Day 8 Rest Day - MC Shark appears for Boom's Birthday, Steamy Mountains, Bocco, and Self-Doubt

Yet again I was awoken by the Hoover Dam being opened in my intestines and I scuttled off to the makeshift bog in the very early light. I did take a moment to think of Jules and Vics who were in the room next to the toilet, both of whom were probably awoken by what they thought was the sound of gunfire followed by a tap being opened up to maximum capacity, followed by some panting and maybe even the occasional swear.

After 2 hours of dozing I strolled back for one of several encores, and didn't think anything of the 20 or so people gathered outside looking in at me as I gave them an acknowledgement wave with the hand holding the bogroll, pausing only to mumble 'have a guess what I'm about to do', before swinging the door shut. Upon assuming the squat position, I heard a loud cheer from outside. Before I had the chance to think that this was all a bit odd, the crowd launched into a rendition of happy birthday and it clicked that Kinsey, everybody's favourite aggressive chicken farmer, was celebrating his birthday. To commemorate this, the guides had baked him a cake and presented it to him as breakfast.

This sugar hit helped on the long acclimatisation walk. We were going 600 metres straight up, with everybody under strict instructions to take it very slowly. I took the opportunity to have my first non-childish chat with Dave Kirtley, either side of descending 50 metres or so to find a nice covered area to deposit some of Kinsey's birthday cake. This prompted a couple of singalongs, one was the obvious 'Ring of Fire' followed by what i thought was a stroke of puerile genius, by rewording 'Six Months in a Leaky boat' to something along the lines of 'I've just spent six days with a leaky arse' - It had in fact only been 4 days, however I granted myself some poetic license. Later on, Paola would remark that I was 'steaming up the mountain' in reference to the brisk walking pace I was setting. The look on her face when I responded with 'Steamed up in the mountain in more ways than one' was that of a girl who looked disappointingly resigned to the fact that she had chosen to spend 14 days in close proximity to 40-odd males.

Once atop the cold and windy proximes of the 4900metre hill-summit, Butler and I grew more confident with asking DK about what his brother went through after being banned for throwing. For those unfamiliar with cricket, being called for throwing (instead of bowling) is one of the most controversial and soul-destroying things that can happen to any sportsman, particularly on the world stage. There's a cheating stigma attached that never disappears and many people never recover. We were stunned at the remedial action needed. Dave said muscle memory has been calculated at doing something 2500 times, hence James stood at the bowling crease with a big bag of balls and practiced a remodelled bowling action 3000 times. This then progressed to taking the final delivery stride and bowling a further 3000 times, and so on and so on. I've always been pretty quick to judge pro sportsmen, and this story has made me reassess my willingness to throw barbs at people from the outer of the SCG in future.

For approximately an hour we hung around at 4900metres, taking photos, chatting and making Vicks Nicholson promise favours in exchange for a mars bar. I felt alright at that altitude but was worried what running around on a cricket pitch would do to my lungs. Thankfully we had another 3 days to build-up the red blood cells before game-day.

On the walk down I got involved in some banter with Bil and Prem. They constantly referred to me as 'Bocco'. I've had a few definitions to this. At first, the boys embarrassingly said it meant 'strong' - finding this unlikely, I quizzed them further. The real meaning ended up being somewhere between unmarried and gay. They couldn't understand how a man of 28 was not married. Prem then seized on this and started quizzing me about London. He eventually asked me about the ladies in London. After my answer he then clarified his question. 'No, no, how about the red light ladies, y'know...' - He was then shocked to hear that I couldn't give him a rundown of the quality/availability/price lists of callgirls throughout London. I think this was the moment that 'Unmarried' turned into 'Gay'.

After the previous nights lack of appetite, I happily managed to scoff down lunch and also a whole clove of garlic. Nick Walker had suggested swallowing an entire clove like a pill, as apparently that binds your stomach. I had an interesting time talking pigeon English to the teahouse owner trying to describe what I wanted, and then trying to describe what it was for.

Later that night we gathered for one of the highlights of the tour. A comedy night had been arranged to commemorate Kimbo's birthday. Our resident stand-up comedian Chris Martin compared the evening and kicked-off proceedings - along with G-Man - with an ode Milky Tea, the beverage that we each consumed at least 6-10 cups of per day. The night required everybody to get up and tell a joke. The jokes told ranged from Riotous (Mark Waters), Hilarious (George Powell), Confused (James Markby), Ordinary (JC), and Tasteless (myself).

