DAY 3: Journey to Jiri

Date: 26th March, 2014.

We were up 7:00 to make sure we had enough time to sort out our kit bags before we departed for Jiri by car at 09:00. 

Our kit bags will be carried by a porter during the trek. We will be carrying our day sacks and  the rest of the luggage will be left behind in storage at the hotel, to be collected on our way back. 

It's always tricky to decide what to leave behind and what to take and how to pack it all. The task becomes easier if you bring less with you from home to start with. 

We both separated all our luggage into three separate piles. The first pile is what we will be carrying in our day sacks, basically things that we will need easy access to during the trek eg clothing layers we will need during the trek as the weather conditions change, a medical kit with medicines, plasters and bandages water, gloves, cap, maps, cameras etc. Some of these items can also be carried on person. The second pile will be for items that will be carried in the kit bags. These will be items that we will only have access to when we get to our final destination for the day e.g sleeping bag, overnight clothes, towel, toiletries, spare shoes, undergarments, chargers etc.  The third pile is for anything that does not fit in the kit bag or that we are not willing to carry ourselves. It is packed away in the luggage and left at the hotel. 

Under the Nepalese Trekkers Liability Insurance, there is generally a limit of 15kg per person for the kit bags, with one porter carrying a maximum of two kit bags. Portering puts a lot of strain on the body and porters often have a reduced active life as a result. The Nepalese government is trying to reduce the number of casualties as a result of this practice which is an essential work stream for quite a large portion of the Nepalese population. 

We finished off all our packing and then went to the Hotel's dining area for breakfast. We were due to meet up with Dorje in the hotel lobby at 08:30 to sort out any final issues.

Dorje had already pre-arranged the car and driver, Bharat, for the journey to Jiri. With our kit bags and day sacks loaded up, we set off for Jiri, making our way through the streets of Kathmandu in an Easterly direction. 

As we head out of Kathmandu, there is visibly less pollution hanging in the air. Along the way, we passed the kilns used to make bricks for building development. Unfortunately, the smoke from this tall smoking kilns contribute to much of the air pollution in Kathmandu. 

The distance from Kathmandu to Jiri is 197 km and the road is passable, but there are huge sections where the tarmac is broken or eroded with large pot-holes in certain areas. The road requires a lot of maintenance.  The 'tarmaced' areas are single lane for the most part and there is always the danger that a bus or lorry will come around a blind corner and collide head-on with you, making the road all the more dangerous. 

There are early morning buses and minibuses that run between Kathmandu and Jiri, but it is generally safer and quicker to travel by car. There is also the advantage of being able to ask the driver to stop anywhere you want to take a picture, for some food or simply to urinate !!

We pass through several villages and small towns which have developed around the road to take advantage of the access for transportation and income from weary travellers. It was a pleasant experience watching all the people in the village go about their business, with children walking home from/to school, men or women working in the fields or minding their little shops or sitting outside in little groups to soak up the sun while playing board games or bantering. I longed to be outside to interact with their way of life, experience it first hand and savour the moment, rather than view it at a distance through the window in a metal box. There will be time soon for that.

There are various check posts along the road, where tourists have to be registered. The posts are manned by the Nepalese Police and it is mandatory to stop at these points. Dorje tells me that in the event of any incidents (accidents, thefts etc), the police refer to this registry to identify the person.  At these posts, Dorje would jump out of the car and log our entries. Sometimes, the police will carry out a cursory check to make sure everything was in order. On one occasion, a policeman searched the boot of a car. Not sure what he was expecting to find apart from our kit bags. 

It took us 9.5 hours to get to Jiri, including a stop for lunch at a roadside cafe. Some 5 years ago, when the road was in a good state, fhe journey would have taken about 5-6 hours. We arrived in Jiri at 18:30 with the evening losing the light of the setting sun. The town was still pretty active with locals shops being open for business and people going about their day to day activities

We stayed at the Everest Guest House on the main and perhaps only street in Jiri. The Guest House was set on there floors. The bedrooms and toilets/shower room were on the second floor and the kitchen and lounge area were on the third floor. The first floor was where the family that owned the Guest House stayed. The ground floor provided access to the entrance and the read of the guest house. We were shown to our room, number 110, aptly called 'Everest' and our kits bags brought up to us by the in house porter, probably one of the family members of the household. 

Electricity in the remote areas of Nepal is very limited and therefore lighting in the lodges and tea houses is generally dim. We had to use our head torches to get around the building safely. 

Dinner was served at around 19:30. Dorje had presented us with a selection menu and we decided to order chowmein and try the  vegetarian mo-mo or steamed dumplings. 

After dinner, Dorje gave us a quick briefing for the following day. We would start our trek at 09:00. Breakfast will be 08:30. We then retired to our rooms for the night and sorted out our water bladders, day sacks and kit bags. 

At 21:30, I went outside to take some pictures of the town in the dark. It was totally deserted. All shops close by 20.30, and people retire for the night into their homes which are generally attached to the shops.

Apart from a dog rummaging through some rubbish, there was not a soul in sight. I could hear voices from the homes as I walked down the street, as people settled in for the night.  I was quite surprised to come across a Hindu temple at one end of the street. 

By the time I came back to the guest house at 22:30, Kavita was tucked away in her sleeping bag, ready to go to sleep. There was still some work I wanted to do before I retired. There was electricity available in the room so I decided to charge up our devices and batteries. We didn't have the right plug for the power socket, so the host provided us with an extension lead with UK and other plug configurations. Only two of the points were working and the extension lead was temperamental so it took ages to charge up all the devices one by one. I decided to use the waiting time to back up photos and then type up the blog for the previous days events.

By the time I finished, it was 01:30 in the early morning. I set the alarm for 06:30 and got into my sleeping bag. I couldn't sleep. So much had happened in the past 48 hours and I barely had a moment to grasp it all. It was quite overwhelming and it was all replaying in my mind as I tried to wind down for some sleep. It must have been around 02.30 before I finally fell asleep.