around the world in half an hour

Ugh. It's Monday again. This Monday is especially unwelcomed since I worked over twenty hours during the weekend. My back is strained from being glued to my desk.

Here are some videos that kept me entertained during my breaks:

(source: MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.)

Here are 3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage, amounting to three amazing short films. MOVE is my favourite, but EAT and LEARN are incredible too.

From Tokyo to New York to Cuzco to Istanbul, this video shows one day in the life of the world. The video is 16 minutes long so make sure you have the time to watch it!


This is a video of a guy walking from across America from NYC to San Francisco. It's like a Forrest Gump tribute. 

(source: spring. from gnarly bay productions, Inc. on Vimeo.)

I first watched this video upon coming back from our trip. Some many of the images captured, we experienced and it made me so nostalgic for Cambodia and Thailand.


Last of all, the stuck in an airport video that went viral last month...

This reminds me... I should resolve to recapping our trip again!!

Day 4 of EBC Trek - Namche to Tengboche (3860m)

We woke up refreshed and eager to continue upwards on Day 4. The destination was Tengboche (3860m). The path from Namche to Tengboche was a gradual incline, a path that gently snaked around the mountains. Whether it was the less arduous uphills or the fact that we were getting used to our walking legs, the walk was relatively easier. I was still slow, counting each step to a steady rhythm, but having made it to Namche, I was more confident.

In my opinion, day 4 offered some of the best views of the entire trek. Everywhere we turned, there were layers and layers of mountains. There appeared to be an infinite amount of mountains, you can make out the faint outlines of more mountains even in the furthest of distance. I loved the fact that I was completely surrounded.

We passed by many small villages and potato farms. The only thing that can be grown at such high altitudes are potatoes, making it a staple of the Himalayan diet. Potatoes make for healthy, sturdy and robust Nepalese.

We passed by many children, all with round tawny faces and dirty ruddy cheeks; Raggedy Ann’s blush must have been inspired by these children. I loved each child we saw; they were all so beautiful (and believe me, I am not one to think all children are beautiful/cute). As soon as are able to sit upright, the children are basically left to their own devices. They sat in front of dwellings and played with the dirt and rocks. Those who could walk, ran around the village, playing with the animals, other village children and… dirt and rocks. It reminded me of the Mongolian and African children of the documentary Babies; it amazed me how simple their lives were, and how little it took to entertain them. At our teahouse in Tengboche, we watched the little girl of the owner play with a plastic water bottle for almost an hour; she sat on table and put it in and out of her shirt, pretend to drink out of it, roll it around.

We arrived in Tengboche at around 4 in the afternoon. With light still out, we roamed around the 5 teahouse village; it took all of five minutes to explore Tengboche. We wandered into the Tengboche Gompa, a Buddhist monastery established since the early 1900s. Daniel found some monks playing soccer and joined in. When it grew too cold to be outside, we ventured back into the teahouse for an evening of chatting with other trekkers.

Now, when we left home, we thought of ourselves to be quite adventurous, but we soon discovered how tame our travels were. With each passing person we met, we found them to be more adventurous than the next. In India, we met a young girl in her late teens, travelling the country for at least three months on her own. We shared a train cabin with a Canadian couple spent three months every other year in Southeast Asia; they had done the EBC trek in their 60s. Then, they told us of a French gentleman who was travelling across India on his motorbike; he too was in his 60s. All these travellers we met made our trip look so tame, but their adventures even compare to that of Charlie Whittmak.

Charles Whitmak is a self proclaimed explorer. Self-proclaimed or not, isn’t there something so poetic about being an explorer. It automatically conjures up images of maps and globes and Christopher Columbus and Alexander the Great. I digress.

Charlie sat at the table next to us during dinner and we noticed he was using his ipad to surf the internet. Only seasonal trekkers would bring such an electronic up to the mountains, we thought, and out of curiosity, we inquired about the purpose of the laptop. Turns out he wasn’t just a trekker, but a mountaineer on his way to summit the mighty Mount Everest… for, like, the third time (or something like that). This time around, he was doing it as part of a world triathlon. Climbing Mount Everest was the last leg of the triathlon where he already "swam the River Thames in England to the icy North Atlantic Sea and across the English Channel to France", completed "a 9000-mile bicycle ride across Europe and Asia, passing over many of the world’s most rugged and remote mountain ranges, and crossing hundreds of miles of barren sand desert, before climbing over the Himalaya to the Indian Ocean and Calcutta". The "running" part of the world triathlon was "950-mile run from sea level at the Bay of Bengal, up into the Himalaya, to the top of the world and the summit of Mount Everest".

