Trekking – swapping two wheels for two legs

Of the many treks available in Nepal, I chose to walk the traditional expedition route from Jiri to the Everest region, where I crossed 3 passes – Kong Ma La (5550m), Cho La (5500m) and Renjo La (5450m).

The majority of tourists fly into Lukla, which was 5 days into my trek. This part of the trek involved walking through European type hills and forests, villages with no roads and the best part, only a small number of tourists.

Once I hit the tourist trail at Lukla, the track was wider and smoother, hotels and restaurants were everywhere and trekkers who looked down and did not know how to say hello!!

I started to notice the altitude at Namche Bazaar, 3400m, my legs were fine but my lungs just could not suck in enough air. The next few days I climbed only 400m per day to allow for acclimatisation. The day before my first pass, my resting heart rate was 90 beats per minute and I could not get it any lower, with no headache or nausea, I was a little concerned – should I go back down?? I took some diamox (acclimatisation assistance drug) and several hours later my heart rate dropped 20 beats - thank god for drugs!!

The next day I walked over Kongma La pass, it was tough but well worth it, I had great views of Makalu (8462m) and Lhotse (8516m). Now I was in the Khumbu valley with Everest at the end. I walked upto basecamp and Kattar Patel, then back down and over the second pass, Cho La. The pass was very narrow, so not much of a view, and I had to walk 500m across a glacier – lucky I carried an ice axe all this way!!

Down into Gokyo valley and across the massive Ngozumpa glacier. The most surprising part of the trek is the size, power of the glaciers and how the frozen river has carved its path out of the rock. By now I was totally over the menu in the lodges, so no time for a rest day – need to getout for a steak and glass of wine!

From here it was over the last pass, Renjo La, and downhill all the way to the Gold Coast town of the Himalayas, highrise Namche Bazaar.

I walked down to Lukla to watch friends fly off the very short runway but as is standard, flights were delayed by cloud. Now 4 days of walking to meet the bike and 6 hours drive to a steak and glass of wine.

A story to tell

First day into my twenty day Three Passes trek (which explores the 3 valleys around Everest), I met a Tibetan walking to Lhasa. There was a communication gap and at first I thought he was an exiled monk. After 3 days of walking and a Nepali interpreter one night, I learnt of an intriguing story.

Mr Free Tibet (no names required) now resides in Dharamsala, India, after escaping from a Chinese jail and I met him on his way to visit is family in Lhasa. It’s not a long journey, 2 days bus ride then twenty days walking over a 5500m pass, hiding from Nepali and Chinese authorities and bribing anyone sympathetic to the Chinese.

We will all travel to see our family... so why not catch a plane or a bus??

Lets start at the beginning, several years ago there was a Tibetan who enrolled in the Chinese army for many reasons but that is not the point. As a Tibetan soldier in the Chinese army there was propaganda around the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, ie: the Dali Lama on toilet paper. The younger soldier became disillusioned with army life and joined the Free Tibet movement.

The next step was to actively protest about the occupation of Tibet. Maybe a little more extreme action than you and I, my new friend threw some sort of petrol bomb at an important building in Beijing, first bomb worked as planned but the second somehow exploded near him and badly burnt his leg which caused him to be caught by the authorities.

After 2 years in jail his father paid the equivalent of €10,000, with assistance from the outside world, to the prison guards which enabled him to escape to Dharamsala. Now his family is persecuted by the Chinese authorities, sister has received a broken leg and he can only visit his family at night. After a month in Lhasa, its time to walk back to Dharamsala, India.

A mate from home

For the last month I have been excited and looking forward to seeing Giselle in Kathmandu. The advantage of travelling by myself is that I can do and go where I want, when I want – a change will be good. We had two weeks in Nepal, the first few days to fix the bike. Giselle brought the tools to remove the rear suspension’s broken bolt, original suspension and new back tyre.

After a few days in Kathmandu, we decided on a 7 day trek in the Langtang National Park. The drive to the start of the trek is 120km and it took us 7 hours on the bike – bad roads, a great introduction of motorbike travelling for Giselle.

Giselle was nervous on the back of the scooter in London so I was interested to see how she would handle a bike 10 times bigger. Giselle handled the crazy Kathmandu traffic, extremely bad roads to Langtang and the dangerous bus and trucks with the ease of a biker chick – I encouraged her to get her bike licence.

