat down to dine (we've no idea what delicacies they were served) they had directors chairs rather than camp stools.

We had none of this, but we weren't jealous as we had absolutely everything we needed and we were being extremely well looked after. We were also having a far more authentic camping experience; after all we were away from it all in the mountains, not staying in town in a posh hotel.

What's more, first impressions of the members of the group weren't good; they were very loud and to put it simply, a bunch of hoorays. We were especially unimpressed when they played loud music after 10.00 p.m. when we were trying to sleep. Believe us 10.00 p.m. is very late on a holiday like this and even the military post alongside us had switched off their generators and turned out their lights.

But we had the last laugh ... during the night our crew opened the gate to the camping ground and sent our ponies in to cause a bit of disruption, and they did this not once, but twice.

Serves them right we say.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie and Gio xxx

Weather Extremes

Remember our last post and how sunny it was and how blue the sky? Well it lasted a bit longer - and much of that period we were relaxing in a lodge enjoying tea and biscuits while our passports and permits were checked at a military checkpoint, then we had a cloudburst. Just before the heavens opened, we took this picture ...

... which showed the path we'd come down into the valley bottom (where the checkpoint was) only to climb up and out the other side. You can see the cloud coming in that brought the rain. We shouldn't have been ill prepared, but we were. It wasn't a problem for us, with our all weather fur, but our minders were soaked before they'd got full waterproofs on.

Fortunately, within a mile, we'd reached our lunch stop and it was an indoor one. Our group, plus another trekking party, crammed into a small tea house. We were all rather cold from our wet clothes but fortunately hot soup, chapattis and vegetable dishes were served to help warm us up.

It took about 2 hours for the rain to stop. It had got to the stage where we were going to have to leave anyway, when the skies brightened and the rain eased off. We had about an hour and a half's walk to our camp and it was a lovely walk. About 30 minutes from the camp we were met by one of the cook boys who had come to meet us with a big kettle of hot orange juice.

Just 5 minutes from our camp was this beautiful lake with prayer flags and a small stupa. This was Kala Pokhari, literally black lake. It was simply beautiful in the afternoon sun. We admired it from all sides. Gio's picture shows the black lake aspect, while we looked back alone the path we'd come and it looked very different.   

While this was a tranquil spot we had campsite wars ahead of us. Find out more next time.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie and Gio xxx

To Val Montjoie

Our camp site was situated just a stone's throw from the next part of the trail, so there was no warm up trot along the road before we started to climb. Even worse, at the first zig-zag we were out in the open sun, and boy, was it hot that day.

We decided the thing to do was to maintain a slow, but steady pace and follow Gio who is a master of the art of plodding.

We also admired Gio's technique of finding good places to rest, where there was a) an icy stream close by for a cooling dip (see behind) and b) a nice flat stone to sit on and dry off. Gio also liked this particular spot as the red and white 'GR' trail markings brought back happy memories of our time following similar blazes on our way to Santiago.

Finding a good spot to rest was quite important as there was a bit of waiting to do, but not too much. This was our view as we watched our male minder toiling up the patch with a man in red from the hotel group.

When we got to our refuge coffee stop at the top, we had to look after our male minder who was suffering a bit from low blood sugar. We were quite amazed at the number of sugar lumps we had to shovel in before he could taste the sweetness. For the first cup it was about five! He is made of strong stuff though and recovered with the second cup.

 The top was La Croix du Bonhomme (2,478m) where we posed for our customary cairn picture, with a wonderful view as our backdrop. We camouflaged rather well with the stone, but if you look carefully, you might spy all 3 of us on the left hand side.

From the cairn it was a real treat to enjoy another great ridge walk along to the Col. It was quite a rocky path so we took our time; needless to say Simon, our guide, ran along it later to catch us up, just like a mountain goat. At the end of the ridge, before we started our afternoon's descent, we paused for lunch, enjoying both the views and the sunshine. Simon astounded us all by telling us that on the previous trip, just 2 weeks earlier the weather had been atrocious at this point, with blizzard conditions and the need to break trail through thick snow. We think it was quite a worrying time for him, but, true professional that he is, he got everyone down safely.

Talking of snow, even on our sunny day, we had a substantial snowfield to cross on our descent. Here we are, going down in size order so as to break trail and make sure we didn't have snow going over Yorkie's head.

There was still plenty of crunch in the snow so it wasn't too slippery. It was a shame we didn't have skis, as it would have made a lovely run.

After the previous night's wild camp, our new camp site was part of a big leisure park with all facilities and even a lake doubling as the local lido.

Back soon

Lots of love George, Yorkie and Gio xxx