One of the cultural shocks on our trek up to the Base Camp of Mount Everest was our seeing a snooker hall/club practically every day in a village we passed through or stayed at – no matter how small the village! (Just in case you’re not sure what snooker is – it’s a cue sport, kind of like billiards or pool.) Even in Dingboche, some 4400 meters above sea-level, there was a “Sherpa’s Kitchen & Bar” with snooker! Extraordinary. So extraordinary that I just had to find out a little more about this unanticipated Nepalese “tradition”…

In all I saw four snooker-playing establishments on our trek. The first one was in Lukla, where we landed (at the world’s craziest airport), on its main street:

The second time was in a small village not far from Namche Bazaar – the same village as where the supposed scalp of the Yeti is exhibited (in a Buddhist monastery):

Still not quite believing my eyes, I decided to go check up on the presence of an actual snooker table inside. And there one was. Full size too…

The green baize has seen better days, but it’s still perfectly usable:

// In Namche Bazaar itself I only saw a pool (not snooker) table (they’re smaller).

The next snooker hall we saw was in Pangboche. And that was at just under 4000 meters above sea-level ->

But the record was at 4400 meters in Dingboche – and as full-size and genuine and proper as all the rest!…

// Btw: what’s wrong in the above photo?

Sherpas in action:

And they turned out to be the Sherpas who’d just carried up our luggage and that of another group…

Remember – no transportation at all around here. Imagine the job they had getting this colossus all the way up here?!!

So, just how did snooker come to be so popular in the Nepalese mountains (and valleys, I guess). Some seem to think it’s down to the fact it was invented in next-door India by British Army officers in the mid-19^th century; others reckon it’s only just gotten real big over the last ten years.

Sherpa-snooker in the Himalayas reminded me of another cultural shock in an indiginoius peoples’ village in Paraguay in 2006. Here are my travelogue notes from back then:

“Excursion along the Paraná River, which separates Paraguay from Argentina. Fun! We got out on the Paraguayan bank and were taken to a museum of an explorer. If lucky, you get taken a few kilometers further through jungle to a village of indigenous Paraguayans. Everything’s just like in the movies: short in height, traditional dress and body paintings, huts, lots of children, and… a soccer pitch! [that’s just the culture-shock hors d’oeuvres!] They offered to play music. We agreed they should; and out comes – a harp, which an elder proceeded to play eloquently! Culture shock! Guaraní + harp!”

And that’s all for today folks. Back in Nepal we were headed further – in an upward direction. But more on that later…

The rest of the photos from our trek up to the Base Camp of Mount Everest are here.

So far – so good amazing, despite the far-from-ideal weather:

• Day 1a: flying in to Lukla’s bonkers airport
• Day 1b: setting off on our trek from Lukla to Phakding
• Day 2: Phakding to Namche Bazaar
• Day 3: acclimatization day in Namche Bazaar
• Day 4: Namche Bazaar to Deboche

Which brings us, logically, to day 5…

Rising early as usual, we woke to something, alas, all too familiar: Himalayan Mirages. Familiar since they’re almost exact copies of Kamchatkan Mirages. Here we go again (…

…But never mind. Onward and upward – and still hoping for the wind to blow away the clouds like yesterday…

Read on…

Hi folks!

Here’s what we’ve had so far in this series on our trek up to the Nepalese Everest Base Camp:

• Day 1a: flying in to Lukla’s bonkers airport
• Day 1b: setting off on our trek from Lukla to Phakding
• Day 2: Phakding to Namche Bazaar
• Day 3: acclimatization in Namche Bazaar

Which brings us to day 4, which at first didn’t bode well due to the low cloud all around; however, it was soon enough all blown away – as were we when we looked up! ->

Again, not too far to walk this day – just 10.5km, and most of it along this here super path:

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The (Nepalese) South Base Camp is getting nearer and nearer! So far – so good:

