Oy that trek was tough! Still we managed to complete it in 18 days and had a funny time doing it. Here's the low down

We left Kathmandu on the 22nd at 6am which was a tough one but we were told that we had better get used to early starts. The 6 hour bus ride was an adventure in itself with two breakdowns along the way. Worryingly the brakes stopped working just as we were going uphill but they got a few chocks under the wheels quickly. When we arrived in Jiri, our tour guide, Govinda, led us to our first hostel of the trip which was slightly spoiled by the fact that I trod in the biggest Cow s*** in the world and stunk the room out. Not pretty but a sign of things to come.As part of the trek we also hired a porter to carry our bags. Jevan was a likeable chap who had an unfortuante tendancy to break wind just as we were walking behind him. Alex and I quickly resolved to either walk in front or at least 10 paces behind.

The first 7 days involved trekking over high ridges and valleys and was pretty tiring but prettyawesome too. We also met the Maoists during this stage of the trek. Basically they collect donations from tourists to further the Communist party cause in Nepal. I was expecting stern looking Politburo officials. What we encountered was more Tooting Popular front with two happy village idiot chappies who took our 8 pound subs. Power to the people!

We made steady progress over the next week ascending above 3500m coupled with a few occasions of going Arse over head in typical Sharp style. Which made the others laugh. By this stage i'd begun to get a little fed up with our diet which consisted of Porridge in the morning and then Lentils and rice for lunch and dinner. I resolved to broaden my horizons here, but it was quite difficult in the remote countryside, but they did have Egg and Chips! What a taste of home.

On the whole most the accomodation in the hills was pretty standard being clean and friendly. Our only exception to this was a place called Choplung. Despite looking nice from the outside, the lodge was crap, with no fire and really bad food. I also managed to walk in a on girl in the loo as she was puling up her pants. She screamed as best she could with a torch in her mouth at which point I closed the door and ran back to our room. Alex and I laughed like the schoolchildren that we are. Thankfully I didn't see the woman again during our stay With that embarrasemnt behind me, we tried to go to sleep but were kept awake by the rats runnig through the walls and over the ceiling above us. Not a nice place.

Luckily the other lodges were much better and with that experience behind us, we ascended higher. We also met more people as we went further along as you can cut half the trek out by flying from Kathmandu. We thought this was cheating though and we felt better about ourselves that we had done it properly.

Our destination was Kala Patar which offers brilliant views of Everest. Our climbs gradually got slower as the altitude kicked in but luckily we didn't suffer any altitude sickness. We got to Kala Patar on day 16 and weren't disapointed. All I can say is that Everest is spectacular and it was worth the time and effort to get there. We spent 20 mintutes at the top of Kala Patar just taking inthe views and taking pictures. It was bloody cold though so we made a quick descent. We decided that after 16 days we wanted top get back to Kayhmandu pretty quickly. Mainly so we coud have hot showers and more intersting food. We managed to Descend pretty quickly and got back to Lukla (which is whre you fly back to KTM) in two days. We maet up with Sarah (another trekker we met along the way) at our guest house and In honour of finishing the trek, Alex, Sarah I went out and found an Irish bar (they have them everywhere dont they?) and had quite a few beers. We also managed to get thrashed at pool by the bar owners 9 year old son which was a little embarrasing but what the hell.

So after 18 days, 3 showers, long tiring days, dull food, farting porters and a dodgy guest house, was it worth it? Definately.

If don't blog before the 25th, have a wicked Christmas. Mum and Dad, i'll call you on Christmas day.

Take care mon amis

Will