Everest Trek – A Trek Worth Taking!

Explore Himalaya organized a spring (May 2011) trek to Everest Base Camp for a group of nine young men from India. After returning home, one of the trekkers, Mahek Ashish Kamdar sent us some wonderful pictures he took and a small write up of his experience of   trekking to the Everest  Region with Explore Himalaya’s trekking crew ( he calls them ‘superstars’!).

“Kudos to Explore Himalaya! You have made this trek a memory of a lifetime for us. We will never forget any moment of this trek. We promise to take your services for  any of our Nepal treks in future. We do not want to look for any other travel companies in Nepal simply because they will not be anyway close to you with regards to efficiency. To handle a group of young lads from India that too 9 in number was some task…but that is what we thought. For you it was a job well done. Guys, the Farewell Dinner with Mr. Navin, Mr. Prabhakar and Mr. Samundra spoke a lot about the relation that we will be sharing after this trek. It was a pleasure to trek under your itinerary and the support staff that you have simply rocksss!  All in all, it’s a start of a wonderful relation all 9 of us will share with Explore Himalaya.
I attach herewith some photographs which are wonderful memories for us, and all because of Explore Himalaya (Hip Hip Hurray!!!)

Sales Team: (Mrs. Kumari Malla and Mr. Prabhakar Khadka) Kumari was very quick to respond. The entire correspondence we had with her, we always felt comfortable through our booking procedure. We had our problems in Transferring our monies to Kathmandu, but we were comforted by Mrs. Kumari Malla. She bore with us even when we booked few friends at the last moment. Also special thanks to Mr. Prabhakar Khadka for helping us out in the pre-trekking phase. You guys are too good with marketing, sales and managing things.

On arrival in Kathmandu: (Mr. Suman Pandey and Mr. Samundra Subedi) Mr. Samundra Subedi greeted us with a warm welcome and was always with us and helped us buy trekking equipments. We were lucky indeed to have Mr. Suman Pandey as our counselling guru to help us un-nerve ourselves and get the confidence to Trek. All his advise were of a lot of help to us.

Our Trekking Guide and support Staff: ( Mr. Maule Tamang (Main Guide), Mr. Duppa (Sherpa Guide), Mr. Lakhpa (Sherpa Guide), and 3 of the nicest porters) :  They were awesome to say the least. Without their help we would not have completed our trek. Their advice and suggestions on how to trek were just perfect. Even during the rescue of our friend Darshak Shah, they were calm and made us relax and helped Darshak a lot (He says: “I owe my life to them” ). Special thanks to Maule Tamang for marshaling the trek group wonderfully well. We were indeed fortunate to have an expedition level guide with us.

Accomodation in Kathmandu, Tea Houses (while trekking): Hotel Marshyangdi was perfect for us since we required trek equipment  which was available just outside the Hotel. Nice comfortable stay in Thamel. The Tea Houses enroute were clean, nice and comfortable. They suited us just perfectly. After a tiresome trek, it was relaxing to reach the Tea House Lodge and enjoy a cup of Black Tea/Hot Lemon.

Food during Trek: We never had any problems with food. The cook made the food out of resources best available to him and indeed it was really good. The only problem we faced was that we only used to get 1 item per meal to eat and had to pay extra for another if we wanted and considering that the Everest region is pretty expensive and it cost a buck for us ordering an extra plate. But Maule Tamang (knowing many locals out there) made it easy for us to order stuff that we liked and the variety available in the limited resources there. Our Sherpa Guides Duppa and Lakhpa were on their toes serving us and made sure we had no difficulty in ordering our meal. We were comforted as some of us preferred Jain food and Maule was quick to tell the chef on arrival about our Jain food requirements.

Rescue of Darshak Shah: We all are thankful to the entire Explore Himalaya team for this, specially Maule Tamang for arranging a mule to reach Pheriche on time so that Darshak gets proper treatment. A BIG thanks to Navin sir for arranging the helicopter on time without which God knows what would have happened to our beloved friend. The rescue was proper and on his arrival in Kathmandu Darshak was comforted by the team of Explore Himalaya.”

– Mahek Ashish Kamdar,

India

(Photos courtesy: Mahek Ashish Kamdar)