Fair Trails® Explorer Tour Nepal: Review II

A Fair Trails® Explorer Tour in the Khumbu, at the foot of the world-famous eight-thousanders Mount Everest, Lhotse and Cho Oyu?

Indeed, at first glance it sounds strange to use the term “explorer” for one of the most popular trekking regions in the world. But only at first glance. Because the Khumbu has much more to offer than its breathtaking scenery and gigantic mountains (and it is by no means only the eight-thousanders that are spectacular, but rather the incredibly steep six-thousanders like Thamserku or Kantega stand out. It is rather the small daily encounters with probably the most famous people in the world, the Sherpas. It is their culture – the solutions they have ready for the meager life and also the problems with which the region is confronted. Which you perceive especially when you take time to hike paths off the beaten track and shift your focus (at least repeatedly) from the fantastic mountains to the little things along the way.

The place to live wants to be worked out: life in the Khumbu is strongly influenced by the mountain giants – here our friend and expert Nanga Sherpa explains us the surrounding mountain landscape © Fair Trails®/Max Mauthner

This is exactly why we dared the experiment, made an exception for this tour and developed for the first time a Fair Trail in a not completely remote region. Because the landscape and the locals in the Khmubu are worth to be more engaged with and to be able to offer a quieter kind of trekking in the Khumbu in the future with the Sherpa Heritage Trail.

No easy undertaking, because small adjusting screws are often much more difficult to set than the big screws on a completely new trip. However, this skepticism soon evaporated. Namely, on the one hand, because our team of the Explorer Tour simply always spread a good mood, was available for any nonsense or rather could persuade me to any nonsense (about details the cloak of silence is laid). And secondly, because the crew around our organizer Nawang Tshering Sherpa and the guides Pemba Sherpa, Nanga Sherpa and Pasang Sherpa immediately gave us a familiar feeling. They are all from Chaurikarka, a village 30 min below the starting point of the trek in Lukla. Family business – and so it was clear that we deviated from the main route right at the beginning of the trek and paid a visit to their home village. With Chaurikarka we have a long-standing friendly relationship and so we were invited right away from tea to tea in the village. An acclimatization of a different kind – a wonderful adaptation to a cautious travel pace.

Fair Trails® stands for a new way of traveling! For a partnership at eye level between travelers and travellers. With the common inspiration to learn from each other, to support each other and to trigger a change for the better. In the travel destinations as well as in the home country of the travelers.Here is Fair Trails® expert and author Stefan guest of honor at the home of the parents of his Nepalese au pair girl Nang Lhamu © Fair Trails®/Max Mauthner

On our way to Namche Bazar (as well as generally on the entire trek) the hour of our guide Nanga Sherpa struck again and again. As a former Buddhist monk, he always knew how to bring us closer to Buddhism on side trips such as to the Pema Choling monastery. A religion that still strongly shapes the lives of most Sherpas, as we also recognized by the fact that our guides still attached their own prayer flags at every place equipped with prayer flags. A ritual that at some point has as calming an effect as the automatic cranking of the prayer wheels along the way.

Our cameraman Manish surrounded by curious young monks of the Pema Choling monastery © Fair Trails®/Stefan Lieb-Lind

It was the small encounters along the trek that remain most lasting in the memory in retrospect. For example, the 14-year-old daughter of our host in Khumjung showed us around the local school and gave us an insight into the extremely meager and arduous farming at 3,800 meters. Extremely interesting, but I will not forget so quickly how she, as a soccer fan of PSG Paris, almost started to cry with joy when Markus from our team showed her a private video of a non-public training of their favorite players Neymar and Messi: Markus is a sports commentator by profession and was present at a PSG Paris game shortly before the trip.

The 14 year old daughter of our host Dawa Sherpa in Khumjung explains us the daily school life in the Edmund Hillary School in her village © Fair Trails®/Mussnig

For me personally, especially the visit to the parents of our au pair girl at home was a special experience: she is from Chaurikarka and I was in a positive sense rarely in my life so embarrassed as in the moment of being invited on the way back with the whole group as an honored guest to her parents in their meager home. The embarrassment dissolved a short time later when we attempted a Nepalese dance together with the women in the village at a small festival. The laughs were more on the side of the women from Chaurikarka, but we definitely had our fun too.

Close encounters, that’s what Fair Trails and our Explorer Tours stand for. The laughter of the women of the village shows how well our explorers did when learning the Nepali folk dance © Fair Trails®/Max Mauthner

Of course, as an open-eyed hiker, one also notices the problems that arise in the Khumbu (not only) due to tourism. For example, waste disposal is still a big problem – especially because everything has to be transported to Lukla on foot. The project “Sagarmatha Next”, which we visited on site, offers promising solutions. It is also noticeable that a symbol of the Himalayas – the yaks and naks – are disappearing more and more, especially in the lower regions: helicopters in particular are giving them little sustainable competition as a means of transport. Reason enough for us to financially support a yak farm above Namche Bazar, which has dedicated itself to the again stronger spreading of this primeval and resistant animal, with a part of the travel price.

The largest pedestrian zone in the world: the transport of food has always been done with porters or pack animals. However, these honorable activities are unfortunately today more and more often replaced by helicopters © Fair Trails®/Stefan Lieb-Lind

Now I almost forgot about an essential part of the Sherpa Heritage Trail: the mountains and the landscape. If you adjust the focus again a little further, then you can not get out of the amazement at the latest from Namche Bazar. And the further we hiked (on the lonely eastern side of the valley) across the valley towards Gokyo and thus to the foot of the 8,201 m high Cho Oyu, the more often our mouths remained open. Whereby scenically the highlight was surely the sunrise tour on the 5,360 m high Gokyo Ri: to see the sun rise directly behind the Mount Everest is hard to top from the mood. In front of it at our feet the biggest glacier of the Khumbu and on the left and on the right three further eight-thousanders as well as innumerable six- and seven-thousanders. Since even the crossing of the 5,435 m high Renjo La over to Lungden and Thame did not quite come along, although this day was the mountaineering highlight.

When we then hiked back to Lukla and a few days later sat in the small plane to Kathmandu, it was clear to all of us: Experiment “Fair Trails® Sherpa Heritage Trail” definitely succeeded! And I am personally already looking forward to the photos and film footage that professional photographer Max Mauthner and filmer Manish will send us!

The magic of trekking: great was the joy of our trekking destinations: here at the 5.435 m high Renjo La, the highest point of the trip, with Mount Everest in the background © Fair Trails®/Max Mauthner

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