Annapurna Base Camp 8-22 Dec 2018

An adventure trip of adventures...

ABC 8-22 Dec 2018

There is always a tour of duty when it comes to most anything, trekking in the Himalayan ranges not withstanding.  Annapurna Base Camp is just one of those commonly trekked parts. It makes no sense for us not to trek ABC before we progress further.

And boy was I pleasantly surprised and happy to have on board with our small group, Jacalyn Chung, our good cycling kaki, and Shu Ning, Fann’s best friend; not to mention Nicole, who finally managed to find the time to join the Wong family for this trip, to experience together all the emotional roller coasters - serenity, exuberance, suffering, pain, fear and more that the mountains invariably served.

Everest Base Camp Trek Part 7 ~ Back to Kathmandu for R&R

Part 7 ~ Kathmandu at last.  And a lovely tour of Swayambunath Temple.

Swayambaunath Temple, Kathmandu.

Somehow, connections of the boss of Namaste Lodge gotten us a second flight out of Lukla despite the huge backlog of passengers from a whole day of delayed flights.  Those of us on the second flight managed to make it back to Kathmandu early.  But the other half of our group who were scheduled for the third flight were delayed and left on cold Lukla for another four hours because of poor weather in both Lukla and Kathmandu.

A Family's Trekking Travellogue to Nepal ~ Day 8

Day 8 .. flying back to Kathmandu

No surprise.
Often in Nepal, when the weather turned bad, the planes get delayed.
And our flight back to Kathmandu from Pokhara was no exception.
The morning visibility at 9am was like that... couldn't fly.

A Family's Trekking Travellogue to Nepal ~ Day 4

Day 4 - The second day of trekking

6:30am. I took this shot out of my window.
The sun was just about rising.
Another new day. Another new adventure.

A Family's Trekking Travellogue to Nepal ~ Day 2

Day 2 morning!

Sleep came easy for most of us.
And we woke to a cooooold morning.
Looking forward to a nice flight to Pokhara, was my Rudy Project and my newly-acquired Nepali topi..

A Family's Trekking Travellogue to Nepal ~ Day 1

^Prologue

Serene and I did our first Nepal trek in March 2011 to Lukla and Namche Bazaar.
But recently, a family of my patients went trekking to Lantang, with young adults children.
And when finally, a few weeks ago, a good friend of mine Gerard brought his 10 year old son to Pokhara for trekking, I was totally inspired.
And we decided to bring all our 5 children, age ranging from 12 years to 24 years, for their first real trek in Nepal.

Everest Panorama Trek ~ Day 10. Bye Bye Nepal.

T R A V E L O G U E

Day 10: Bye Bye, Nepal...



It was not without a sense of unbearable yearning for the thin air up in the mountains, that we made our way to Kathmandu's Tribhuvan Airport for our final flight back home to Singapore. From the look of all the trekking poles sticking out of every one's backpack, it seemed that every single one of us in the team was keeping his and her poles, either for memory's sake, or for future use back here in this lovely country.

Everest Panorama Trek ~ Day 9. Flying back from Lukla to Kathmandu

T R A V E L O G U E

Day 9: Back to the yellow waters and congested air of the city...

Whatever was the case, a great trek must come to an end. As we all sat down for a very early breakfast in Namaste Lodge, in several of our hearts, the seeds for a repeat trip were sowed. Perhaps some would describe this trek as a love-hate relationship, and others would see it as simply exhilarating a break from the monotony of city-living. But what I saw that morning sitting on my breakfast table was a unique specimen of expanded dough called Tibetan bread. Hmmm... Sherpa-ian Tibetan bread, I told myself.

Everest Panorama Trek ~ Day 6. Phakding to Namche Bazaar.

T R A V E L O G U E

Day 6: Phakding to Namche Bazaar... Siong ah...

Adrian told us the night before:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, tomorrow is the toughest trek on the whole trail. Our trek would take us from 6 to 8 hours and we will be doing plenty of ascending an descending. Ultimately we will gain in altitude from where we are at 2600m here at Phakding to 3440m at Namche Bazaar. The last stretch of the trek before we hit Namche Bazaar will be the killer - it will be a non-stop zig zag climb all the way up to the end. So I want you all to sleep early tonight and rest well.
Fall in at the parade square at 6:30am for breakfast!"

Rest well we did. And an early rise we had.
SgTrekker would of course show their customers the beautiful, neat and attractive photos of the lodge rooms. Keke... Let me show our audiences how the REAL room looked like.
Simple. Basic. Cold.

Everest Panorama Trek ~ Day 5. Lukla to Phakding

T R A V E L O G U E

Day 5 - Kathmandu to Lukla

After so many days of suspension, even the most excited traveller also will become sian-one-half liao already, that is if we really still fail to fly on Day 5.
Thus, on this day we all Fell-in, dumped our luggage, dropped ourselves onto the bus seats, waited at the Kathmandu domestic airport, and just hoped for the best.

Everest Panorama Trek ~ Day 4 Kathmandu STILL...

T R A V E L O G U E

Day 4 - Our Third Attempt at Flying to Lukla...

It was Day 4.
And after two unsuccessful attempts at flying to Lukla on the previous couple of days, we have become numbed to the process.
Waking up at 5:30am to dump our luggage at the hotel lobby at 6:15am to hit the Kathmandu Domestic airport at 7am to catch the flight at 7:30am had become a routine that everyone could execute without Adrian or Melvin uttering another word.
So here we were, on this fateful Day 4 of our trip, on our third attempt at flying to Lukla...

Everest Panorama Trek ~ Day 3. Kathmandu Holi Festival, Durbar Square & The Kumari

T R A V E L O G U E

Day 3 - Our Attempt at Flying to Lukla, again...

The next morning, on Day 3, we bravely heaved our heavy bodies and luggage out of our room and made our way to Kathmandu Domestic Airport to give ourselves another chance at Lukla Airport.

"This time round, I am sure we can take off and land successfully at Lukla," I thought quietly to myself.

Everest Panorama Trek ~ Day 2. Kathmandu Baktapur.

T R A V E L O G U E

Day 2 - Our Attempt at Flying to Lukla Airport...


We must give the credit to this team of 24 participants (plus Adrian and Melvin, it will make up a total of 26.), because no one was late for the morning lobby meeting.
At 6:15am, all the backpacks were all guai-guai lined up in front of the reception counter.
And rubbing our sleepy eyes, we were all ready to risk our lives for that run down to Luka Airport's ultra-short runway.

Everest Panorama Trek ~ Day 1. Singapore to Kathmandu, and Swayambunath Temple.

Travellogue: Kathmandu welcomed us...

The orginal ClubSNAP thread is here...

Day 1 - Singapore to Kathmandu


The day started off just like many other SgTrekker trips with an inhumanely early reporting at Changi Airport at 6am.
Just like any other SgTrekker trips. It was a meeting of friends - old and new - with a single unified passion in photography. The only difference is, this time this pack of enthusiastic travellers included a group of young and not so young trekkers... Real true-blue super-fit trekkers who were there really for the trekking.

Everest Panorama Trek - Introduction

Everest Panorama Trek

First of all, I wish to congratulate SgTrekker on another well organized and well orchestrated trek to the Nepal Himalaya.
This time round I think we can all rightfully use the term 'trek' for it was nothing short of that.
Sgtrekker's motto has always been: "Embracing the Adventure",
to which I would humbly add, especially for participants of this unforgettable trek: "Celebrating the Human Spirit".