And he was doing all for a social cause, to raise awareness of and funds for a global health program in Nepal. An explorer and a humanitarian. I was in complete awe of him.

Meeting people, whether it’s the porters with super human strength or children with unassuming and unaffected airs or “regular” people with passion and purpose, is one of the greatest things about travelling. It leaves you inspired to be like them, moved with compassion to do something for people, and encouraged to pursue aspirations.
- Emily

Day 3 of EBC Trek - Namche Acclimatization

Called Nauche by the Sherpas and Naboche by the Tibetans, the village surrounded by sharp mountainous peaks is more widely known as Namche. The thriving village comprises of a mountain resort feel laden with down-jacket-clad locals. While it’s not unusual to experience mild symptoms of altitude sickness, we felt none. Nonetheless, on the advice of our Sherpa and our trusty guide book, we stayed in Namche to acclimatize to the ever increasing altitude.

Namche Bazaar is known for its weekly Saturday market where Sherpas meet friends, catch up with others and load up on supplies. As the last major outpost where supplies are most readily available, Namche attracts locals from all around the Khumbu region.

First thing in the morning, we set out on a short acclimatization hike to the Sagarmatha National Park Headquarters. From there, we caught our first glimpse of the mighty Mount Everest, known to the Tibetans as Sagarmartha. From a distance it would be hard to tell that it is the world’s tallest mountain and at first we weren’t sure what we were looking at the right one. Hidden amongst a mist of wispy clouds and behind an intimidating Nuptse-Lhotse ridge, the black peak of Everest actually looked a little smaller than the surrounding mountains of Lhotse, Thamserku and Ama Dablam.

We returned to town to browse through the many little shops full of trekking paraphernalia and souvenirs. Having soaked up the views we were hungry for a snack. We loaded up on momos, some noodle soup and treated ourselves to a delicious piece of chocolate cake!

It was a relaxing day and restful evening; save for the late night party playing what could only have been Akon.

- Daniel

Day 2 of EBC trek – Phakding to Namache (3,450m)

so here's the long overdue post about our second day of the EBC trek, in point form

- After sleeping for almost 11 hours, we awoke in the greatest of spirits, eager to begin another day of trekking— a very long and difficult day, we were told. According to trekkers on the descent and Mr. Lakpa, the hike to Namche Bazaar was probably the hardest day of the trek, ascending almost 800m in altitude the— highest elevation gain in one day. We walked and walked and walked, up and down and up, up, up, past villages and over creeks, and through many suspension bridges.

- There were SO many bridges.

- Our guidebook described the walk from Phakding to be the next village to be “a leisurely walk”. It was not leisurely; it was hard and tiring. I was a combination of exhausted from the day before and just that out of shape; and found each step left me breathless. I walked very slow. I was very self conscious with my speed. It seemed like all other trekkers whizzed by me. The only person I surpassed was this old man; he was 71 years old.

- Mr. Lakpa would stop every so often to explain a bit of the Sherpa culture and Bhuddist traditions. We learned that when approaching mani stones, boulders of rock chisled and blackened with Sanskirt prayers, the stone walls should be passed or circumvented from the left side, the clockwise direction in which the earth and the universe revolve. Prayer wheels are cylindrical 'wheels' on a spindle made from metal, wood or stone engraved with words in Sanskrit; spinning the wheels with your right hand bought luck and safety to the trek. Prayer flags are panels of cloth strung along mountain ridges and peaks high in the Himalayas. They are used to bless the surrounding countryside and for celebratory reasons. The prayer flags gave pops of colurs from the predominantly blue, green, brown, grey, white scenery.

- We shared the trekking with the legendary Nepalese porters— superhumans in other words. A typical porter carries a load of as least 50 kilograms, kilometer after kilometer over steep terrain. Since resources are sparse on the mountains, everything needs to be brought up: kerosene, solar panels, satellite disks, instant noodles and garlic, everything you could possibly think of.

- We decided not to hire a porter and Daniel carried a backpack filled with clothes the duration of the trek; his load came out to be 10 to 15 kilos (depending on what we wore that day). There were days where he was exhausted from the pack and divvied up the contents of the pack between him and Mr. Lakpa for a couple of hours. We met this one porter on the second day who was carrying about 100 kg of metal roof shingles; it put Daniel to shame. (Okay, many have asked what I carried. Well— and I say this with great pride— a daypack filled with snacks, water bottles, our cameras, and stuff like gloves, hats, scarves. It weighed about 4  kg, when the water bottles were filled.)

