Elevation: 2149m to 2612m
Distance: 21.72km
Hiking duration: 11hr 52min
This was our first real hiking day, as the previous day was actually just spent in the car. We were all super excited! We finally got to start the real thing today and make some progress going to EBC. As we took the Jeep instead of the plane, our journey today was going to be extremely long as we started all the way at Kharikola. Some take 2 days just to hike to Phakding, but we were going to do it in 1 day. Hence we started our day very early at 6 am. We got up and had a quick breakfast at the lodge where we met a cute little boy who spoke English surprisingly well for his age!
For the first part of the hike, our guide, Thile Sherpa, actually secured a jeep ride for us. Thankfully, we had a short jeep ride to give us a boost for the long day. We hiked for about an hour more and he called another of his friends to give us a ride. We saved about 3 hours on foot by taking the rides.
And then our REAL journey started from here. Right from the get-go there was a path that was under maintenance. It seems that there was a landslide that just swept away a part of the road. But our guide deemed it safe enough to scramble across the remaining ledge there, and so we went ahead. From there, the trail is very peaceful. Full of trees and nature. the trail was quite busy as well, you could always see other hikers or groups of hikers either in front or behind you. We walked through several villages for about 5 hours and finally reached a town called Surke where we had our lunch.
The lunch was surprisingly delicious! w had fried rice, pasta and fried potatoes all with cheese on top and topped it off with a large pot of warming masala tea! We were surprised at how big the pot size was, it was basically a large thermos flask maybe 1 or 1.5L big. The price of the food and water here was unexpectedly expensive, with 1L water costing 200 NPR and the masala tea costing 1000 NPR for a medium pot. It was only later that we realised that the prices at smaller towns are more expensive as they do not get many visitors staying there and also this town was actually before the start of the standard EBC route starting from Lukla, hence they do not typically receive a lot of business. Nevertheless, this place was still a necessary stop for those who are taking this path to get to Phakding. I guess they have to charge higher prices to make up for the lack of customers passing through.
We took a long lunch break as we were quite tired already from the long walk here. We had packed a bit too much in our backpacks and it was starting to weigh on us. After an hour, we started our hike again continuing on to Phakding. Our route bypasses Lukla as it was not on the way from Kharikola to Phakding so we never actually got to see the world's most dangerous airport at this point. It was a long and tiring hike. M,uddy, with heavy 15kg backpacks. Luckily we were used to hiking long hours from training in Malaysian mountains.
Several hours later, our path merged with the path of the main EBC route at a town called Cheplung. The moment we were on the main path, it was very obvious. The buildings were more well-maintained, the paths were nicer and the shops were more westernized as well. It was a good sign to see that we have progressed so far and it meant that our journey will be coming to an end soon. Unfortunately, not as soon as we had hoped. In Nepal, the sun sets at around 5.50 pm. It was soon dark and we had to bring out our headlamps and continue our journey in the dark. We hiked for another hour in the dark and finally made it to Phakding at around 7 pm. Towards the end of the hike, our spirits were getting low and we were very hungry. Luckily we did not have to hike for very long in the dark.
Once we reached the lodge, we went straight to dinner! w had a feast that night to celebrate our first hike and getting back on track with the main EBC hike, we were finally in Phakding! we had pizza and momo and pasta and dahl baht and fried rice and soup! The rooms are also much bigger than our previous accommodations and they even had an attached toilet with a hot water shower! However, the hot water was limited and if it ran out, you had to pay 300 NPR for a gas heated shower which I did.
And so our first hiking day ended with our tummies full and refueled for tomorrow!
