Dalama Adventures Tale of two corporate types ditching their jobs and traveling the world for 14 months... check out all photos, blogs & interesting tid bits at http://www.dalama.net

After making our way through the Nepal Trekking Administrative Government bureaucracy, we finally have our permits in hand and are with our sherpa, driving up to Lumle, to begin our 10 day trekking expedition to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC). Our car chugs up the steep, winding mountainside roads, and we inhale toxic black bus fumes the entire way. The drivers in Nepal seem a bit more mellow here, in comparison to their counterparts in India. While they don't hesitate to pass a large bus going around a corner, they do it in a much more calculated and conservative way. We sit in the back seat covering our mouths with bandanas, trying to minimize the lung damage that is really inevitable in the 14 months travel through developing countries. I'll be interested to see if we finally get used to breathing toxic fumes, and our lungs start to harden to it. Perhaps we'll come back immune to not just respiratory infections, but also to bacteria laden, water-born digestive problems. Our car stops, and we pile out on a narrow steep road which we discover to be the main staging center for sherpas, porters and fresh new trekking clients. We peer around at those who have just completed their treks- all sunburned, exhausted, yet elated and charged up from their accomplishment. Then there's others like us, fresh meat on the trail, binding up our packs to be loaded onto our porter. We had done a good job, we thought, minimizing our two bags into one smaller, lighter pack, and less than 20 kilos. We are told that porters can carry up to 60 or 100 kilos... yeah, those who are falling over dead on the trails. That's simple abuse and cruelty. By the looks of some others with multiple backpacks piled high, big wheelie bags all tied together and attached to a strap that braced around the porters forehead and sent the weight resting on their backs... we actually did quite well and our porter scored not just a lighter backpack, but one that's ergonomically designed that he can wear as a secure pack. We climbed for hours through small Nepali villages, up steep inclines, across rivers, and through farms and rice paddies, dodging animals and big dung piles strategically set in the middle of the path. With every passing village, we see big smiles, dark eyes and clasped hands in anjali mudra (prayer position), accompanied by tiny little voices, "namaste". After several water rest stops at tea houses along the way, we finally arrive at our first nights destination: Tirkhedhunga. It was a small guest house with an attached restaurant. The rooms were tiny - just big enough to fit two single beds and get the door open. Our small windows overlook a gorgeous valley. There's a shared "hot" shower and squatter toilet. We will come to find that hot showers are a luxury on this trip... not to mention a shower in general as a scarce commodity. Peacefully quiet, we're the first guests to arrive. Our local village host, Lili, was welcoming and keen to practice her English. A beautiful Nepali woman of 21, newly married 6 months ago to a trekking guide - it was a "love" marriage, against the norms of the village, but she was beaming and very proud of her independence and her ability to choose. He worked and lived in Pokhara and they would only see each other every two or three weeks or so. Each little village has several guest houses. Next door to ours there were three beautiful children tending to the small store and restaurant. Once spoke English pretty well, and she and her cousin (twin as they call it in Nepali if born in the same year in the same extended family), were determined to go to college in the UK where they have an uncle living. They seemed acutely aware of the opportunities that awaited them outside their village, and what they needed to do to attain their goals. Our place would have been perfect that night, had it not been disrupted by a trek tour group of 25 Chinese tourists. They arrived en mass, speaking and chattering loudly, and not a word of English spoken. They proceeded to cook hot noodles in their room with boiled water from the restaurant tea pot, and then clean their dishes in the only shared shower, dumping the excess garbage down the shared squatter toilet. There was one small sink for washing face/teeth... and they were using it to also dispose of food, stopping it up and making a big smelly mess. That night, mosquitoes circled the squatter hole, and cockroaches cruised across the floor of the shared facilities, as well as our room. I think we have finally hit the room type nasty... although it does get worse. Monsoonal rains poured down, first turning to big balls of hail, then to pelting rain. OUr roof began to lead, so we pushed the two beds as close to the one side of the room, to escape the stream of drips. Water poured in through the window, threatening to wash over the ledge onto our beds. The electricity was out, but our candle burned bright. We had our down sleeping bags that we had rented in new condition. We woke up in a pool of sweat just ours later... the bags were good for negative 20 degree celsius weather, but not 30 degrees. The room next door to me housed 4 Chinese trekkers. It was the same size as our room, so they must have 4 people in two single beds. Their beds were pushed up against the wall (more like a bamboo poster-board sheet) between our rooms - so thin that it felt as if we were all sharing the same bed. Quite an intimate sleeping experience for our first Nepali Guest House.