Have arrived safely in Kathmandu after a long and uncomfortable wait in the transfer lounge at Delhi airport.

Kathmandu is like nowhere I've ever seen before. It took me a while to work out I'm actually staying in Thamel, about 1km from the centre of Kathmandu. The streets are really narrow and it's a free for all between pedestrians, taxis, buses, motorbikes and rickshaws. When you're not being botherered by the traffic you have to fend off the thousands of street vendors selling all sorts of things from fake climbing and trekking goods, saris and pashminas, ghurka knives and hashish.

The trek up to Everest Base Camp was everything I hoped it would be and more. It's a place I've always wanted to go and I had to pinch myself several times throughout the trip to make sure I was really awake. The scenery is breathtaking, both in the mountains and the tree-lined valleys. When it was cloudy and the mountains were obscured the valleys and pastures could have been in the Alps or even parts of Wales and the Lake District (only nearly 4km higher up!). However, when the mountains were visible (which was most of the time due to the great weather) they seemed to go on forever.

The trek itself started off fairly easy and I'm thankful that I trained for it. On the way up it was great to hit altitude milestones as I'd never been higher that 3000m. Above 5000m I started to get mild altitude sickness which manifested itself as thumping headaches, blurred vision and exhaustion. The air at that altitude contains only 50% of the oxygen of that at sea level. This made the days that we went to Everest Base Camp (5364m) and Kala Patthar (5545m) really difficult, without factoring in the 5AM start, freezing temperatures before the sun was up or lack of food. I'm pleased to say that I made it up to both, but it was certainly the most challenging thing I've ever done and a lot harder than I expected it to be.

Unfortunately, you can't see Everest from Base Camp but we did get great views along the way. It's a massive chunk of rock and it's difficult to imagine that once you've made it all the way to Base Camp it's another 3.5km vertical distance to climb it. However, we did meet a Sherpa who has summited four times in the last six years and described it as a 'Yak Trail'. There's nothing much at Base Camp at this time of year - only two expeditions were there. Just a few tents, flags and lots of rubbish all over the place.

Now I'm back in Kathmandu it seems a million miles away from the mountains, the fresh air and peace and quiet. I am glad to be back to civilisation (if you can call it that) though, if only to enjoy the luxuries of a western toilet, hot shower, comfy bed and a shave! One hot shower in two weeks, and trekking in the same clothes day after day takes it's toll!