Five Reasons Everyone Should Go Travelling with Their Family

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Fergus

Evie about to try snake on a stick in Cambodia

By Evie Hadley (aged 8)

Delicious Food

One reason everyone should go travelling with their family is because it means you can try a lot of different foods like fried insects, snakes, amazing Thai fried rice and Vietnamese phô.

Strange Asian Languages

You can learn a lot of different languages such as Thai, Bahasa Malay/Indonesia, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Nepali and many more besides. Now I can say “three twins” (meaning triplets) in five different languages: fet sam (Thai), tumba tika (Bahasa Malaya/Indonesia), gom blua bai (Cambodian) and sinba (Vietnamese).

Happy Family

Another thing I really enjoyed was spending a lot of time with my family because I don’t get to see Mummy and Daddy as much at home. I miss my friends quite a lot though. I also miss NanaRara*. My Mummy and Daddy are our teachers whilst travelling which I really love.

Trekking

I absolutely love trekking because there was an amazing view of white-peaked Mount Everest through a curtain of trees. There were many more mountains such as Gokyo Ri (which we climbed in the snow).

Elephant Land

You should come to Nepal and see Elephant-roamed Chitwan where you might make a large friend!

* Nanarara is the phrase Evie and her sisters use for Janet’s parents. They got Nana and rara (they couldn’t say granddad) conflated when very little and it’s stuck.

Three Small Children Climbing Extra-Ordinarily Big Mountains

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Fergus

by Scarlett

Today, the 3^rd October, 3 children were claimed to be seen climbing Gokyo Ri at 6:00am in the morning. They were going up that day because their father woke up very early and saw that the sun was shining. Gokyo Ri is in the Everest region and it can get quite cold. A lot of people claimed they were there when this event took place, so it was very busy.

It is free to go up Gokyo Ri. It is also very, very steep.

Adults with the children numbered four, were 3 men and a woman. It was a tiring climb and they didn’t really enjoy it but the view at the top was amazing! The other people climbing Gokyo Ri were astounded at the 8 year old triplets and kept encouraging the girls. People can’t believe that 3 girls made it to the top since they are only 8 years old. They said it was easy going down. One of the girls got altitude sickness and had to be carried by one of the men.

At the top of Gokyo Ri there is an amazing view of a glacier surrounded by mountains. These mountains have a big lake in front of them. The lake is turquoise and the sun glitters off it. There are prayer flags hung around the top which can have icicles hanging from them. Sometimes it has less snow. It can be rocky.

The best parts of climbing Gokyo Ri are the view and coming back down. Coming back down is amazingly easy!

[This was Scarlett’s ‘Write a Newspaper Article Challenge’. It was typed up, paragraphized and spelling-corrected by Dad but otherwise all Scarlett’s work. Only 8 wrong spelling’s, too, (and not turquoise!) which is wonderful.]

It’s a Long Way to Gokyo

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Fergus

by Evie

If you want to go to Gokyo, then you have to go upwards most of the way and downwards most of the way back. There is not very much flat land in the Khumbu region (the region Mount Everest is in).

It is extremely beautiful once you get to Gokyo. There are lots of flowers of interesting colours. They are called “alpine flowers”. There are three lakes on the way and you can go to the fourth one or the fifth one without having to camp, whereas if you want to go the sixth lake, you have to camp because you cannot get back to Gokyo in one day.

The lakes are emerald green. They are surrounded by mountains. It snowed when we arrived and on the day when we climbed Gokyo Ri.

Gokyo Ri is a mountain that is quite hard to climb, in fact there were some grown-ups climbing it who gave up but we got to the top. It gets cloudy during the day so if you want to climb Gokyo Ri, you have to leave very early. We got up at 5 o’clock!

I didn’t want to leave Gokyo because it was beautiful, even though I did get an altitude headache.

On the way down, it is much easier. It took ten days to get there and nine days to get back because we took a detour round Pangboche and Tengboche. You cannot go too far in a day on the way up because you might get an altitude headache like I did at Gokyo. Mummy got it much more than me and my sisters didn’t get it at all.