Two days back in pollution and dust filled Kathmandu was too stressful so we went to a 12-century medi-evil town called Bhaktapur. We explored the town, drank beer and chilled reading the book ‘Three Cups of Tea’ – which many trekkers were reading.

It was great to have a mate visit!!

Dash to Kathmandu

Giselle arrives in Kathmandu in 4 days and I am still 1500km away in Lahore. 1500km is nothing but with two borders to cross, Indian road mayhem, unknown road conditions in Nepal - they are going to be 4 long days.

Giselle will bring tools to remove the broken bolt, new suspension and a new rear tyre... plus I am sure Mum will throw in a few things I like, oh and most important... will be great to see Giselle. ;-)

Pakistan – changes to have a future

I was surprised with the degree as which I enjoyed my short 8 days in Pakistan. The people were friendly and engaging, spoke English, stunning Karakorum Range, the stale capital, Islamabad and mayhem in Lahore. I never felt unsafe and only a little unwelcome near Taliban areas of the KKH.

I was not long nor did I see a great deal of Pakistan but saw enough to want to go back. I think the country is a great tourism destination but there are ingrained attitude and security policies that needs to change to get rid of the home grown Islamist and Terrorist groups. The army needs to be independent of the government, government control the ISI and attitudes to India change. For example: there was a bombing in Lahore and attempted takeover of Rawalpindi police station, discussing these incidents with a Pakistani man, he was addimate that India was involved because why would a Pakistani person hurt another Pakistani? Other people shook their head and could not explain it while others thought all government, ISI, Army and public had to work together to get rid of extremist groups.

My opinion is the latter, until the power broking between the government, ISI and Army is resolved and a uniform policy across all three is in place, Pakistan will continue on the current path. Firstly the ISI must stop all support of the terrorist groups and realize that the idea of using terrorist/extremist groups to wage a war on India or their use as a defence force is counterproductive for the country to move forward. In the long run it is the Pakistani people that suffer.

Karakoram Highway

The KKH is famous around the world and I have been keen for a long time to drive the road. Chinese customs are 130km from the border and they organise all cars into a convoy with a Chinese army guard, for our safety – yeah right!!! They were mucking around, so I pushed a little and they organised a separate escort for me – I had a very long drive ahead to reach Karimabad in Pakistan. Then that car was slow so I left them and drove by myself, what could the Chinese do in ‘no man’s land’? No problem got to the last checkpoint, they were surprised to see me alone, they made a call and out of China I drove.

Driving along the Chinese side from Tashkorgan I averaged 110km/h on smooth roads but as soon as I entered Pakistan the road was gravel, one lane, pot holes, rock slides and switch backs down the mountain from the pass at 4700m.


The Pakistani border police were relaxed, casually dressed, spoke English and up for a joke – the way I like borders.

I heard the Chinese are rebuilding the KKH and the road is now worse during contruction. I have discovered that any trade route to western China, the roads in that country are being rebuilt by the Chinese - interesting to see if the Chinese are helping the Nepalese?

Change of plans in Xinjiang

When I left London, I planned to drive around Xinjiang and the Taklamakan desert. Due to the Uygur and Han Chinese riots, the rules were changed stopping all independent travel within Xinjiang province for foreign vehicles. I could hire a guide but I didn’t want to travel that way and it would be out of my budget.

So three days in Kashgar, one day for Chinese drivers licence and bike safety check, one day for temporary fix of bike and one day for a quick look around, then off to the border.

Kashgar is an interesting place as it was a major town on the Silk Road and is populated with a majority of Uygur (Wiger in English), who have more in common with Central Asians than Chinese. The old town is Uygur dominated with a maze of mudbrick houses, Uygur restaurants and markets. The Chinese machine is replacing all houses with new concrete and brick, no choice, so the cities atmosphere will soon disappear.

As seems to be the standard in the world, a major incident is referred to by a date, the incident I am referring to is the riots in Urumqi between the Uygur and Han, everyone refers to it as the ‘5th July’. As a result, there are no international calls, fax or internet in Xinjiang province – frustrating for me but even more for the locals who have to live with isolation.

A tip for the Police, Army and Border people – it’s OK to smile!