On the Saturday we met our group of 16 and tour leader called Santosh who is Nepalise. Sadly Suhanya was not the token asian on the tour, there was a Srilankan guy called Salim who is 21 and went to Bristol Uni, he is also a "coconut" like Suhanya - lol. that evening we went out to dinner with some of the group to a restaurant called Rum doodle. People who have been to the summit of Everest get to eat there for free for life!

The following day we went on a walking tour of Kathmandu and went to see the Monkey temple. It was up a big hill with an amazing view of the city. There were loads of monkeys jumping around too. We went to the house of the Kumari, it is a newari/nepalise girl who is selected to be a goddess from the age of 3 - puberty. They have to have 32 physical characteristics. One of the selecting procedures is where they scare the girls and the one who is least scared wins - mental. The chosen girl is carried everywhere and her friends and family visit her in her special house.

Later that day we packed out trekking things and mentally prepared ourselves for the coming weeks of trekking.

On the Monday we set off from Kathmandu at 6am and flew to Lukla in a mini twin engine with amazing views of Everest and other mountains. When we arrived in Lukla we were greeted by our sherpa guides and porters. The porters carried our main bags and the sherpa guides walked with us - Lhukpa, Prakash and Dil. We had a 3hr trek to our first teahouse at Phakding (2,600m). After lunch we went for a walk to a bridge and had our first encounter with a cow/yak halfway across the bridge so had to turn back and let it pass. That evening while we were waiting for our dinner we watched an Everest film about Edmund hillary and his trip to the summit. It was meant to be encouraging instead it made us more scared and worried about the trek.

The next day we had a 6hr trek to Namche Bazaar (3,440m). This was a really hard day due to the 800m hike up! After lunch we had a massive 500m on a full stomach - not fun! We stayed at Namche for 2 nights as the following day was our acclimiatisation day which involved a 400m hike up and down. We took a trip to the trekking museum which was really interesting. We had our first few views of Everest too! The best part of Namche was the "cheap"chocolate we went slightly made and bought 4 pound worth of chocolate each, our tour leader told us it was great trekking food especially at higher altiudes so we just took his advice.

The next day we trekked to Tengboche (3,860m) and went to a Buddhist monestary which was really unusual and interesting, the monks were chanting and praying. They had loads of ceremonies, we had no clue what was going on but we were fascinated by it all. It was really cold by now and we had to wear several layers in the evening, getting into our sleeping bag and out was our biggest fear of the day, however we had a view of everest which was amazing. That evening we had to wait hrs for our food and everyone was just sitting there in silence at one point hoping each time the door opened it would be our food! Trekking made us starving and the best food to fill our stomachs was Dal Bhat. It consisted of rice, dhal and a vegetable curry and the best part of all was that you can have as much as you like so Suhanya always made sure she got seconds - yummy food mmmm.

We trekked to Dingboche the next day (4,300m). We stayed at this teahouse for 2 nights. We had a shower the next day in a metal shed which had pebbles and a granite stone on the floor. Hot water was put into a bucket above the shed and it came through a shower head very hot and with reasonable power.

Lobuche was our next port of call (4,900m), this was pretty hard due to the altitude and some of the members were experiencing symptoms of altitude sickness like headaches , nausea, lask of appetite and insomnia. Luckily we were feeling alright. We saw a memorial for people who died up Everest. The higher up we went the harder it was to find a toilet so some of us on the tour known us the "wee" team (Heather, Nicola and Suhanya) had to find mahoosive rocks. The toilets standard of toilets in general were interesting. The worst were the planks of wood in a wooden shed where everything was visible. Then it would be squat toilets where you couldnt flush. The best ones were western toilets where you could put toilet tissue down and be able to sit down and then flush but these were very rare.

We started off trekking to Gorakshep at 7am (5,100m) this would be the highest place we would sleep and most people cannot sleep this night, however for Suhanya it was her best night sleep and Nicole slept alright. Nicole's water had frozen overnight though! It was -4.5C in the room. Afetr lunch we walked to Base camp it was really knackering and long. It was a 5hr round trip and the oxygen level made it harder to walk. When we arrived 2 guys from the tour Mark and Salim decided to take photos in their boxers, so Suhanya and Nicola were the photographers. It was soo funny and due to the laughing we both had throbbing headaches, normally people get headaches from the altitude not from laughing!Nicole and I made prayer flags out of Suhanya's Machino white T-shirt from Harrods and tied it to some rocks at Base camp. We were soo happy to have made it and Santosh gave us hugs when we got there and the sherpa congratulated us!

