Everest Base Camp - The Planning

How did it happen?

Sometime in July my high school girlfriends started planning trip to Pakistan. I also wanna gooooo!! But my dad isn’t as healthy as before so my sister and I, we kinda make a pact that someone must be at home to teman him. She already planned a trip to Canada with her friends around Deepavali holiday long before the Pakistan trip came up. So yeah.. I must give priority to her cos she planned first. In conclusion, I couldn’t go to Pakistan.

Fast forward to the end of September, friends were sharing infos and photos, discussing itineraries, doing visas and all. I could only read our WhatsApp group chat with a tinge of sadness and jealousy *criesssss* Pakistan is beautiful guys! I never knew it. Nanga Parbat la, Fairy Meadows la, Khunjerab Pass la. I wanna see the beautiful mountains in Northern Pakistan. To make me felt worse, I planned to hike Mount Rinjani in Lombok before the Pakistan trip came up but then, the earthquake happened. There goes all my plans. *mereput at home*

Feeling dejected, I thought of places I could go for the year end trip. My sister would come back in early November so I could plan a trip somewhere after she returned. Then an idea popped up in my head. I’ve always wanted to go to Nepal and hike the Everest Base Camp (EBC) or Annapurna Base Camp (ABC), and October and November is a good season for a trip there.

I quickly googled for hiking trips to these two places. Two important factors - how long does it take and how much is the cost. EBC basically doubled, or almost doubled the ABC in terms of days and money. And some say, it is harder due to the elevation. After some consideration and countless google search, I chose EBC. And I chose to do it independently.

I was nervous with my decision. It’s pretty daunting because the highest elevation I’ve ever been to was Mount Kinabalu at 4095m more than 3 years ago. Would I have enough strength and stamina to hike up to 5364m? How to prevent Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS)? But I don’t know whether or not I would have the chance again in the future so I decided to just shoot with the big trip. Once in a lifetime giteww.

The moment I made up my mind to go for EBC, I started planning my trip.

First thing first; I looked for the return ticket from Kathmandu to Lukla. As I mentioned, October and November is the peak season so tickets sold out fast. Scrolling the dates, I found that the exact flight that I want was available on two dates in mid November. Keeping both dates in mind, I looked for the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Kathmandu. Ok la the price not bad (cos it’s already near to flying date) so I booked both flights right away.

With confirmed tickets on hand, I started my fitness plan. I only had slightly more than a month to prepare and train myself. I didn’t have time and hiking friends to go climb mountains so the best training plan that I could do was go hiking at Bukit Dinding every weekend. Then, on alternate weekend I climbed the 272-steps staircase at Batu Caves, 5 times up and down. On weekdays, I made sure I climbed 30 floors of stairs in my office building.

By early November, I’ve booked my accommodation in Kathmandu and bought my insurance plan. And read many blogs about hiking EBC on your own. Reading those blogs, it gave me some kind of comfort, motivation and confidence. There’s day to day hiking details such as how far, how long and how’s the daily hike be like, where to sleep, what to eat, how much money to bring, AMS precaution, equipment rental, maps etc. Boy.. I owed a lot to those bloggers! Their contents really helped me planning my journey.

Nearing the dates, I shopped for some items to bring, filled in the Visa On Arrival form online, emailed the embassy my itinerary and changed the currency. Still nervous about the trip but I was really excited.

So little time to plan but I am glad everything turned out well.