The highlights of the night include Chris' crack about 'wiping your arse' with the religious shroud placed around Kimbo's neck, The Sharland Brothers massively under-rated acappella rendition of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' with rewritten lyrics, but the highlight of the night and possibly the entire trip was the emergence of MC Shark and Base Camp 1 into the cut-throat world of hip-hop. Jules and Milo provided beats whilst Joe 'Mountain Jew' Williams spat out some sick rhymes. Check the video out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3aV2zaZI48 This was yet another night that I could've taken or left prior to the event, but turned out to be a storming evening.

Souring the day somewhat was the amount of downtime we had, or more to the point, what the downtime did to my mental state. It was the first time that our attentions really started turning towards the game. People started chatting about what it was going to be like and, more to the point, who was going to play. I began to think about the different characters within the 15 of us in Tenzing and who were the likely starters. Obviously captain, vice-captain, and Wes were certainties. Blinky, due to his tireless work on the website, was going to be another definite. That left 11 of us to go into 7 spots. I began agonising over whether I had contributed enough in the lead-up to the trip. Kinsey and Mike had hosted days at their houses, Dave Christie had organised and managed huge discounts and orders for kit, JC had nailed down the flights from Qatar. I had organised the stickcricket game, pulling in over 3million hits, but had worried whether this had been lost along the way or whether it would be considered as a nice extra, rather than an actual contribution. Adding into this mix is a torturous record as a youngster in just missing out on sports teams. I had to watch from the sidelines whilst my rugby league team played in 2 grand finals, one because the coach decided I wasn't good enough to ruin his and his son's chances of under 12 premiership glory, and another due to emergency surgery a fortnight beforehand. I was constantly missing out on school cricket teams, generally being told on the day that I wasn't required after travelling hundreds of miles, during a run into the semi-finals of a state-wide knockout comp. It's funny how memories as old and as seemingly irrelevant as those come back when you're grappling with self-doubt, twisting your mind into thinking that there's a curse and getting you into a bad frame of mind. This negative outlook, of course, was exacerbated by the stomach illness and the lack of sleep, but you don't realise that at the time whilst an overly-active imagination spirals out of control.

Day 7 Tengboche to Dingboche - Gruelling Slogs and Bush Poo's

We set off on to Dingboche early on as we had allot of distance to cover. The walk covered a good 10 miles or so, but with only 200 metres elevation in total. Annoyingly we initially had to descend 300 metres, and even more annoyingly I had to do it with the sound of the bell clanging in my ear as I'd been awarded the Dick of the Day the previous evening for my water-sterilising lunacy. I didn't have far too look for the next recipient though, as at our next water-stop Chris Martin straddled the water supply so it looked like he was pissing, before turning around and unzipping his trousers. If it weren't for the pained screams of everybody, he would've pissed directly into the water we were filling our bottles with.

Thankfully this water was clean, as plenty of the guys had drunk from the water given to us the day before. The water itself was fine, it was just the unwashed kerosene bottles that it was poured form that caused the issue, particularly with Wes, who was really struggling, and probably didn't appreciate people singing 'the sweet taste of kerosene' lyric from Revelry by Kings of Leon over and over again.

At lunch an aussie guy, trekking on his own, stopped in to have a chat with us. Again he said we were the talk of the town up there and to expect a crowd on match day. It was 10 minutes after this conversation that I felt the rush in my bowels that nobody wants too, particularly in this part of the world. After the evacuating process behind a rock, I followed Kirt's instructions to light the toilet paper that I'd used. Unfortunately this then caught onto an adjoining bush and I had to stamp out the small blaze, kicking up some faeces in a Dennis the menace style prank-victim fashion. Another hour passed and I'd twice repeated the process.

This day was all-round dull day. No scenery to look at, and very little chat from some exhausted trekkers. The only talk of note came form the pretty ordinary 'bell' puns that were made towards me, which was a welcome relief from the constant recitals in my head of My Doorbell and Ring My Bell that were sending me mental.

