Rainbow

Was listening to "Rainbow Connection" today and was inspired to do up this entry. Tot i will use song to bring out the meaning of this photo.

One song which came up for me during the trek was "Over the Rainbow"...

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true

Porters

This picture was taken while we were waiting for lunch. The bags belonged to a big group, i believe from Britain. The bundled bags are typical of the load of a porter. Each porter can carry up to 15-20 kg of load. Some interesting items i saw porters carrying were wok, foldable chairs. There was one porter carrying chicken at Ghorepani area... maybe he's the chicken seller.

Remembered seeing poster at International Guesthouse about the need to take good care of your porter. It says that if the porter is sick at higher altitude, one needs to accompany him down. I was quite intrigued to note that there was an association of porters to promote such awareness. Here's extract from my search for that association.

"A porter was paid one days wage and sent down alone after suffering severe altitude sickness in the Everest region. He was found in a state of collapse and brought to the Pheriche Aid Post, spent nine days in a coma, and had both feet partially amputated due to frostbite."

Sigh... why must one porter die because of someone's holiday.

Read more about the Porter assistance project here:
http://www.hec.org/club/properporter.htm

Another article about Plight of porters:
http://www.kantipuronline.com/artha.php?&nid=52648

Making my Photo Album

Liked the cat picture PTI posted...did we see it in Nepal?

Am putting together a photo album with daily fresh revelation/learning that we gained each day of our trip. So excited about it and am sure it will be very nice cos got award winning characters (that's us), solid photography(Egwin), breathtaking scenery and of course, my artistic eye..ha ha! Hope to get it ready as soon as possible so I can share with friends and colleagues. :)

days of nepal

we had our daily group photo taken so as to keep track of the days... we didn't care if it was mon or tues or the weekend. it was really great to be holidaying for 18 days. i had a slight fear though - that i prob wld be redundant by the time i returned to work. ;)

My Best Guesthouse

there's many stories here. we met Maoists here, we brushed our teeth together and caused a ruckus here. quite a happening tourist place here. we passed bakery with quite delicious looking cakes which daisy salivated before reaching guesthouse...



this is our room at Nice View Lodge. the guys reached the guesthouse first and when we reached, they were so excited about the place. telling us how nice this place was. indeed, i was truly delighted to see our cosy room, with windows overseeing wonderful scenery. i slept at the bed nearest to the windows. And that nite, i woke up in the middle of the nite and saw a skyful of stars. i didn't have to brave the cold at all to watch the stars. it was all there. truly memorable. too bad i can't capture stars on photo... but then, the beautiful things are meant to be just for that moment. :)


this room belongs to the guys. first time the guys had a table in their room. first time their room is bigger than ours. they usu have added bed to a already cramped two bed room. so, was a real treat for them.


This is the view taken from the guy's room. i Like how the window frame the view. It oversees the mountains from Dhawalagiri. their view is different from the gal's room. think ours have nicer view than theirs. ;)






scenic views from outside of guesthouse. this place marks almost the end of our trekking. we began mostly descending to Birethanthi. I started counting down to end of trek. So started savouring each moment of trekking and the guys had to wait longer for me. hehe.

Day 1 at the airport. It's the first picture we took for the trip. Someone said i look like phua chu kang in my timberland boots.



Last picture we took for the trip before boarding the plane. Was the fastest pic we ever took. we were not allowed to take picture at the plane site!

For the past one week, I have had at least 3 persons asking me everyday how was nepal. I always have the same answers: Awesome, Great, Amazing and Truly refreshing! As I begin to recount my experience to the 20th person today, I can feel the weariness, so much so that I just point them to this blog site and ask them to read for themselves...

What truly went through my mind is whether I would do something different from what I used to before the trip. Has the trip changed me or will it be just another "trip" several months down the road. Being human, we think more than doing. I remembered my church pastor once sited that inventors are inventors because they try, try and try again (until they suceed). I thought of what I can put to action to start "giving" which came upon me during the trip.

