Welcome to the Himalayas. Please Hold On Tight.
A nervous flight, bumpy jeep ride, and the moment the trek really began.
🎧 Audio version included if you’d like to listen instead.
I woke up at 4:50 a.m. wanting one thing: coffee, and one last civilized moment in a bathroom before the mountains took control of my digestive schedule.
We were told to bring our luggage down by 6:00 and shovel in breakfast in 30 minutes. I wasn’t hungry, but still managed toast, a banana, and cereal. Anxiety burns calories apparently.
The van ride to the airport was quiet the way early mornings are. My biggest fear of this trek wasn’t altitude, or cold, or ticks, or leeches. It was the 25-minute flight from Kathmandu to Pokhara. Yeti Airlines: the airline you should never Google before flying because the algorithm will show you all the reasons not to.
On the tarmac, we took a group photo in front of the tiny plane, as if to prove we boarded it voluntarily. Inside, Ingmar and I jokingly held hands during takeoff, two adults pretending not to be scared while being very scared. The pollution was thick outside; we couldn’t see much. But the takeoff was fine. Our blood pressure finally dropped, and in that brief window of relief, the flight attendant managed to serve peanuts, candy, and apple soda - a surprisingly generous distraction.
Pokhara felt different the moment we landed - a place filled with backpacks, trekking poles, and the nervous energy of first-day hikers. Our guides and porters were waiting by the gate, smiling like they’d done this a thousand times. A couple from Hong Kong, Eunice and Newton, joined our group last minute after their original team dropped out. None of us knew yet how quickly strangers turn into teammates on a mountain.
Our blue duffle bags were loaded into three jeeps. Ratna, our head guide, directed us like a traffic controller. Raj, our second guide, took the front seat with the driver in our jeep. Binod, our porter, squeezed in the back. Ingmar, Victor, and I claimed the middle row, each popping a Dramamine before we drove off.
The first hour felt manageable. This isn’t so bad, I thought. Then Raj turned around.
“We’re going off-road now.”
Within minutes, pavement turned to gravel and then to chaos – dust, rocks, potholes, and cliffs pretending to be roads. We bounced around like marbles in a tin can. At one point we crossed a river. At another, we passed a bus with literally centimeters to spare. I finally understood why “professional driver” is a real profession.
Two hours of being shaken like a cocktail later, we finally stopped at a roadside tea house for lunch. I ordered masala chai and dal bhat – my comfort duo. Others had momos and juice. Afterward, we continued on foot. The trek had officially begun.
Ratna called the day “a warm-up” – three and a half hours, “relatively easy”.
It started gently, just enough to trick us into optimism. Then came the stairs.
Stone stairs. Dirt stairs. Slippery stairs. Stairs you don’t see until you turn a corner and wish you hadn’t. Not steep enough to brag about, but just steep enough to remind you your lungs exist. Mist hung in the air. Waterfalls cut through rock faces. My body kept moving while my mind wandered. Everyone says trekking becomes meditative after a while, but somehow my brain was still in Kathmandu drinking chai.
By the time we reached our tea house around 4:30 p.m., we were damp, hungry, and relieved. It was a three-story building with a dining room on the first floor, walls covered in notes from past trekkers, and a fire heater glowing like a heartbeat in the center. Ingmar and I got Room 7 on the top floor. The view was unreal – hills folding into mountains, mountains dissolving into clouds. We even had our own bathroom and shower. In the Himalayas, that’s five-star luxury.
We cleaned up, ordered dinner, and drank endless hot tea. Dal bhat again for me. My new goal for this trip: eat the hell out of dal bhat, drink the hell out of masala chai. We’ll see if I still believe in that plan by tomorrow.
After dinner, I stayed by the heater downstairs while others showered. Ratna sat down beside me, and we started talking - slowly at first, like people testing the ground before stepping further. He told me about guiding different routes, where he’s from, his family. When I asked if he liked his job, he paused.
“It is… hard life,” he said, searching for the right words. “But I am healthy. I can work. I am grateful. Some people… not so lucky.”
His words landed heavier than the climb. Hours earlier, I’d been worried about turbulence, dust, roads, snacks. Meanwhile, he leads people like us through these mountains for a living - weather, injuries, altitude, unpredictability - and still shows up smiling every morning.
Before we went upstairs, he listed other treks we could do next time – Langtang Valley, Mardi Himal, EBC. I nodded, pretending I wasn’t already questioning this one.
Tomorrow we wake at 4:00 a.m. to climb Poon Hill for sunrise before breakfast. My body’s tired but my mind’s catching up. There’s a rhythm forming – eat, walk, tea, walk, arrive, fire, sleep, repeat.
The hike officially began today. And so did something internal - a shift from excitement to attention. A small understanding that mountains are not conquered. They’re visited, borrowed.
We better rest.
Next Up
Episode 3: We Paid to Suffer at 4 A.M.
A sky that burns gold. Legs that regret waking up this early. The day I finally understand what “relatively easy” does not mean.
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