in exchange

i miss nepal and the mountains. i miss being there alone and away from normal life. is it possible to just uproot and live there? but time does pass quite fast; it's almost been a month since i started work. everyday is difficult though. i just feel like quitting everyday, except on friday, when everything just feels better.

but mostly i think it's because working life is lonelier than school life. and yet i liked nepal because i was mostly alone.

audit

transitioning into work life is not easy.

return below the tree line

following the gokyo lakes downstream, the dudh koshi quickly comes together in a strong torrent, and we descended below the tree line. the lush greenery came back, and there were many waterfalls, some flowing stronger than i remembered on the uphill journey. probably because of the many days of rain.

we went back to namche, where i got the chance to visit the saturday bazaar. then we continued the walk down to phakding, and then lukla. i liked to see the dogs on the way again. and i tried the fake starbucks at lukla.

the weather had not been good, and the flights at lukla had been cancelled for some time. i was lucky to have been able to fly as scheduled.

but i miss the mountains already, and i miss the time i spent with deepak.

towards gokyo

we took a long walk from gorakshep to zonglha, where we rested a night before deepak took me across the cho la. again, the weather was lousy. in fact, the weather would not improve much over the subsequent days, which somewhat marred the experience from here on.

there was not much of a view from cho la. but we crossed it nevertheless, scrambling up big boulders, walking across a glacier, climbing up a steep scree slope, and then down and across a valley, and another hump before a gentle descent all the way to thagnak.

the next day we crossed the ngozumpa glacier to get to gokyo. the day was nice as the sun shone through the clouds and there was some blue sky. but again the clouds came in. by the time we reached gokyo, there was no view of the lake or surrounding mountains.

the morning i summitted gokyo ri was the worst =(