What better way to spend a 2.5 week holiday than trekking up mountains in minus temperatures, giving yourself altitude sickness and spending £15 per on a (snack sized) Mars Bar..?!
7-9 hours trekking a day in the Himalayas for 2 weeks – after completing a marathon in October I thought – ha i’ll easily be fit enough.
I remember one point on the trip at 4:30 am, trekking up a mountain called kala patthar in -18°C to see the sun rise over Everest saying out loud ‘I would rather do a marathon again than this’ along with ’No, I do not want a hug, a pair of lungs that work and a head large enough to hold my massive swollen brain would be really useful right now’ not that I moaned a lot… but, I was not prepared for the altitude. Working in an office 5 minutes from the beach obviously has its benefits but being at pretty much sea level didn’t do me any favours at 5,600m!
The accommodation and ‘toilet facilities’ were pretty basic to say the least, a bowl of hot water was quite the luxury and the food – I don’t want to see noodles EVER again, everyone on the trip was poorly at some point.
Apologies for going all ‘designery’ on y’all but it was amazing to see how even in Lukla, the place where we started and ended our trek where there are no cars, just Yak’s, Mules and Sherpas the world’s largest brands still had a presence with a ‘YakDonalds’ and a ‘Farbucks’. The branding was almost identical and this brand recognition and loyalty trick worked, they were the most packed out establishments in the tiny village. I’m not 100% sure I would’ve trusted them still.
The people I met on the trip were from all over the world and such wonderful and interesting characters all with very different stories to tell. The views, from the windows in the tea houses I stayed in, around every corner were indescribably beautiful and really did take your breath away. The pictures are good but to be there and to realise just how tiny you are is such a humbling experience – an experience I would recommend anyone to do. It really was the trip of a lifetime.
This trip was definitely one of the most challenging experiences of my life but this made the achievement at the end of the day even greater. It’s so true that the hardest things in life are always the best.
