Kangchenjunga trekking

13-12-2012

Day 1 of the Kangchenjunga trekking: from Deorali to Porter Lodge in Simbu

31-10 Jeep ride and start of the first day of the trekking.

The next day we went on to Taplejung. Yesterday the driver frequently hung out of his window to check the rear tyre and today he decided to change it.

On the bus I met an interesting Nepali guy who was traveling to make a documentary about the role of the mother in the Nepali culture. He was also going in the same direction to Kangchenjunga. He started talking to me because of my Che Guevara cap and told me that he was a fan of Che. So we started talking about socialism and how social the people from Nepal are and the differences between Nepali and Western culture. He was very interested to know how the Western world works because next year he will start studying in London. His stories about Che and quotes of the movie 'Seven years in Tibet' kept me amused during the endless ride on the bus. Local transport can sometimes be rough but is the best way to learn about the people and culture and we all enjoyed it.

After 30 hours we finally arrived at Taplejung and we had a nice lunch. Here our guide decided we shold go the last bit to Deorali by jeep.

The jeep took us about 6 kilomiters from Taplejung, passing the airstrip from Suketar on the way. The jeep ride was as comfortable as always. The track was full of dry, hard mud so the jeep was shaking a lot. On some parts there was a lot of dust on the track so we had to close the window and it got pretty hot. But at least the view was really nice and a few times we could see the white peaks of the Kangchenjunga (8586m) and Jannu (7710m).

We finished our jeep ride in Deorali from where we could start the trek and walked up to Kesawa. It was a hot but great to walk through a green environment, we got some views and experienced some silence around us.

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