- The stretch after lunch was incredibly difficult. It was uphill all the way— 500m up, I recall correctly. There were so many occasions where I wanted to call an early day and sleep... but the village where we lunched was the last village before Namache. I considered curling up against a boulder for a short nap. But we continued, one small step after another. We finally reached Namache (3,450m) at around 4pm; I had never been so tired. Reaching Namache was one of my greatest achievements, second to actually making it up to Kala Patthar.

- Emily

Day 1 of EBC trek – Katmandu to Lukla to Phakding

About a year ago, while brainstorming countries and places to visit for our Asia trip, I came across something—I don’t remember what exactly—with information about the Mount Everest base camp trek. “That looks cool. I like hiking.” I thought and pitched the idea of doing the trek to Daniel. Not one to back out on an adventure, Daniel agreed without hesitation. That was that. Nepal was put on the itinerary; we were going to trek the Himalayas to see Everest.

We did our research, bought a book, decided to opt out of doing an organized group trek and to do it ourselves (to save money, lots of money), hired a guide, bought the appropriate gear, bought the plane ticket from Delhi to Katmandu, packed our bags with our gear in it, flew into Nepal.

And upon arriving in Nepal I started having minor panic attacks…

WHAT IN THE WORLD POSSESSED ME TO DO THE EBC TREK?! What did I mean by “I like hiking”?! I’ve only gone hiking twice in my entire life! I’m not at all outdoorsy or athletic or even in that great of a shape, so why did I decide to do five to seven hour hikes a day, everyday for two weeks?! Why did I ever think I could do so much physical activity?! Oh, and that’s not even considering the altitude!! Trekking is already enough exertion, but in such altitudes? Such thin air? Reading about altitude sickness in my book and how people have died, just made me feel worse. I might die. Oh and there’s that flight into Lukla. I had read somewhere that it’s not uncommon for crashes, and even fatalities. Wikipedia even has a comprehensive list of accidents. I might die. (Okay, perhaps I was being a bit too dramatic and letting my imagination run a little too wild).

Our trek began with a flight from Katmandu to the village of Lukla. Flights between Katmandu and Lukla are weather dependent; though the flying distance between the two towns are short (only 45 minutes), high winds or any cloud cover can delay flights or close the airport completely. The skies were clear the morning of our scheduled flight and we boarded the small twin-engine plane on time.

The plane ride to Lukla was uneventful. I was still feeling extremely anxious about the flight, but averaging only four hours of sleep in the last couple of days, I was exhausted and fell asleep while praying for flight safety. And then we were in Lukla. The arrival at the airport was a bit… surprising. I awoke from my nap right before arrival at the Hillary-Tenzing in Lukla and expected my ears to pop and to feel the jerky motion of a place on descent. But there was none of that… because there was no descent; the plane just landed.

The Hillary-Tenzing airport has a single runway less than 500 m long. One end of the runway steeply drops about 2,000 feet to the valley below; on the other end, there is a concrete wall of the airport. This meant, when arriving at Lukla, planes have less than half a kilometer to decelerate to a full stop, or risk crashing into the wall. Alternatively, when leaving the airport, plane need to accelerate to needed take-off speeds before the drop, or risk crashing into the side of a mountain. I find out later that day that the airport is in The History’s Channels list most extreme airports. “Extreme” is just a sugar-coated way of saying “dangerous. Beware!”. The airports on the list are included because of its extreme location, difficult approach, and short runways. The Hillary-Tenzing airport is number one on the list… so thank God we landed without incident.

Our guide met us at the airport; his name was Sherpa Lakpa, but we called him Mr. Lakpa. He was a slight man— tiny even!—of 45 years old. He was from a village close to Lukla. He had three adult sons and had been a guide for over 15 years. He suggested we explore Lukla a little before beginning our journey up.

Lukla with an elevation of 2,860 m is the popular starting point for the EBC trek. It is a moderately sized village with many tourist lodges and restaurants serving western food and souvenir shops; there was even a Starbucks—the only one in all of Nepal! Despite all the establishments that cater for tourists, Lukla is definitely not Kansas anymore.