*Ta da*...I decided to start a fund raising project come December for Children on The Edge (a child play programme) at East Timor, it is a playscheme which I will be going in March 2006. I always thought of doing it but never put my foot down to do it. Maybe we can all do something different from what you used it, continue doing it and this will make our nepal trip everlasting and life changing....

brought a big smile to see entries from my team mates. PTI sld be blogging soon too. he deleted my first invitation, thinking it was spam... sigh!

i initially wanted a particular order for this blog. so, been manipulating the date of the entries. guess all the blog entries are gonna be in a mess now that i can't control the blogging of my team mates!

anywaes, i sld be figuring out the header html and it will make this blog look neater. do visit the site for more entries!

am real grateful that i had Excellent company during this nepal trip. enjoyed the company very much. know PTI/Kenny mentioned that the feeling is mutual when we were talking on our last day at the everest hotel room. we have grown to know each other during the trip and it won't had been so fun without each other. there were lotsa laughter and each of us contributed readily to make this trip wonderful in our own ways. i only remembered one unpleasant moment at Patan when we disagreed on wht to develop the pictures for Pasang at Nepal, but it dissipated very quickly and we were great friends again. quite wonderful that we had very good chemistry. Real glad that Tongling connected me to PTI for this trip. am real missing everyone! daisy was telling me that we sld go trekking together again!

wanted to make a 'thank you speech' to each earlier but having the acknowledgement on this blog may be more lasting and eternal. i really appreciate your contribution/company/friendship:

Kenny
thank you for being our leader. thank you for liaising with Deepak so that we had a wonderful package trip and that we have Pasang as our guide for the rest of our trip, thank you for yr 'siao kia' - you created lotsa laughter for us, we also want to thank you for buying us white wine to drink at pokhara, for paying at Yak and Yeti, for inspiring us to walk faster by setting the pace. you are really like our Papa! :) thank you too for driving us to Gurung Panti, to JB for dinner and yeah, more trips/wine to come? hehe.

Egwin
thank you for being our stylo professional photographer - by being on the other side of the camera, and whenever we need a pic, you will always readily volunteer and yup, we have beautiful pictures of this trip! thank god you found yr bag! thank you for holding the key to our deposit box for our passports and tickets, plus the Maoist receipt as well as the money for our guide and porters. know you indicated for daisy and i to be yr body guards but we know, you didn't need one! also, thank you for waiting for us gals at the back, walking with us when u cld be walking faster together with yr other half, kenny. Thank you too for the chlorine pills which kept our water safe to drink. Thank you for being our money lender, paying for our sweets when we were all dried up by the time we reach Patan.

PTI
thank you for being our information gatherer - know you are one of the very few singaporeans who dare to ask many questions. thank you for sharing stories about yrself, yr wife, yr nephews, etc. you showed that true love exist. thank you too for giving to the beggar, those children who 'carolled', for asking questions on how we can give a scholarship to Sanjay, and how else we can help. thank you too for taking pictures of flowers, morning sceneries, daisy and I along the snow trail - otherwise, we wld just had a walk up there and returned without the snow pictures, sending photo CD to my office - real grateful to receive photos earlier than the rest!, offering yr house for our sunday's get together!

Daisy
thank you for travelling with me these five years, thank you for yr handyplasts, sharing room with me, listening to me when i talk, sharing with me yr tots, giving me water when i need, reminding me of the things i hadn't pack, taking care of me, making prayers for us, for sitting next to me, for taking pictures of me, for yr candle fragrance and encouraging me during the trek!

it was my blessing to have gone on this trip. it's been a blasting experience.

Has long wanted to add to our dear blog site but am taking real long to get my engine started....

On our last day at Nepal, PTI asked us what has been the most memorable part of the trip and we quickly recollected parts of the trip which was experiential, heartaching, painful, scary, etc to ourselves. Alot of times, we travel or go on trips wanting to get something out of it - wonderful memories, gifts, photographs or merely a relaxing time.

This trip, personally, has been a trip full of giving. I am not the most generous and caring person around, but nepal really opened my eyes and heart towards the joy of giving. Shakit (forgot his name) for instance never hestitated to buy us tea when we are just sitting in his shop waiting for our friends. It also never occurred to me that we can give so much (e.g., buying and shopping for their clothes, financial assistance for their English lesson) and they meant something for them!

