New Blog for ongoing adventures....

The adventure continues! We are now here http://karlandkaranotantarctica.blogspot.ca/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bhutan

Image
Bhutan. Fan-bloody-tastic. The country with an official measure of Gross National Happiness has made me immensely happy. Started with a great flight out of Kathmandu (once we managed to extract ourselves from Kathmandu airport, no mean feat), in smallish plane (think Aer Arannn or Qantaslink) with a lowish cruising altitude so we were below-but-felt-level-with a broad sweep of the Himalayan range including Everest for most of the trip. Played “guess which one is Everest” and regretted not having done more research.   Had a hint that Bhutan was maybe going to be civilised when we managed to get a snack and a glass of wine on the hour long flight. Then came a very interesting landing, we got lower and lower among the hills and along the valleys, then another bank/turn, then lower and lower, another swoop/wobble/adjustment, lower still, surely touchdown will be any moment, another turn/adjustment. There was about one metre of stabilised approach before landi...
Read more

Everest Base Camp Trek

Image
Flew to Lukla to begin our (final....sniffle) trek to the Everest Base Camp. Exciting flight in a little-ittle plane onto a little-ittle runway on the side of a mountain. Grateful for the sight of a runway having emerged from a nervous few moments passing through cloud. To quote a Nepali pilot "you don't fly into cloud because in Nepal there are rocks in the clouds". Had arranged to spend a couple of days here before the start of the trek because the flights can be delayed due to weather. Not a whole lot to do in Lukla, a little village that basically exists to serve the airport and arriving tourists. Spent quite a lot of time watching planes come and go on the short and sloping runway, giving marks out of 10 for style and noting which airlines not to fly with. Interesting wee slope on the runway. Planespotter O'Neill, camera in hand. Much like launching chicks from the nest - you either take flight or fall off the edge of the mountain.  Also...
Read more

Ladakh Trek

Image
Ladakh Trek: Lamayuru to Chilling. So we set out (somewhat tentatively) on our first trek. Just the two of us setting off for a simple walk in the valleys. With our guide. And our cook. And our horseman. And six horses. We were sitting enjoying a final beer in the village where we were starting the trek and saw a horse wander by with a bell around its neck going “dingly dingly dingly”, then another horse, and another etc. etc. dingly dingly dingly in the middle of a very small and quiet village. The major event of the day I'd say. Then we noticed that they were all led into our campsite. That's when it dawned on us that they were our horses. Ah the embarrassment of the white, colonial, ruling classes setting off on some crazy expedition. And to make it worse we were drinking outrageously overpriced beer stamped with “Possession by other than defence personnel is punishable”. Travelling light Fabulous trek. Five days walking, six nights in a tent, wonde...
Read more