Daniel
4th September 2001, 09:56 AM
Yvonne,
If this is a life-time dream you may allocate a bit more time. I guess this sounds patronising. Well, it is I suppose.
Leaving all that aside, should you only be in Nepal 8 days (say), you could see Everest. As always there is more than one way to skin a few cats, which provides for variety.
However your logistics and connections need to be absolutely perfect, and this is not always garanteed in Nepal. Should you want to trek, will be totally dependent on flying in/out of Lukla. While this should be OK in February (in general) there is the ocasional patch of clouds and bad weather. Despite the fact that they have a tartan/asphalt air-field in Lukla since the beginning of 2001 (instead of the gravel sloped soccer field of the past), planes will not fly in bad weather, so people usually have to wait at either end for the weather to clear up. Once the weather clears people are moved amazingly quickly. But you may have to wait, and therefore have a couple of days cushion before you fly out of KTD.
But assuming everything goes well (and the chances are slightly better than even), you could arrive in KTD (day 1) , fly to Lukla and walk to Phakding (day2), spend a couple fo nights in Namche with some side trips (days 3-4) maybe go to Tengpoche monastery if there is time, and than return to Lukla. You can see Everest from a number of points on this trek, the best known being the notorious Everest View Hotel at close to 4000m altitude.
This would leave you no time to see anything in the Kathmandu valley (the temples, and other amazing cultural points), but you may be able to perhaps see a bit of Kathmadu, Durbar Sqare etc in about half a day.
Should you ba able to make it to 10 days, you would probably be able to include Baktapur and Patan, maybe Swayambu, etc.
The other option of seeing everest is to actually take a tourist flight (2 hours or so I think) and see Everest and Khumbu from the confort (or luck of it) of the small plane. This may allow you to see the interesting stuff in the Kathmandu Valley and do the trek to Poon Hill (Ghorepani), but you have to fly to/from Pokhara from Kathmandu. The flight to Pokhara does not have the problems associated with Lukla, as Pokhara has a "normal" aeroport.
If you are interested, I can recommend a couple of agencies that are quite good, and can organise all the transfers, logistics, permits etc. If you are there for a limited time and want to do all this, you need someone take care of the logisics for you efficiently, otherwise you can waste a day just chasing permits, internal flight tickets etc.
Cheers
Daniel
If this is a life-time dream you may allocate a bit more time. I guess this sounds patronising. Well, it is I suppose.
Leaving all that aside, should you only be in Nepal 8 days (say), you could see Everest. As always there is more than one way to skin a few cats, which provides for variety.
However your logistics and connections need to be absolutely perfect, and this is not always garanteed in Nepal. Should you want to trek, will be totally dependent on flying in/out of Lukla. While this should be OK in February (in general) there is the ocasional patch of clouds and bad weather. Despite the fact that they have a tartan/asphalt air-field in Lukla since the beginning of 2001 (instead of the gravel sloped soccer field of the past), planes will not fly in bad weather, so people usually have to wait at either end for the weather to clear up. Once the weather clears people are moved amazingly quickly. But you may have to wait, and therefore have a couple of days cushion before you fly out of KTD.
But assuming everything goes well (and the chances are slightly better than even), you could arrive in KTD (day 1) , fly to Lukla and walk to Phakding (day2), spend a couple fo nights in Namche with some side trips (days 3-4) maybe go to Tengpoche monastery if there is time, and than return to Lukla. You can see Everest from a number of points on this trek, the best known being the notorious Everest View Hotel at close to 4000m altitude.
This would leave you no time to see anything in the Kathmandu valley (the temples, and other amazing cultural points), but you may be able to perhaps see a bit of Kathmadu, Durbar Sqare etc in about half a day.
Should you ba able to make it to 10 days, you would probably be able to include Baktapur and Patan, maybe Swayambu, etc.
The other option of seeing everest is to actually take a tourist flight (2 hours or so I think) and see Everest and Khumbu from the confort (or luck of it) of the small plane. This may allow you to see the interesting stuff in the Kathmandu Valley and do the trek to Poon Hill (Ghorepani), but you have to fly to/from Pokhara from Kathmandu. The flight to Pokhara does not have the problems associated with Lukla, as Pokhara has a "normal" aeroport.
If you are interested, I can recommend a couple of agencies that are quite good, and can organise all the transfers, logistics, permits etc. If you are there for a limited time and want to do all this, you need someone take care of the logisics for you efficiently, otherwise you can waste a day just chasing permits, internal flight tickets etc.
Cheers
Daniel