TREK DAY 1

The day started early at 5 AM. A few in the group were excited but for me my mood was still sombre and unsure of what lay ahead. After a hearty breakfast we proceeded to the Tribhuvan Airport (Kathmandu Airport). It was a mad rush at the Airport with a whole lot of trekkers taking the flight to their trek destinations.

People who need to go to Everest Base Camp (EBC) trek have to take the flight to Lukla (Considered to be one of the most scariest airports in the world). We needed to proceed to Pokhara a quaint town in north central Nepal from where our trek begins. The tickets had been booked on Budha Airlines. It was a pleasant 25 Mins flight with a great panoramic view of the snow capped mountains visible all through the journey. We had a wonderful stewardess who explained the various snow capped peaks including the Manaslu, the 8th highest peak in the world and Dhaulagiri (the 7th highest).

Pokhara Airport is one of the smallest airport I have ever seen in the world though the town was not as small as I had envisaged. We had some time to kill before lunch and so we had a walk around the Pokhara lake and a wee bit of shopping as well before we sat down and had a hearty lunch.

The ordeal started after lunch when we had to travel an hour by a van to a place called Khande where our trek began. Once we reached the disembarkation point and was shown our camp high on top of a hill i lost all my breath to a point that I was reluctant to step out of the vehicle. I needed a lot of cajoling to step out of the vehicle. I still shudder at the thought of my first view of the hill which was pretty steep.

The luggages were handed over to the Nepali porters who accompanied us all through our trek. We were also introduced to our trek guides, fantastic blokes to whom we will be ever grateful for the success of the trek. We were informed to carry only our back packs and that the hike was only for 2 hours being the first day and that we needed to reach the camp called "Australian camp" before sunset.

The group started the trek around 4 PM and within a short time I was breathless due to the uphill walk among the greenery and at that point of time I was cursing myself for this adventure. My walk was very slow and I was one of the last in the group. I had to stop for a water break every 10 - 15 minutes and felt the route never ending.

With a lot of panting and cursing i reached the hill top around 6 PM a whole hour behind my trek group. We had reached an altitude of around 1700 Mts on day 1. I was welcomed with a glass of hot lemonade which was a great refresher. The weather was chilly with great views of the snow covered peaks from the camp site.

After a hot shower we started interacting with the fellow trekkers and guides. We were a group of 11 people, the youngest being Vikram aged 22 to the oldest being Shiela at 52 (not the weakest by any standards though), there were two couples, one being me and Raji and the other were Gautham and Madhushalini. Asha, an English Professor from Coimbatore, Preethi, Kamini, Rajkumar and our organiser Arjan. We also got to know our guides heralded by Arjun. It was a great group !!

The camp sites were known as Teahouses on this trek route and thanks to these tea houses we never needed tents. The tea houses were very well equipped and in fact we had twin room accomodation with attached baths. At that point of time we never knew that they were a luxury. The dinner was good and retired to our rooms early to soothe our aching body.