Monday 8 October 2017

This was the part that I was the most nervous about. Our plane took 16 people. I have to say the take off and landing was perfect. It was actually a bit of an anticlimax but I tell you something, these pilots have some serious skills! The views from the plane were stunning and gave me a belly full of excitement. Lukla airport is a slick operation, as you get off the plane there is a queue of people waiting to get on. They literally stop one prop on the plane, so never mind your eyebrows you need to watch you don’t get yer block knocked off. One of our group had his hat blown off, but it was retrieved. All of our group of 14 plus some extras were on the same plane but 4 of our bags were on a different plane, so we had to wait about an hour for these.

It was no great shakes and gave us time to get ourselves sorted, get some group photos and meet our yaks and yak Ladies. Don’t let anything I have mentioned about this flight put you off it is a little daunting but 100% worth it!

We walked for 6 hrs and 13 mins (don’t forget the 13 mins) 15.5k ending up at Manju, where we stopped for lunch. We were all shattered but refilled and watched the yaks and mules go by, we also saw our yaks go passed with our bags.

There were a few bridges that we walked over. The first was a little squeaky bum but the views were amazing, this was just the beginning of our daily landscape. Most of the bridges were over the river which was running with rapid glacier melt water. When you are walking across the bridges you if you looked either up or down the river the views of the valleys drew you into its beauty. The weather today was hotter than expected and I wish I’d had my shorts on. As we were walking for longer than expected we nearly ran out of water. We bought some on the way and used our Steripen. Arriving at our tea house in Manju I can honestly say I think I had the best sleep of my life, think I was exhausted and the altitude had not properly kicked in yet.