The first trek

Setting off at 9am from Gangtok to Yuksom, with a stop for lunch it took roughly 4 hours. The drive was bumpy but beautiful. One of the highlights was the views from the huge suspension bridge.

The morning of the trek Mayu finally had her first experience of Delhi belly, I was starting to get jealous of her strong stomach, I of course joined her for my third round. So we starting hiking white faced and very weak, I didn't dare tell Mayu how white she looked, it was scaring me enough already, I thought it was best to keep it to myself and just make sure she didn't collapse near any sheer drops.

The break for lunch really helped us both recover, we had a bit of rice and roti, filled up on water and on we went. The first day was pretty gruelling, but after I started feeling better, it became must easier and the hut instead of our tiny tent was really welcome.

On the second day we all felt on top form, the sun came out for the morning, Jerry snapped more amazing pics and we started walking. The second day was all steep and relentless to be honest. I started getting a headache about half way up around 3300 metres. By the time we reached camp at 3900 I was completely breathless, my head was pounding with every movement. I filtered some water with the trusty lifesaver bottle and lay in the tent for a few hours hoping that I would begin to acclimatize. We were woken up by a welcome dish of popcorn and coffee, it was amazing the service the guys gave us, when you see them lugging 25kgs up the mountain to cook you breakfast, lunch and dinner your manners increase ten fold, you want to give them as many thank yous as you can.

After a good nights sleep, I woke still with a headache. I was told it would be a short 30mins walk to a view point to see the mountains and then we could spend the rest of the day resting. Just the 30mins was really testing we, such a strange feeling when your legs feel fine but head is pounding. I guess its like having a really heavy hangover. We reached the view point and the views were amazing, we managed to muster some enthusiasm for a group photo.

It was a real disapointment to find out that the group we were with wanted to carry on to the next stage that morning, which was a further 6 hours walk. After struggling with my head for 30minutes I knew I couldn't do it. It was a great expirence and a good learning curve to take things much slower for the walks to come.