I am writing this from Kathmandu which is good news in itself as it means I have landed safely.

A very good friend of mine seemed to be more jealous of me going to Kathmandu than any other aspect of this trip and in many ways I can see why. After a successful couple of flights (we went via Delhi) we all met at the airport and then got a minibus to our hotel. To say that Kathmandu is hectic would be a major understatement. The place is chaos, with bikes, cars and motorcycles weaving in an out of you and each other in a dusty but immensely colourful place.

A lot of haggling has taken place to get the final bits and bobs for this expedition. This alone is a process I enjoy. The challenge of getting something at a particular price requires a number of different techniques – I am by no means master of this yet but as they say on Kilimanjaro…polle polle (slowly slowly) and hopefully I will get there eventually.

I have now met my full team which was nice. I am spending just under 70 days in a very intense and stressful environment with complete strangers and getting to know these guys & one girl better is a wonderful experience. A complete mixture of ages, experience, background and nationalities should provide a number of entertaining stories.

We are using “Top-Out” Oxygen masks on our ascents and Mr. Top Out – a much easier name to remember – came around earlier to explain how it all worked. It is a great system and should serve me well.

What now? Well the permits to get into Tibet are the first concern as the Chinese keep delaying the date of entry (a Dutch guy on our trip who was planning, but now can’t, to cycle to Base Camp and has subsequently been stuck in Kathmandu for 10 days) but hopefully that will be sorted.

In theory we will head out of Kathmandu tomorrow morning. As Base Camp itself is over 5000m, a lot of acclimatising is needed before we reach there but getting to the mountain will be a big step. To catch sight of Chomolungma as they call it in Tibet for the first time will be seriously exciting.

I will keep you posted as much as I can but cannot promise when my next post will be.