Nate Buchanan hikes 2.5 hours from Thangnak to Gokyo across glacial moraine, stopping at tea houses and a bakery. The group navigates Wi-Fi and charging logistics in remote villages while sharing travel anecdotes and a running 'red card' joke among friends.
Foreign.
It is day 11 and we are hiking from Taengnak to Gokyo. It's only about two and a half hours.
Hiking over one of the world's largest glaciers.
Should be a good hike. The short two and a half hour hike will definitely be welcomed. After hiking for six to eight hours of tons of elevation the past few days and we're only gaining 90 meters today so it should be a pretty easy hike.
If it's pretty outside and we're feeling well, then we're gonna do the Gokyo.
Ridge.
Which is a very steep climb out to a cool viewpoint. So we'll see about that. Pretty sore for the last two days.
We'Re heading straight across all this moraine to a village called Gokyo. That's somewhere.
This looks like rock but it's all just dirty ice. I'm standing on a massive rock in the middle of one of the world's largest glaciers.
Pretty amazing Sam.
Rock slide.
Landslide. Those are massive boulders. You see those people?
All the rocks underneath that giant rock have been crumbling all day. And we just took a trail that went straight under, had it run as fast as we could so it didn't get smushed.
We just made it to Kokyo. It's right here. We've been taking pictures up here. Now it's freezing.
Kara's in a little better mood today than she has been. The two and a half hour hike was much better to her than the six or eight hour hike.
We're at our tea house and I'm getting some tea right now.
We got into Gorkyo at about 10:30 this morning. It's now 1:30 in the afternoon. Basically all we've done is eat lunch and lay around and read books. The potential second plans for the afternoon were to climb up this mountain behind me. But as you can see it's been enveloped by a cloud. Plus Karen and I probably weren't climbing it anyway. We're pretty wiped from the last two days of six to eight hour treks and waking up before 5am so today we're just hanging out. We're all waiting till 3pm when the bakery turns the fire on and we're going to head up. There is a bakery in this town so we're going to be able to get some baked goods and good coffee and we're all pretty excited about that. And since we're just hanging out here in the town of Goku, I thought I would take some time to explain how life works in these small villages in the Himalayas. So this village that we're in has eight tea houses, which I think is about average. So.
That'S the tea house we're staying in. That's another tea house. That's another tea house. Teahouses are basically places that you can sleep, and they're also restaurants. And if you choose to sleep at a certain tea house, you're expected to eat all of your meals there. Some tea houses will even let you sleep there for free, as long as you buy your lunch and dinner there. Another thing about these places is that all of the charging cost money and all of the WI FI cost money. So I'm actually on a search for a WI FI card right now. About, like, 100 megabytes for $3.50. Looks like a decent shop for WI Fi.
And I've been waiting in the shop for about 10 minutes now, and nobody showed up. So I guess no WI fi here. I was able to track down a WI FI card at another tea house. I got 100 megabytes for. For 350 rupees. And while I've been gone, we've been charging Kara's computer so she can work on the vlog, and that's costing 350 rupees per hour, which is like $3.50 an hour. And it'll give us, like, 50% battery charge. Kara, do you want to give us a tour? Yeah.
After 11 days in the mountains with a limited menu, we have come across a bakery.
With all of apple Danish.
Apple pie, massive brownies, and the best part.
And we made a deal, if we buy something, they put yak poo in the fire.
It's gonna be a great afternoon.
Much better than climbing that mountain.
Yeah, we're not doing that.
All right. These are two of our Australian friends that we've been trekking with for, like, the last 10 days.
You left your New Zealand buddy behind. I think he won't do it if you don't wait on him.
You gotta leave your underpants on, otherwise we can't put it on YouTube.
Come on, Sammy boy.
Oh, my God, mate, I'm freezing. If you don't hurry, I'm coming. Hurry up. I gotta strip off now.
Sam's not happy. I'm just.
Oh, my God. Yeah, I'm cold.
How's it feel? Beautiful. Fresh.
Really fresh.
Charlie, will you explain the red card system to me?
Red card system is started in New Zealand down in Dunedin Uni by Samsung. And when you go on a trip, each of you get one red card.
Hola.
And so Jelly's from swimming in the Ganges. Santa was a pub crawl at Marissa beach in Sri Lanka. Mum is swimming at Gokyo Lake. It's beautiful.
Actually.
Kara's taking off her pants.
Ah, it smells so free.
Your face is a little red.