After 7 long hours of trekking we arrived in Dingboche. As I was one of the first I got granted a single room, which I passed on to Wes who was feeling ill. He didn't want the room so I ended giving it to Marcus as penance for my first night's snoring and sleep-talking that disturbed him throughout our only night rooming together.

About 20 minutes after I arrived, Breck and Glen walked in sharing an extra bag between them, and following them was Haydn, Team Tenzing's captain, looking a shadow of a man. Haydn had confessed to me at an earlier stop that he really struggled with hydration, as he never normally drank water (It's normally Pepsi Max), and he also shunned breakfast every day. This combination came back to haunt him as the medics inserted an IV line and his participation in the rest of the trip came into serious doubt.

At rest-stop previously mentioned, Breck had said that we need to look into hiring extra porter's to carry our bags. Not a single other trekker was carrying their packs, whilst we were trying to set a world record after trekking under a massive disadvantage. Lumbered with a heavy, awkward pack, I tended to agree with him.

That night was a battle to do even basic tasks such as eating and talking. Everybody looked miserable and we headed to bed looking forward to a rest day.

Day 6 Khumjung to Tengboche - I can't wait 30 minutes

The lovely feel of a fresh pair of jocks and socks adorned my skin as we set off for another day's walking. Immodium mixed cement in my stomach as Kirt described the day's walk as 'tough'. This adjective bounced around my head as my chewed my way through the dry grey yoke of an over-boiled egg, as not only had Kirt taken on the unkempt look of a Nepali, but had also picked up their habit of massively understating distances, times, and difficulty.

What then caught my attention was Jen saying she couldn’t drink her water just yet as she hadn't waited the 30 minutes for the steriliser's to kick in. This concerned me. I had just been dropping in my tablets and drinking straight away. Upon further inspection of the instructions, you are indeed instructed to wait 30 minutes before the steriliser’s take effect. What further concerned me was Cuzzer's previous statement that this year had been a bad year for Giardia. Giardia is the bacterial offshoot of faeces. All water on the mountain is taken from glacial streams. This would have to be the purest form of water in the world, were it not for the animal and human faeces travelling through it. Giardia, in short, is bad news. It results in horrible vomiting and diarrhoea as your body tries to eradicate the bug as quickly as possible. This is generally uncontrollable and not easily maintained or gotten over. As my stomach was getting progressively worse, and as I had been drinking unsterilised water for 4 days, I began to think - with a fair degree of certainty - that it probably wasn't the change of diet that had caused my stomach to fall out of me with alarming regularity, but more to do with a horrible infectious bug that was going to take a long time to eradicate.

The first 2 hours were spent going downhill, which isn't as easy as it sounds. The impact of 16kgs on your back sends shockwaves through the joints. I was almost looking forward to the uphill section. To pass the time, I got to know our medics Nick and Breck a bit better with 2 hours of solid chat, interspersed by listening to Kirt's chat on the radio explaining the difference between jam and marmalade. I knew I'd get along fine with Nick Walker when he radioed through to the group behind that a big pack of Yaks were causing a disturbance, not through indifference to their master, but because I'd raped one of them.

After grassing Butler up over his failure to well the Dick of the Day bell (see: 'ww2' comment from Day 5), we commenced the uphill slog of 600 metres. Essentially you can repeat the uphill slog from Day 2, but just add in some pretty good chat between Chris, Hillsy, Breck, and to a lesser extent (thank you for that evaluation Chris) myself. On the way up, some American girls stopped us. Without a hint of irony, they launched into a full description of how we were wasting our time even attempting the game. They thought that after one ball we'd collapse, that we would be playing in blizzards, and that we were stupid to even think we could do this. So caught up in their own importance and struggles at GorakShep, they ignored me thanking them for the Alex Ferguson style motivational talk (my exact words) and walked on.

Nicks Valuable Trekking Tip: Always open your pack of wine gums away from the crowd of people.

Slopping into Tengboche around mid-afternoon, I was greeted by Mike Preston. 'Tooves you're rooming with me mate... but I'm afraid to say we've got a pretty ordinary view from our window' - A quick draw of the curtains revealed the first proper view of Mt Everest for the trip. Walking outside, I had a bit of a moment as I gazed up. I'll spare you the boring details for fear of sounding like a travel-wanker (‘you only know the feeling if you've been there’ etc etc... the sort of thing a surfer would bore you to tears with), but I stood and stared with smile on my face for a good 20 minutes as the others in our group filed up the mountain.