Back in Singapore when all is comfortable and fine, we tend to forget that there are people around that we can "give" too. I sincerely hope that this "tugging at my heart" feeling will stay, inspiring me to give in Singapore. This would be my best "take away" from Nepal.

we had such views when we trek. very pretty to me. there are many mountains and we were walking amidst the clouds sometimes. we crossed mountains after mountains. i like the terraces. there were wheat, malties, etc.

Fellowship of the Ring

me great pleasure to introduce the characters:

Frodo - Ng Chong Leong aka PTI
for carrying the ring. oh well, he's the only one with a ring amongst us. talks about his precious wife all the time. plus, he asks lotsa questions whenever there's any spaces in betw. his questions range from "which mountain is this" to "what is yr most memorable event today"?

Merry and Pippen - Kenny Tay and Egwin Law
hard to decide who is merry and pippen. so, you go figure. they are also known as our papa and mama, cos of Egwin's pregnancy. hehe. anyways, they are always having secret conversations. Kenny's the one who will break into chinese songs and Egwin's our official photographer. Very comical couple. They are like cartoon characters when they play.

Legolas - Daisy Tan
my best friend. the fan of legolas, or rather i sld say great fan of Legolas. she's the only one with long hair amongst us, the only resemblance of Legolas. she's got no arrows to shoot or bow to carry. Her only weapons are camera to shoot and water bag to quench my thirst. clear headed gal when we need her to do mathematics on our financial status.

Sam - Siew Mui
ha... last but not least, the eat alot; walk behind; carries the food Hobbit... ta-da! me... always in a daze and laggin behind with Anzana. i enjoy being at the back. i get to enjoy the sceneries and one time, i had 'huan yin huan yin' welcome at Chomrung after completing more than 1000 steps up.

Friends of the Fellowship

Our Guide - Pasang Sherpa
Pasang - our very obliging, obedient and quiet 33 year old, single and available Sherpa guide. (very easy for us to rem his name cos in chinese, Pasang means climb mountain.) He's got a brother who married Hongkong gal. Super nice man. He's either in front or at the back of the pack. takes short cuts sometimes... we will see him walking below us near the river and the next moment, he will be up on the hill with us. he can read papers while he trekked! guess we are too slow for him. he will pause and watch the scenery sometimes to give us lead time.

Our Assistant Guide - Book
Book's our assistant guide who's also our porter. His nepalese name means Book in English. So we call him Book all the time. PTI describes him as gentleman. yes, agree with him. Will best remember him for "What Happened?" - when he helped take photo for us and the camera didn't click when he pressed the button cos the timer was set. he's also our hero cos he carried daisy's and my day pack up to ABC. Daisy will be eternally grateful to him cos he helped opened the road for her so that she has a safe snow descend down to MBC.

Our Porters
- Sanjay
our very shy, cool and young porter. Guess he's got the Jay in his name so has similar traits as Jay Chou. Sang for us Pi Lee Lee in the van during our day tour at Pokhara, wearing funky yellow pullover sponsored by Egwin. Strong man who put in his best to carry our bags. We gave him our fellowship's English scholarship. hm... am looking fwd to receive his letter one day. :) He fell ill just before our last day of trekking. he had fever but still continued to carry our bags. glad he was better after taking panadol without any allergic reactions.

- Anzana
our super cute and funny Anzana, wife of Book. saved my life several occasions - esp when those donkeys were pushing me down the cliff while i was trying to capture pictures of Daisy and Egwin with the donkeys. She will usu walk behind or beside me, my companion when the rest deserted me. Strong lady who carried PTI's bag, always offering to carry my day pack when i seem tired. We were all impressed by her agility... she wore slippers. There were steep downhills, streams, algae slippery stone steps, and slow painful ascends which she managed while carrying PTI's backpack. We did a cheers thing with our coke bottles and she did with her tin cup.

Our Favourite Shops
- Agfa Photo Shop owner
he deserves to be listed here. Am touched by his friendliness. Daisy and I spent an hour with him after a tiring day walking around Thamel. we took refuge at his shop after shopping when the weather turned cold. Chatted with him while we waited for our photos. We were treated to delicious milk tea and he gave each of us a Tibet photo he took. he's been to Everest base camp k. shall await his arrival to Singapore next year.