• Day 1: Lukla (crazy airport) to Phakding
• Day 2: Phakding to Namche Bazaar

On day 3 we stayed in Namche Bazaar, which turned out to be a village almost exclusively dedicated to tourism…

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Having made it from Lukla to Phakding with a sprightly step on day one, we continued on our way up to the Southern Base Camp of Mount Everest on day two, which turned out to be a fine day: monumental mountainous views all around – ideal for many a meditative moment (just how we like it). The main meditative visual-focus of the day – visible from early morning: the peaks of some of the Himalayan mountains! ->

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I’m a bit tired by now of all the AI news, but I guess I’ll have to put up with it a bit longer, for it’s sure to continue to be talked about non-stop for at least another year or two. Not that AI will then stop developing, of course; it’s just that journalists, bloggers, TikTokers, Tweeters and other talking heads out there will eventually tire of the topic. But for now their zeal is fueled not only by the tech giants, but governments as well: the UK’s planning on introducing three-way AI regulation; China’s put draft AI legislation up for a public debate; the U.S. is calling for “algorithmic accountability“; the EU is discussing but not yet passing draft laws on AI, and so on and so forth. Lots of plans for the future, but, to date, the creation and use of AI systems haven’t been limited in any way whatsoever; however, it looks like that’s going to change soon.

Plainly a debatable matter is, of course, the following: do we need government regulation of AI at all? If we do — why, and what should it look like?

Read on…

Not long after landing at the world’s scariest airport, we got straight into what we came for: we set off on our trek – at first through the narrow streets of Lukla; in among the donkeys dzos, of course…

In among the what? The dzos – a dzo being a hybrid between the yak and the cow. Well, well: this post’s only just begun and you’ve learned something new already!…

Read on…

The trek to the Nepalese Everest Base Camp covers a distance of some 50+ kilometers, takes around a week to complete, and starts out in the small town of Lukla. Not that getting to Lukla itself is super easy, since there are no roads to the place. I guess on-foot, horseback or motorbike are possible, but that would more time to an already rather lengthy hike up to the Base Camp. Accordingly, the main way most visitors reach Lukla is by air – plane or helicopter. And here’s the town – at the foot of the Himalayas, but still nearly 3000 meters above sea-level (as you can see from this aerial pic, the weather wasn’t so great from the outset) ->

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All right folks, you’ve had the intro-post on our trek up to the Everest South Base Camp in Nepal. Now for some details. Here’s how things went down up…

Every day of the trek was pretty much like… any page of a book – if you don’t get up too close to the words to be able to discern and read them, those pages are all pretty much the same…

Every morning we were up at the crack of dawn to pack the bags to be able to hand them to the sherpas at 7am. Then came a meagre (at least, to me) breakfast; still, I didn’t come for the gastronomy so – whatever. Then at 8 – everyone in our group to the hall of our guesthouse, and minutes later we were out and off…

Actually, the first day was a little different. We were up at 3.20am to leave our hotel in Kathmandu an hour later to make it in time to catch the very first scheduled chopper to Lukla. Quite why the need for such an early start I still don’t know (we only flew into the Nepalese capital the evening before), but never mind – we didn’t notice any tiredness as we kicked off the first day of our trek! First up, we take the main – or perhaps only – street of Lukla:

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Greetings boys and girls! 

Been a while, I know. But of course it has – I’ve been more than half-way up Everest! I’m not joking either )…

Indeed, I was fulfilling a long-held dream of mine – getting up to the southern Base Camp of Mount Everest – the one in Nepal. I’d already viewed the world’s highest point from the northern – Chinese – side when we took a road trip across Tibet (via China) in 2019. Well now the time had come to check it out from the other side. And here it is – the peak of Everest (left of center) ->

In short, we gave our bags to Sherpas to carry, put just the bare necessities + the all-important photo-video equipment into our own backpacks, and off we popped. And we made it! Not all, but many of us )…

Read on…