Watching everybody come in, I did think to myself that, yet again, I was at the front of the pack and doing pretty well with the whole walking-at-altitude thing. Until I found out that, before I'd got there, Mike Preston had found time to get himself a room, head to the bakery for a snack, and do a load of washing. With promises of good food from the bakery, we sat inside and played cards whilst the Kirtley's fell asleep in their chairs. Having been in shared accommodation for 6 days plus, the twitches on Joe, Cuzza, Chris, and myself were evident as we played with an FHM pack of cards.

An afternoon of playing knockabout cricket in front of the monastery ensued... highlights including having to run a 7 after hitting it down the hill, Dharma's spectacular one-hander in the outfield, Butler's child-like petulance when he learnt that he couldn't just bat whenever he wanted too, and some pretty amusing sledging of Dave Kirtley. I was quite proud of my 'Couldn't we afford the good Kirtley?', however Butler's 'Don't worry, I'm not the best player in my family either' probably trumped it.

Tengboche, at 3900m, started to see the facilities get a little more basic. There was no power until 6pm, outside toilets, and it was much colder. That night we sat down to our normal meal of garlic soup, friend bread, and spuds to listen to a pretty serious talk from the medics about the coming days. They'd spoken with a Danish guy with extensive mountaineering experience, whom was properly acclimatised, but still came down with HACE, a very serious form of altitude sickness involving swelling of the brain. Further to this, two Japanese trekkers had very recently died. Whilst the Japanese have a genetic makeup meaning their bodies are more susceptible to the affects of Altitude sickness, the message was plain and clear. Take it slow, drink at least 4 litres of water and eat plenty.

Day 5 Rest Day - Thunderbirds, Haka's, Fluro tights, and Stop Bitching

I woke at 5am jusssssssst in the nick of time to save my underpants and my sleeping bag from being completely and thoroughly soiled. Thankfully nobody was up at this hour, as they would've got quite a surprise to see me gingerly striding off to the makeshift toilet, wearing trainers, socks, jocks and nothing else except for a bogroll and the key to my door hanging from my right hand.

I was now officially on the bad side of sick and forced some porridge (which tasted like wood shavings... Kiwi tried dissolving instant coffee in his to disguise the poor taste) down me whilst people organised themselves into Walking to school Attending/Walking 5 hours for acclimatisation/Walking wounded. I loaded myself up on Imodium and walked down to watch from outside the school walls with Dave Kirtley, who looked equally as solemn as I was not to be involved. Cheering me up a little was the sight of Neil cresting the hill with his brother. Alongside them was Ian, our Makem medic, and it was he that a few of us set-off to Kunde hospital with.

What proceeded was one of the best experiences of the trip. The Doctor (whose name I've embarrassingly forgotten to note down) at Kunde hospital was one of the most intensely interesting men I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. He talked us through his immaculately-kept hospital whilst Ian gasped at the wide range of skills he had. 'You just don't get generalists with such a wide range of specialist skills like this in the UK' was the exact comment. He showed us through the x-ray chamber, the overnight ward, the medical supplies, and the birthing ward. Helen quizzed him further on the birthing procedure and he responded that all the local women were very strict and reliable with their checkups, some of which would walk the 3 hours uphill from Namche and other surrounding areas whilst up too 8 months pregnant to see that they were getting the right treatment. This goes to show in equal parts the power of the maternal instinct, the determination of the Sherpa women, and most of all the esteem with which the hospital and it's facilities and staff were held in it's catchment area. The doctors themselves (3 of them) all lived around 3 hours walk away. They worked 6 days a week each, and stayed onsite. For all this effort, they awarded themselves no more than the average Nepali wage. Not the average wage for a doctor, but the average overall wage. The hospital had survived for over 60 years on a grand total of £50,000 worth of donations. Bear in mind that he could quite easily upsticks to the UK (he speaks perfect English) and in 6-8 weeks of applying could be earning much more than £50k per year on his own. These donations are mainly funded by The Hillary Foundation in Canada, however he was quite proud of his various worldwide connections and donations of medicines and equipment that he has procured. He stated that he had received no help from the Nepali government, and that without the help from Hillary and the various foundations he had set-up and that were set-up in his honour, it would be impossible for the only hospital from within a catchment area approximately the size of Greater London to continue existing. Walking from the school that Hillary also setup to listen to the stories of the hospital, it was pretty easy to see why he is so revered in this part of the world.

