Flight to Kathmandu
This was our first time in Kathmandu, so we had no idea what to expect other than what we had seen online. Our flights landed at around 9 pm at the airport. The airport was quite basic, with just a few counters for immigration and maybe 1 or 2 food shops, no fancy lounges, restaurants or shops. We had submitted our visa application online, so we only had to pay the USD50 fee for the 30-day visa. They accepted cash in various currencies (USD, JPY, AUD, EUR, even SGD and many others). Once we made the payment, simply show the receipt to the immigration officer and we have cleared the customs!
We got our SIM cards at the Kathmandu airport as it was reasonably priced. 1000NPR for 29 days, 25GB data plan. Then headed out where our driver picked us up to the hotel just a 20-minute drive away. We stayed at Aryatara Kathmandu Hotel. We were hungry from the long flights, so we eagerly ordered the famous momo dumplings we had heard so much about.
And so we had our first momo experience of the trip! As a Chinese guy who has had a fair share of dumplings, these are actually pretty good! Very similar to Chinese dumplings, except that the skin is of a more gelatinous texture. The sauce that they gave really stood out, it tastes like a mix of hummus and mustard. Anyway, after dinner, we quickly went to sleep.
Day 0 - Kathmandu
We woke up the next day fresh and ready for our trip preparation. Today we had 2 tasks:
Meet our guide
Shop for some -20 degC winter clothing
We got up and had a good breakfast at the hotel restaurant. They had a simple buffet spread with macaroni, scrambled eggs, baked beans, fried mushrooms and more! After that, our guide met us at the hotel entrance and brought us to their office about 5 5-minute walk from the hotel. There, we met Mr Prakash, whom we had before this only conversed through email and WhatsApp. He was also the organiser of all our hiking and climbing in Nepal. We settled some of the balance payments and made some changes to our plan. We initially planned to do the Gokyo and EBC portion of the trek unguided, but after some reconsideration, we decided to hire a guide with us for a more enjoyable hike and peace of mind as we were here for the first time.
We then followed our guide, Thile Sherpa, to a money changer he recommended changing all our SGD into Nepalese Rupees. There were many money changers scattered all around the Thamel area and they all gave similar exchange rates. The rates seem to be updated halfway through the day.
While talking to Thile, we discovered he had been part of Everest expeditions 15 times and summited 3 times! He only stopped going to Everest recently as he believed it was too dangerous to go many times as one of his close friends had, sadly, passed away recently on an 8000m. He had also summited Island Peak 29 times and just returned from a trip about a week ago. Knowing all that, we had the utmost confidence in him leading us up to Island Peak.
After finishing up at the money changer, we said goodbye to Thile. We went on our way to shop for a thick down jacket. From our previous treks, we already had all the equipment w needed, trekking pants, boots, down jackets, waterproof outer shells and others. The only things we were missing was a good downjacket and a good warm head wear that can take us to -20 or -30 degC temperatures. We walked and shopped around for almost the whole day and finally got our goods and headed back to the hotel.
As we were ending our shopping, we received a call from Prakash for a meeting regarding our arrangements, so we went back to meet him at our hotel. We were all anxious about what he had to tell us to warrant such a last-minute meeting.
Some background: The EBC hike starts from Lukla. Usually, people take a 30-minute flight from Kathmandu to Lukla, but sometimes the Kathmandu airport is too busy and the flights start from Ramechapp which is about a 6-hour drive from Kathmandu. We were planning to take a morning van ride to Ramechapp and fly to Lukla on this trip.
He broke to us some bad news. Due to the recent bad weather, all flights from Ramechapp to Lukla had been cancelled and there was a backlog of 4 days of hikers waiting at the airport for their flights to Lukla and it seems unlikely that we would be able to fly tomorrow. He gave us 2 choices:
Wait at Ramechapp and hope that the weather is clear for us to fly.
Take a Jeep ride all the way to Kharikola and start hiking from there. Increasing our total hiking days by 1.
There wasn't much of a choice between the 2. From the way he told us, it was pretty clear that there would be no flights in the coming days and that option 2 was our only option. We chose to take the Jeep and refunded our plane tickets. Prakash then treated us to a traditional Nepalese dinner at a nice restaurant nearby. After dinner, we promptly went to sleep and prepare for the long long Jeep ride ahead.
Arriving at Kathmandu