Sorry for the post order being messed up for my blog posts. I will try to fix it in a few days when I have a computer available.
Also apologies for the lack of effort that I put into the last 4 blog posts of the trip. We walked nearly 100km over 3 days on rough terrain then drive for 18+ hours so I am a little tired... Forgive me.
Our day started at 6am with a 3 hour drive to Gold River in a jeep where we then had to walk across a huge suspension bridge to the other side of the river where we could catch yet another jeep for the 9 hour trip to Khatmandu.
The trip down to Gold River was not great as our vehicle was packed with 11 people where it was only really designed to fit 9. Tye second leg of the journey was a lot better as we only had 7 people much of the way (though we got the extra 4 for the last 4 hours of the journey). Our driver was a nice guy and we really hit it off. Aaron and I sat in the front seat which meant we had a lot more room than the day before.
Our vehicle travelled in convoy with 3 other vehicles which meant that when one of them broke down we had to all wait as it was repaired. This happened a lot on the rough roads.
After over 18 hours of driving (of which about 14 hours was on 4wd tracks) we finally made it to Khatmandu. We had an amazing shower (first in nearly a month) and then hit the town for a massive dinner. Great to know that we don't have to walk anywhere in the morning.
We woke up early and made the massive push to Nunthala. The walk was amazing and the scenery changed dramatically. Suddenly we were surrounded by huge mossy trees covered with wild orchids as alpine terrain turned into an almost rainforest. We walked for about 9 hours and made it to Nunthala just 20 minutes before darkness flooded the valley.
We made plans to head to Phaplu to catch a ride to Khatmandu, a full days walk closer than Jiri. The road to Phaplu is new and we were under the impression that it was quite good.
The walk through huge forests was again amazing. It really took us by surprise how quickly the terrain had changed since Lukla.
Another huge day got us to Phaplu and the nearby town of Salleri where we were fortunate to get the last jeep of the day for Okhaldhunga. It was a grueling 6 hour 4wd drive in which we had to endure the back seat of a small jeep that was not built at all for big foreigners like ourselves. By the end of the drive our knees which were pressed hard against the metal seats had taken a whooping.
Stayed the night in a stagnant dark horrible little excuse for a hotel right outside the jeep stand where we would catch another vehicle the next morning at 6am.
Waking up we were excited to see clear blue skies and situation by 8:45am we had packed, eaten breakfast and secured our spot in the check in queue at Lukla Airport. We were booked to fly out via Tara Airways 16th flight of the day (over 40 flights were scheduled) which was supposed to be at 10:30am.
After hours of waiting, being told "come back in 45min" and watching countless angry/bewildered foreigners we were finally presented with our boarding pass and told to go through the security check post.
We got through the check post, handed in our luggage for the plane and headed to the departure lounge. After about 45min it became clear that the weather was not looking good. An hour or so into our lounge stop a man came in and told us that "all planes had turned back to Khatmandu but that the flights were not cancelled yet".
We knew what that meant... The long walk to Jiri was probably our only chance to catch Aaron's flight back to Australia on the 5th.
When flights are cancelled in Lukla you go into a "waiting list" this list goes behind the flights that were already scheduled on any given day. As there had already been two days of cancelled flights this meant that we would roughly be on flight number 50 out of Lukla (which could take anywhere up to 2 weeks to get to). The walk was inevitable.
We got our baggage back, had some food, bought a map and then hit the road. We had decided to walk to Surke (just an hour or so from Lukla) as we were running short on daylight.
Surke was a beautiful town and had a great big river running right through the middle of it. Huge vegetable gardens surrounded the town and immediately we could tell that there was going to be a lot less foreigners around over the next few days.
So there were supposed to be 35 flights out of Lukla today but only 8 planes got out before they closed the airport on account of bad weather. We couldn't get a flight. Have one booked for tomorrow morning at 10:30am so we will see what happens.
Loads of moody people in Lukla tonight. Chill. Enjoy the mountains guys. Cant do much about bad weather.
Made the walk from Namchee to Lukla in a day (where we expected it to take 2). Weather soured towards the end of the day and looks like flights could be getting grounded. Not cool.
