Nepal 2019 - Kopan Monastery, Lukla and the Walk to Tengboche

In October 2019 my mum took me and my oldest brother to Nepal to walk up to Kopan. I grew up at Chenrezig Institute, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the Sunshine Coast hinterland at Eudlo. It opened in 1974 and was the first Tibetan Buddhist centre in Australia. Rinpoche was our Lama there, and he was also behind Kopan Monastery, which sits on a hill above Boudhanath on the edge of Kathmandu. Kopan came first, bought and started in 1969. So Kopan was a name I grew up hearing without any of us ever having stood in it. That was the whole point of the trip. Mum, my oldest brother and me, walking up that hill. We got there. It mattered for another reason too. It was one of the first times Mum had ever been out of Australia. We grew up with very little money and a lot of kids, and she never got the chance to travel, though she always wanted to. This was it. After Kathmandu we flew into Lukla and walked up the Khumbu to Tengboche. -------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ROUTE The first figure each day is the published height of the place. The figures in brackets are what my phone's GPS actually logged that day, lowest to highest, straight out of the original files. Phone GPS altitude is only good to a few tens of metres, so the two don't match exactly and neither is gospel. 1 Oct Kathmandu. Boudhanath, then the walk up the hill to Kopan Monastery. (1,324 - 1,432 m) 2 Oct Swayambhunath, and Dashain in the streets of Thamel. (1,286 - 1,410 m) 3 Oct Dark start and a long drive out to the airstrip at Ramechhap. Twin Otter over the hills into Lukla, 2,845 m - 74 km in a straight line. Then down the valley to Phakding, 2,610 m. (491 - 2,878 m) 4 Oct Phakding to Monjo, 2,835 m. (2,619 - 2,913 m) 5 Oct Monjo up the hill to Namche Bazaar, 3,440 m. (2,823 - 3,560 m) 6 Oct Acclimatisation day. Up above Namche and back. (3,663 - 3,846 m) 7 Oct Out west of Namche towards Thame. (3,382 - 3,542 m) 8 Oct A day around Namche. Nothing shot on this day recorded a position at all, so the place is where the days either side put us, not a reading, and I can't give a height. 9 Oct Namche to Tengboche, 3,860 m. (3,265 - 3,838 m) 10 Oct Dawn at Tengboche, then the long drop back down the valley. (2,740 - 3,883 m) 11 Oct Down to Lukla. (2,510 - 2,864 m) 12 Oct Back in Kathmandu. (1,302 m) Highest point of the trek: Tengboche at 3,860 m. The highest reading my phone logged anywhere on the trip was 3,883 m, at Tengboche at 6:09 on the morning of 10 October - the dawn shot near the end of this film. Lukla to Tengboche is about 17 km as the crow flies, or about 20 km if you join the villages up in straight lines. The trail is a fair bit longer than that again. No Base Camp on this one. Every file in the library that recorded a position sits at or below Tengboche - nothing further up the valley - and the highest reading anywhere is 3,883 m. We went for Kopan and for Tengboche. -------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTERS 0:00 Lukla 0:23 Kathmandu 1:01 Up to Kopan 1:43 Ramechhap to Lukla 2:36 Into the Khumbu 3:56 Namche and above 4:52 Tengboche 5:11 Back down -------------------------------------------------------------------- Shot on an iPhone 8 and two GoPros, a HERO7 and an older HERO5, October 2019. Cut in 2026. Music: "The Breach" - Dustin Tebbutt "Southern Sun" - Boy & Bear