Phakding- 2600m

• Position: 27°44'36.2"N 86°42'46.2"E (Phakding)
• Altitude: 2633m (8600ft)
• Fitbit: 23,000 steps
• Tiredness: Ok!

Ok, first day of trekking completed! Whooo!

Really getting to know the people on the trek, our lead guide Prem, our secondary guides Manee and Dawa. 

Our porters, 6 of them, I've yet to properly learn their names (I have rough approximations) and definitely not learned how to spell them! They disappear on ahead, so we don't get much of a chance to talk to them.

In our merry group of travels, aside from the guides and porters, there are 12 of us:

• Jonathon, who's been my bunky for last night and tonight,
• Amanda and her partner Adam,
• Taylor,
• Adam,
• Holly,
• Liam,
• Ann,
• Amanda (another one)
• Stephan,
• and finally Andrew.

Just thinking about it... there are a lot of names starting with "A". I'm sure there's something significant about that.

We have better group shots, but of course they are on others cellphones. We all intend to share the photos when we get back to real wifi places.

They are all really interesting people and I've started learning about them.

The trek started from Lukla (see previous post on the amazing landing), at 2800m. We had a big breakfast and set off on our 3 hour trek to Phakding (it was sort of 6, given stops for lunch, shopping, and a few breaks. 

Towards the end of the hike for today there were a tall series of steps, and they were really the killer for me. I had no problems with the slopes upward, but stairs seem to be very annoying. I got out the walking poles and set them for stair climbing, that made a significant difference.

We arrive in Phakding around 3:30pm, and took our rest. I chose to do some warm down stretching, then redo my kit bags, moving stuff from one to the other. They were mostly good, but I missed a few things I'd have preferred to be carrying.

Dinner was good, there's still western food on the menu, but it's getting less. I went with Vege MoMos, which were like Dumplings. Despite having done some decent exercise, I wasn't hungry - though water is a problem, I'm not drinking enough - that is something I must change. 

I'm using the iodine tablets which I was told had a bag taste, but it seems reasonable - more like water that "tastes funny". 

I managed to pickup a patch in one of the villages as we went through and after dinner I did some sewing (yup, I brought a needle and thread).

Sleep time now!

OMG ITS HAPPENING!

This morning was a nice wake up at 0425, at the lobby by 0445h. The atmosphere was one of anticipation / muted excitement. We knew it was happening today, but it hadn't really set in. The ride to the airport as bumpy as I've come to expect, though even at 0500 some traffic was starting to form.

The airport was almost exactly like every other airport (see my previous musing on the drawing flow of airports). Initially the flight was delayed as it was cloud, but it was only 15 minutes before we were being rushed to the plane. Literally, run to the plane. They are really serious about getting us up in the air as fast as possible. This is because the weather in Lukla can change very quickly, and it had been effectively closed the past few days due to cloud. 

Once we got into the air, it started to get real, as the flight went on we all became more and more exicited, lots of photos were taken. The anticipation was really strong.

The mountains were above us, but we were only a few hundred feet off the ground, nowhere near the runway.

The landing was amazing! You have now idea, I've seen the videos, I've read the stories, but my God, it's amazing. You think you're approaching steep nose down... you're not, the runway races up to meet you at about the same angel as you meet it. The runway slopes up, and there is a big brick wall at the end of the ludicrously short runway. There's a reason they call it the most dangerous airport in the world!

For the pilots it is of course a daily job, but for everyone else, it was fantastic!

We were all giddy with excitement when we got to our briefing. There was nothing muted about any of the emotions!