There was an option the next day to walk up to Kalapatar (5,600m) Nicole decided to stay back and throw up (this is a common altitude sickness symptom but she was fine) while Suhanya joined a few of the others to trek up. It was flipping freezing and Suhanya didnt have proper gloves, she walked up half way to take photos of Everest and then walked back down as didn't want to lose any limbs on the trip! Only 6/16 people from the tour made it to the top. When Suhanya got back we walked back down to Loboche and had lunch. Then trekked down further to Periche (4,400m) all alitutde sickness symptoms were over! woohoo!

The following day we walked to Namche, this was the first day of bad weather, on the way back we had to walk through clouds and in the rain. Nicole and Steve got parted from the sherpas and the rest of the group. After checking the time we realised we should have been back to Namche already. Visibility was down to 20m and we only saw a few Yaks. Still we figured that if we kept going we would get somewhere sometime. Luckily singing helped us along and we eventually found our way back! Suhanya was walking with Heather, Mark and Nicola and it got to a point where we started to list the things we did not like anymore in the himalayas - rara noodle, tibetan bread, undulating, hash browns and fried egg!

That evening we went to the pub and played pool with the sherpa's. Suhanya teamed up with Lhukpa and beat Mark and Nicola, Suhanya even managed to get 3/4 balls in however Nicole didn't manage to put any down to the pool table being on a "slant". It was a late night for us and didn't get back to our teahouse till 11.30pm. When we arrived we were locked out, Steve had to climb over the gate to let us in, there was a cow on the other side which nearly escaped too.

We had the following morning off to relax so Suhanya, Nicole and Salim decided to do a bakery crawl in the village. For breakfast Suhanya had a cinnoman roll followed by a chocolate danish and then a big slice of chocolate cake. mmmmm. Nicole was slightly sensible and had an apple strudel and a slice of chocolate cake. The walk down to Monjo (2,800m) was pretty hard for Suhanya due to the sugar headaches - woops.

On the Friday, last day of trekking we walked to Lukla. It was very undulating (one of the words we no longer want to hear again!!). When we reached the top we were all soo happy and relieved! It was time to party that evening. When we arrived at the teahouse we were surprised with rooms with en-suites and hot showers and nice bedding. As it had been 12 days since Suhanya had washed her hair she decided that it was needed to have a good scrubbing and the en-suite was a clear sign.

It was Halloween and as a present Santosh gave Suhanya a pumpkin to carve. She was very excited and happy! The sherpas and Santosh had never seena carved pumpkin so they loved it! It was nice to be able to celebrate Halloween even though we were in Nepal. The porters joined us for dinner and later on they treated us to a singing and dancing show; which we joined in with. Then we moved down to the bar/club to chill. They played Prodigy so Nicole and Suhanya decided it was time for crazy dancing even though our legs were heavy and achey.

On the Saturday it was really sad as we had to say bye to the sherpas. Suhanya had a soft spot for Lhakpa and was very sad to say bye to him. The flight back to Kathmandu was filled with amazing views again and it was nice to back to civilisation!

We all went out for a meal in the evening and wrote on a big cardboard cut out of a foot at Rum doodle. It's traditional for trekkers to sign and leave this momento on the wall at the restaurant.

On monday Nicole and Salim had to make a trip to the Dr.'s. Annoyingl at GorekShep Nicole woke up not being able to see properly out of her left eye (there's a blind spot in the middle of my vision!). The Dr. sent her off to an eye Dr. who said that she had a haemorraged blood vessel in her eye from the high altitude. This happens to 35% of people who go over 4000m but mostly it doesn't happen in a part of there eye that affects vision. In 3 months Nicole will know whether her eye will ever be able to heal properly, in the mean time she isn't allowed to scuba dive, bungee jump or sky dive which is very upsetting.

On tuesday we got our flight to Singapore.