- Pashimina Shop Owner at Pokhara
super fierce man who turned out to be quite friendly after all... we were all stunned when he started throwing all his pashiminas on the floor and asking us to choose the colours. He has long hair and was quite big size. Decided not to buy from him cos of his fierceness. But turned out, his shop gave very good price like what he claimed and he is actually quite a nice man after all. much friendlier on our second visit.

kathmandu city

view from 7th floor of everest hotel where we stayed. it's called everest hotel becos... it's the highest building in that city.

first picture is the corridor of a tea house. second pic is one of the 11 tea houses we stayed in. it's at Tolka. those blue and red items hanging on the clothesline are our ponchos and waterproof skirts we made to help keep our pants dry.
third pic is the first hotshower facility we had during trekking. belongs to Bamboo Lodge. one of the best tea houses we stayed in. there were electricity for lights in our room and that nite, we were treated to a cultural dance performance.

Our trek

each day was similar. shall do up the routine stuff here so i can go into more interesting stuff with photos (once i obtain them) in subsequent postings...

6am - wakie, brush teeth and get changed to trekking gear
usu takes me a long time to wear my boots. PTI says part of his routine is that he will waterproof his boots by putting on plastic bags on his feet before he wears his boots. to prevent leech too.

6 plus am - order breakfast and do packing
and i do some stretching exercise while waiting for breakfast or after breakfast. egwin/kenny couple and daisy will say their prayers.

7am - breakfast
the Kenny/Egwin couple usu orders egg fried rice. subsequently, when we had more varieties of food, egwin will eat lotsa jam and honey while his partner will eat watever that's leftover. PTI who doesn't really eat a lot, will have his 3-in-1 tea sachet and Daisy will have her supplements after her breakfast. our meals are usu shared so we been tasting each other's saliva as well.

7plus am - after breakfast
finish our pack up, refill waterbottles (ensuring we have hot water) and porters will do the tying up of all our bags and start carrying our bags to our next destination.

8plus am- photo taking time!
we have our daily day photo before we set off. we will display the no of days with our fingers.
after photo, we set off... and it's usu uphill...

12noon - reach destination
we will all be tired and resting while we wait for lunch.

when food arrives, it's usu finished in very quick time and we'll be putting on our jackets when the sweat makes us cold. the porters eat separately from us.

1plus pm - set off again with jackets on
we'll then be taking it off when we are warmed up after 15 minutes. egwin can take off his clothes without stopping his steps. daisy and i usu stop while we keep our jackets. PTI doesn't take off his jacket - guess he's always cold. Kenny, hm... think he doesnt wear jacket when he treks... he's too in front of me for me to see...

4plus pm - reach teahouse!
our rest place for the nite. we'll take turns to shower. we had cold showers for first half of our trek. subsequently, after Daisy prayed for hot showers and we had it at Bamboo lodge, we had hot showers rest of the trek... except when once, daisy was last to shower and she had not so hot water to shower... hehe.

5plus pm - before dinner
unpack, write diary, rest and chat, order dinner. the couple will sing hymms separate from us. we'll also decide what and how to dry wet clothes and towel. egwin came up with ingenious way to dry our clothes with our body temperature. put them under the sleeping bag or in the sleeping bag if they aren't that wet. it works! daisy and PTI frequents the fireplace to dry their stuff, boots la, towels la and clothes. PTI's clothes had soot prints on it once! haha.

6pm - dinner
we have similar menu during the 18 days of trek. but not bad, we had banana pie first few days and spaghetti/pizza towards the last few days. And without fail, there's always potato in different forms - mashed, boiled or fried.

6plus pm - finish dinner
Kenny suggested we brush our teeth before playing cards during later part of our trek. so once at ghorepani, we brushed our teeth together. we caused a ruckus in the neighbourhood.

7 pm or earlier - Chor Tai Tee
chor tai tee was our fav hobby during the trek. Kenny sometimes provide nite time entertainment when he's into the mood. he's also our common enemy at Chor Tai Tee when he was undefeated on our first nite. we polished our skills and he now doesn't win all the time. haha.