Breck later told me a story of the guy we passed being carried down the path to Lukla on a stretcher the day before. Turns out he had come form Kunde hospital and had a perforated ulcer. Apparently in this state a gentle breeze against your stomach is complete agony. I wouldn't be surprised if that guy had passed out from the pain as he bumped up and down on the rocky paths. All this certainly put my slight stomach issue into perspective and snapped me out of my (frankly embarrassing) blue funk that I'd whipped myself into.

Following this we had an acclimatisation walk of 400 metres up, almost completely vertical. Without packs on though it felt pretty easy, with Chris (generic superhero) and Joe (thunderbird) providing a visual treat in their fancy dress costumes. What these tight uniforms bought to attention was the sheer size of Chris Martin's balls. At first, he was pretty proud of them until everybody really started to inspect them closer and ask specific questions about where they hung, average weight etc etc. I could only describe them as 2 cricket balls in a stocking hanging from a clothesline. They were enough to turn Vicks Nicholson a bright shade of impressed pink when he politely gave her a surprise look on the final night in Lukla. Everybody seemed in good spirits at this point, although the altitude was starting to take affect when Butler asked 'Were there Jews involved in World War 2?' - Being a good friend I kept this very much under wraps and didn't stop everybody in what they doing to announce this faux-pas loudly. That was just be ridicule.

We returned to the teahouse to find out that a picture of BJ, cricket-bat strapped to his back like a true adventurer, gazing away at the summit of Mt Everest, had made the front page of The Independent. What was about to make bigger news, however, was our Karaoke contest. Fought between 3 evenly matched teams, we combined talent, commitment, and stage presence and ignored them all in favour of shouting and a bit of jumping. To be honest I could've taken or left the Karaoke due to tiredness but it turned out to be absolutely brilliant. Tenzing, Hillary, and the Trektators all performed 3 songs each, with the medics doing an outstanding job as Simon Cowell (Breck), Randy Jackson (Nick, who decided against blacking up), Sharon Osbourne (Isla), and Louis Walsh (Ian). Ian was simply outstanding the whole evening. As was Mike Preston, whose genuinely scary haka went down pretty well. Although it was lucky it was dark as I would've offended alot of people if they could see my complete hash of the movements. Even more offensive were the 6 pairs of bright fluorescent lycra tights that Markby had thought to pack. These were donned by a chosen few as I led the boys in a rousing rendition of Livin' On A Prayer, right down to cock-rock voices and hordes of screaming girls begging me to take them backstage... although I would've preferred a better description than 'the little one' from Isla. In the end the Trektators won due to Zooby and Brooksie being able to hold a tune... which was completely against the spirit if you ask me.

Day 4 Namche to Khumjung - Neil goes down, Singing Lessons, and Horrible, Horrible Gas

Day 4 dawned with a relatively short walk ahead of us followed by a day and a half of rest. We geared up over a breakfast of eggs, our third gas-inducing breakfast in a row, and I learnt that Neil Sharland had actually pulled up pretty ill, and was struggling with a lack of appetite and general lethargy. News from the other camp was that Russell, Glen, and Blade had been the first to get amongst the runs on tour (geddit?), however Jamo trumped them all with his explosiveness off both the front and back foot.

We convened at the bottom of the stairs for the first Tenzing-Hillary challenge of the tour. A 'Porter Race' was taking place between Mike Preston and Dave Kirtley. It was pretty big of these guys to step up too this challenge as it wasn't in the initial plans and not everybody agreed with it. The night before we had been confronted with an issue from Mark Jordan that he wasn't getting any footage for the first news report. Tensions flared as there appeared to be a misalignment between what Mark's editor was looking for from the trip and what was actually happening. Picturing footage of people 'trekking at Everest', it seemed they were expecting us to drop like flies with altitude sickness to the backdrop of jagged snow-covered mountains. The first few days provided nothing but a bunch of relatively fit guys walking up tree-covered paths, and Mark was getting worried that he didn't have a story. Unfortunately this wasn't put forward in the best of manners nor at the best of times, eliciting what I thought was an over-reaction from the Tenzing guys to a guy who, when it boils down to it, was just trying to do his job (whether you agree - and I don't - with the questionable motives or not).

