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[Huib]

Hi, here are some tips when you go hiking in the mountains:
for the most populair treks in Nepal, you DON'T NEED a guide or porter (but it's a good way to sponsor them). Especially for young people. The most treks are old trade routes, easy to follow, in every house/hut what you pass you can buy food, eat food or sleep (the higher you get the higher the prices). Just buy a simple map, they sell them in Pokhara, Katmandu. And if there is a doubtfull cross section (is rare), just wait and ask somebody.

You need a permit (buy them in Katmandu/Pokhara)

The higher you will get the higher the prices are for food. So buy in Katmandu/Pokhara some nuts, meusli, milk powder, snickers, ORS salts, (just incase: pills for altitude sickness (cheap)

Trekkingstuff is cheap in Nepal (it's fake, not real "goretex" but good enough!)
A Petzl (head light) is very usefull!

Take your time for a trekking (especially above 3000mtrs) your body has to acclimatise (even real sportsmen: doesn't have anything to do with your physical condition). So above 3000mtr, the best way is; take a walk so you ascend 500mtrs and then descend 200mtr so you sleep 300mtrs higher then the day before. And drink a lot. I heard food/drinks with garlic/ginger helps againt altitude sickness.

Happy trekking, these are definetly one of your "high" lights of your trip (maybe you realise when you are back and watching your pictures after you had a nice warm shower & a good meal!

Bye Sherpa Huib (NL)

[Guest]

5 Nov 04

It's been more than twenty years since I lived in Nepal for two years so I hesitate to even add any comments to this Forum but...

At the time there were already many trekking outfits that would baby you along the way for maybe up to a $US 100/day, very little of which went to the porters,
Sherpa guides or locals. Not only could I not afford such prices but my independence forbade.

So on my first trek I headed off alone from Pokhara headed for Annapurna range and Jomsom. I carried my own pack and a trekking map that was adequate but sometimes marked the trail on the wrong side of a river.

I was making really good time but then towards nightfall I learned about 'Saab's knee' the hard way. This is result of going down steep grades and locking your knee. Remember to keep it flexed; DON't straighten it. It caused me to turn around short of Jomsom and the Kali Gandaki [river].

Another major trek from Lamadand to Namche Bazaar and thence to Kala Patar and Eeverest base camp, I learned another very important lesson. Again I carried my own expedition size pack and map and alone. The Nepalis not only never discovered the wheel but also the principal of the traverse. Every trail went straight up the maximum gradient. The weather in the 'pahad', the hills [which go up to almost 5000 meters.] was still hot and very humid in mid Oct. I pushed hard skipping breakfast and lunch and not much water which I religiously iodized. By night I was so tired and a bit nausous so hardly ate even when food was available which along my non-standard route wasnot always.

Feeling very weak but unwilling to give up I did relent to the extent of accepting a villager to carry my backpack for $3 per day. The going rate. I then realized I had been like trying to run a car on empty. Motor power had been lost. So I forced myself to eat and drink. My route merged with the standard route SW of Lukla. As we approached Namche my stregnth had returned so that I insisted on carrying my own pack into the village. I should have been more considerate for my porter was jeered and teased by the other porters. But then maybe I owed him. In one tiny village my porter had a friend who lived there in a small house. They were both Brahmins and I was an untouchable. So my porter was invited inside the house and was fed while I went hungary sleeping outside on the veranda. The caste systems does have its rules!

Anyway I rested up in Namche Bazaar for a day then proceeded alone North. My porter had agreed to go only as far as Namche. My recovery amazed me somewhat. Just a few days earlier a Nepali evaluating my looks warned me I'd die if I didn't descend to lower altitude. At Namche I lightened my pack later regretting not even taking extra film along.

Can't retrieve at this moment the names of the three overnight stops I made but on the fourth day climbed to Kala Patar ['black rock'] at 18,500 ft ~6000 m. on the shoulder of Pumori was awed by a cloudless vies of Sagamartha, [Everest] cresting just its peak behind the Lhotse-Nuptse wall. Some words get diminished by overuse. I like to save 'Awesome' for vistas like that.

Hadn't intended to go on like that. Just make the points about Saab's knee, force yourself if necessary to eat and especially drink enough. [But the water probably still is full of dysentary, amoebic and bacillary and hapatitis so as one trekking guide says: "If it doesn't taste like Iodine, it's not water." Boiling isn't practical. Pumps I don't know.] I hope the rate for a privately hired porter has gone up, but it's still sure to be a lot cheaper than the Western owned and advertised trekking companies with slick ads in American and European travel mags.

Have fun. One final word. I preferred the NorthWest frontier province of Pakistan: Gilgit, Hunza, Chitral Skardu and I would not be surprised if it is unaffected by Afghanistan's turmoil.

Art radsolv