9pm - bedtime
we'll go visit the toilet before going to bed. we'll also rem where we placed our torch light before we sleep so that we can find it sld we need it in the middle of the nite. kenny sleeps easily and usu snores within minutes of getting into bed. Egwin who usu sleeps next to kenny will kick him so he will stop snoring. PTI says he usu has hard time getting to sleep. Guess my room with Daisy is the least eventful, we sleep soundly.

(pls bear with poor layout... not familiar with HTML. shall fine tune layout when i figure out how to)

first picture - 3 strange 'scarecrows' in the wheat field.

second picture - no need to guess whose shadow...it's daisy who found her shadow artistic at chomrung.

third picture - me trying to be porter with empty basket at tadapani where we had lunch. we found the basket while waiting for our porters to finish their lunch. we walked steep uphill all the way to reach this place. many steps and turns. it was "how come haven't reach yet" and "why am i here?".

waterfalls

this is the first waterfall we saw tat was really splendid after walking thru 'stoneland'.


found a swing near the waterfall.





waterfall doesn't really look like one on photo.

finished my shower at this nice lodge guest house and was told that there's bad news. heard then that Maoists have arrived at the guest house and is demanding 1200 rupees from each of us. this was real unexpected as we didn't hear from Deepak when we met him in singapore. we were actually warned by Mr Yap at Chomrung earlier but he said if we meet the Maoists. never really tot we will meet them! anyways, we kept our cool and we discussed on how we can 'fight' the Maoists... Book/Pasang suggested that we negotiate for student rates. Daisy then tried to pose as student with a book from the lodge. ;) Pasang managed to bargain for reduction of price to 4800 rupees. so we paid four persons' fee instead of five persons'. this is the Maoist Receipt which we have to keep in case we meet Maoist again - we did when we descended from Poon Hill. Thank goodness we only need to pay one time fee. The Maoist returned again to our lodge for food from the lodge.

just feel that the Maoist marred the experience of beautiful Nepal. Hope something resolves soon.

Morning Sun rise view when we trekked up to ABC! Kenny ran all the way up. Egwin was second to reach. PTI walked with his hands on his ears as he didn't bring his cap. Daisy was too cold all the time but look at how smug she looks when it was time for photograph. I was behind and didn't see much. tried to walk on snow - slippery and tough, you gotta lift yr feet each time u went deep in. decided to take a rest lying on the snow. enjoyed the trail down. slided down at some parts - fun! just too bad i didn't have the chance to make snow man. shall await pictures of snowman which egwin took. yeah!

one of the thoughts which went through my mind was... so much stones! There were big ones, small ones, round, long, short, watever. I wld name Nepal, Stoneland. There was a place (i believe we were walking near the riverbed) which was just stones. the first picture you see are 'nice' steps constructed with stones 'ferried' up by porters.

we ate very little meat during our 11 days of trekking. Guess it was difficult to transport meat to reach those different parts of the mountains. Nearer to Ghorepani, we saw many donkeys transporting supplies. We have to give way to them. And first picture shows a flock of goats on their way to Pokhara from Ghorepani. Along the way, the goats will be sold to households.

Poon Hill - we started trekking from our Nice View Lodge at 4.30am to reach the peak to watch sunrise. Quite cloudy day so didn't see full sunrise. We waited for clouds to clear to take pictures. It was very cold while we waited. Egwin had to coax his camera batteries to work by warming them up in his pocket. The view there was splendid - had panoramic view of Annapurna Range

pokhara - town where we stayed in, before and after trekking. we stayed at Fish Tail Lodge, (located in the middle of Phewa Lake) which hosted Prince Charles when he visited Nepal. I find the lodge very unique, it has a platform ferry system to fetch guests from the lodge to the main town area, powered by the lodge staff. Very spacious room with white wooden chairs outside the room where guests can sit and enjoy the view of flowers around the lodge. We had buffet meals there - breakfast, lunch and dinner. the first pic is Anzana with the big bloom of flowers at the Lodge. Second pic was taken after we finished trekking. everyone looked energised during photo taking but we were all actually quite shagged out.