As a result, the 2 lads stepped bravely into the breach to race up a set of stairs (hard enough on it's own) with full Porters packs strapped to their heads, in order to satisfy the needs of the news channel we'd signed a contract with. Like clichéd Westerners on tours, we'd marvelled at the amount of weight the Porters were able to carry up the hill, many of them carrying huge loads of circa 30kg stacked into baskets that were strapped around their foreheads. I asked Dharma how long they could expect to do this for, expecting a response of 5 or 10 years before their bodies give way. 'For life' was the matter-of-fact response. The result of the race is still one that's up for debate. Mike was the clear leader before a stray elbow from Dave Kirtley knocked Mike's strap off. Mike crossed the line first but without his pack. Hillary claimed this made it ineligible. Counter-claim was made of misconduct, and I slipped off to buy a water bottle before the arguing bored me to death.

During the purchase of the water bottle, I got chatting to the lady tending the store. After mentioning we were off the Khumjung, she told me that she used to go to school there. 'What, you walked there every day?' - 'Yes. I go every schoolday for 10 years. At first it take over 2 hours. At the end 1 and a half' - This of course was the distance one-way. We had a good chat about the school and the fact that Sir Edmund Hillary built it and that we were visiting the school next day to teach the kids cricket and to donate some cricket equipment. She thought that was fantastic and thanked me for helping out the local community.

Energised and full of anticipation as to what lay ahead with the schools visit, I rejoined the bickering crowd to find both teams cheering mindlessly, with Wes pouring over video footage of the finish and declaring, unsurprisingly, that Mike was the winner. As we prepared to head off, it was announced that Kirt was to be given the first special award of the trip. Having unzipped his trouser-legs and left them at our lunchstop the previous day, Kirt was awarded a cowbell to wear for his stupidity, which he then left at the next stop. For this, he then had to strap the giant cowbell to his rucksack for the day, and the Dick of the Day award was born.

We set-off in groups that were mixed up between the 2 teams for the first time. Unfortunately I wound up behind Kirt and the gentle clanging of the bell sent me nuts within minutes. How anybody finds wind-charms nice to listen to is beyond my comprehension. It's just unmetred clanging of metal that's about as relaxing as a car-mechanics. Walking up, straight-up, a hill, I realised this climb was going to be much harder than I gave it credit for. 500 metres straight up in the space of about 90 minutes. This took an early toll with Mark Jordan getting his story as we suffered our first mountain casualty. To everybody's surprise, Neil Sharland - one of the fittest guys on the trip - had his vision blur over and Isla, one of the medics, couldn't find his radial pulse. He was laid down on a stretcher, a drip inserted, and it was decided he should stay back in Namche for another night. This process was, predictably, played out on ITV news that night. The sight of Neil's fresh-face in pain followed by his torso being exposed on the 6pm news led to a spate of calls to the switchboard to check on his health, as housewives across London wished him well.

Following this break I started struggling back up the hill, before one of the porters gave me some pretty simple walking advice - take small strides and keep your steps as straight as possible - and this assisted a great deal. Before long Kiwi and I were annoying anybody in-between us by shouting out Simpsons Trivia Questions and I was pretty pleased as to how I was faring compared to the rest of the group.

Once at morning tea we were treated to our first views of Everest, although by the time I got around too it, the small part of the summit that could be seen was virtually obscured by cloud. What followed was a gentle, uneventful, descent. So uneventful that Haydn and I didn't realise that we'd been lost, as we found our way to the teahouse before realising that we'd come a completely different way to everybody else. Lunch followed - at which point I decided to stop keeping a food count as we got given essentially the same thing for every single meal - before a bakery trip and some cricket in the town square with the locals. During the knockabout, I marked out the length of a pitch (22 yards) and ran a mock two. The run itself was fine but once I stopped I felt a bit dizzy and it took time to catch my breath.

