I’ve been reading a number of other blogs on the topic of Trekking Nepal lately. The recent posts are from adventurers who have recently returned from a soggy jaunt through the lowlands of Nepal. They say everything is fine, and oh yeah, there a millions of leeches lining the hiking trails. An image that comes to mind is the giant, oozing creature from “Princess Mononoke” tumbling across the land, leaving a trail of quivering slug slime. Pema tells me that if you’re in the lowlands during the monsoons, the little creatures leap out of the leaves on the ground and say “Hi!” Amy goes further to tell how they were creeping off of the plants and slithering up her boots. You couldn’t pack enough salt to fend them all off and the idea creeps me out bad. Oh, and by the way it’s a condition of rain clouds that you can’t see tall mountains through them, so the net effect is that the monsoon season is not as popular (as what, getting a root canal?).

I wear glasses, nice little ones with a flimsy wire frame. I stepped on them before and had to get the pieces welded back together. No, they weren’t on my face at the time. It gets frustrating having to watch out for them and it’s a bother getting around without them. Naturally I’ve taken an interest in getting LASIK done, especially now that I’ll be roughing it in the outdoors for all of October. I believe that wearing glasses, especially with this impractically fragile frame, will be a constant liability. Rich had LASIK done before his last trip to Nepal, so I asked him if it was a good idea to have it done, being that it was 3 weeks from departure and he was quick to tell me it was a bad idea at this point. If it were 6 to 8 weeks out it would work out much better, but he says for the first 4 weeks after the procedure your eyes are sensitive and vulnerable. Being in the dry, dusty air of the Khumbu, your eyes would not heal very well and you may end up scratching your eyes out.