All the buildings are all rectangular in shape, no more than two stories tall, made from the same grey stone and roofed with the same green or blue shingles. The buildings are strung together by a narrow walking path, partly paved by concrete, partly paved by stone. Gone are the cars and tuk tuks of Katmandu; instead, scrawny chickens, little children, and dzos (yak-cow hybrids) roam the streets freely. We see women washing their long beautiful raven black hair outside their homes in buckets of water; men, hunched over like Quasimodo, walking the path with multiple backpacking backpacks on their backs; children, wearing these huge poufy down jackets, playing in the dirt (or sometimes, the side of a cliff); dzos ever so nonchalantly pooping right in the middle of the path. And surrounding Lukla, mountains—mountains varying in size and colour, in every direction for as far as we could see.

This place was completely different from anything I had ever experienced—and it wasn’t even 10am.

Our surroundings became even more foreign as we left Lukla: the path on which we walked on became a dirt path; the terrain went up and down as if it couldn’t make up its mind on which elevation it wanted to stay at; the density of buildings became more and more sparse until there were was just Daniel, me, Mr. Lakpa and mother nature.

My fears and anxieties remained with me throughout the day, but they did fade just a smidgen with each step I took, with each glace at my beautiful surroundings. By the time I reached village of Phakding, I knew it was okay. I was going to see Everest; I was going to make it all the way to Kala Pathar (elevation of 5,550m); I was going to have an experience of a lifetime.

It took us four hours to reach Phakding (elevation of 2,640m). We were exhausted by the time we reached our lodge. Having skipped lunch, we ate a very big meal. I remember it to be so delicious. We were asleep before the sun set.

- Emily

Kathmandu, the breath of fresh air

We left India quite literally purple and blue, exhausted but excited to continue our journey onward to Nepal.

Though dirty, crowded, and chaotic, Kathmandu was a breath of fresh air (in relative terms). There were less cows and begging children on the street. The air didn't continually smell like urine. Our cab got in a minor accident with a motorbike but they exchanged (what we assume to be) insurance information; we sat in choking traffic on roads where traffic lights and laneway lines are mere suggestions, but watched traffic police attempt to control traffic; and so we thought "Kathmandu is pretty peaceful." We affectionately dubbed it 'India Lite'.

Then we arrived in Thamel, a district within Kathmandu different than the rest of the city. Thamel is a little neighbourhood made to cater to foreigners with its various eats, numerous travel agents and and variety of guest houses. The restaurants that line the street rivaled Toronto in diversity; there certainly is something for everyone, ranging from thai or southern new orleans cuisine to live music at the irish pub.

Trekkers and aspiring mountaineers camp out in Thamel before a stroll through the Himalayas. The area is a trekking gear haven; shops overflowing with knock-off merchandise. The selection was impressive, with brands including The North Face, ArcTeryx and even Canada Goose counterfeits. The quality of the wares were quite good and always performed as advertised; evidenced by the number of locals all sporting the less than legitimate wares. We picked up a few more items we needed including sleeping bags and trekking poles, all for a fraction of the price of the real thing.

After a days worth of gear hunting and some satisfying momos (something other than curry and chapati!), we turned in, eagerly anticipating a journey through the mountains.

- Daniel

hello home

we were gone for eight weeks, but without missing a beat, we fell back into our regular routine of normal life, (albeit sleeping and waking up at really early hours). it's almost like we never went away...

but we did go away. we have a million pictures and little trinkets as evidence. even without those, we have these wonderful memories, vivid and funny and sweet; we could only have such memories because we actually went abroad, right? "oh, remember when I nearly had a heart attack during the everest trek?" "no. I do not remember. because you did not nearly have a heart attack. but I do remember when you decided to let me drown instead of coming to save me on the kayak." "oh ya. I learned to kayak... kayaking is hard." and so we reminisce together, when we're up at five in the morning and when we're drifting off to sleep before the sun even sets.

homecoming was bittersweet. it was difficult to leave the nomadic life and the adventures that come with it (oh, we're already daydreaming about our next holiday), but it was so incredibly nice to come home, to see friends and spend time with family, to sleep on a oh-so comfortable bed, to eat a home-cooked meal, to clothes that aren't dry fit, to wear skirts and heels.

we come back a little bit more cultured, definitely more tanned, and feeling refreshed and inspired and eager for the next stage in life, whatever that may be.

we will be continuing to blog and post pictures of our time abroad. up next, doing the everest base camp trek in nepal!

- Emily