Over dinner it was announced that Neil was recovering and should be back with us the following day. It was then also announced that a decision had been made to only take 12 people to the school the next day. My heart immediately sank. It was then mentioned that it would be weighted towards Tenzing and people who were out playing with the kids. My hopes raised. They were then dashed as the final name was read out. I was already feeling pretty ordinary with a stomach issue and general tiredness and this announcement compounded it and sent me into my shell. I became fairly ponderous as my guts churned and I contemplated how gutted I actually was to miss out on such an opportunity. At this stage George stood up and said he'd just about got to everybody bar 1 or 2 people and put their photo up on the website. One of those people was me and it further exacerbated the persecution complex that I'd got myself into.

A mixture of that disappointment and not feeling 100% health-wise meant I stood back for alot of the rehearsals for the following evenings Karaoke contest. To be fair it was probably beneficial, as is generally the case with 15 alpha males, everybody wanted to be in control, resulting in a lot of talking and instructing and very little listening. I still managed to suggest a team shout-a-long to Living on a Prayer as one of our songs, and an off-the-cuff remark to Blinky and Mike to perform a pre-contest Haka turned into Mike giving us a quick rendition. This made us all genuinely scared and soon the idea caught on and this was to be our 3rd 'song' for the evening.

Throughout the rehearsals, Wes noted that I wasn't myself, and also that my stomach was producing far too much wind (and that of which stunk like really bad meat or really good cheese). Hilariously, I then had to explain to ALL FOUR doctors - who were in a room at once - that my farting was so bad and so frequent that I had to see a doctor. Breck diagnosed early-stage diarrhoea and suggested I had some medication on hand.

Day 3 Phakding to Namche Bazaar - Steep, Steep Inclines

The morning dawned to a crisp temperature, fresh dew, and the sound of a dozen Nepalese men violently clearing their throats. The sound of phlegm being cleared from the throat and lungs was to be the theme tune of the entire trip. Men, Women, Children, and even the occasional Yak had a thing for a good hock. And not just a casual spit, a completely thorough clearout of the lungs and throat.

I was quite happy that the 'soft tissue injury' that Breck had diagnosed the night before (Doctor talk for 'there's nothing wrong with you') in my right shoulder had cleared up enough for me to carry my bag. G-Unit was also kind enough to lend his considerable strength to tightening my straps on my rucksack around my waist, chest and back - and this combined with my now 'broken-in' shoulders meant that the load was a little easier. Again we set off in Hillary/Tenzing split groups.

The first half of the day, save for Markby upsetting just about everybody present by going for a naked swim in the glacial river that doubtlessly used to be sacred to the locals, went by in a fairly pedestrian manner. 3 hours of flat walking that took us into the official entrance of Sagamartha National Park. Kirt had to fly out to Nepal a few weeks previous to sort out entrance permissions to the national park, and the subsequent release of the details of those conversations has since seen an official of the national park relieved of his duties after it transpired he wasn't going to let us in. A press release was issued that day mentioning the issue, and it caused a fair stir in the Nepali newspapers of the day, however being 10 days walk from the local paper shop combined with Kirt manfully shielding us from the issue meant we were blissfully unaware that there was even a problem in the first place. Incidentally, inside the national park office was an impressive papier-mache 3D model of the entire park and the mountains it contained. This really kicked home how far we had to go, both in distance and altitude, and how far Everest towered over Base Camp and Gorak Shep.

This was all a predecessor to our first big challenge, the 800metre incline to Namche. Crossing one of the many Indiana Jones style bridges was the connecting point to the massive hill we had to ascend. This was our first real test of what altitude can do to you and by far our hardest physical test of the trip so far, and in hindsight maybe of the entire trip. My unacclimitised lungs stung with every intake of thin air, sweat literally poured down my forehead and several times I had to stop to flush suncream that had dripped with sweat into my eye to stop the intense stinging. On the plus side, the squats and leg work that the Sharlands had torturously put us through during the winter was paying off as my legs felt fine. So much so that I passed Neil Sharland himself on the final uphill stretch. After a stop of about 15 minutes (incidentally, we were all so tired that none of us realised we all had our backs towards our first view of Everest) that I thought was going to refresh the legs, we set off again, only to realise that starting up is the hardest point. None of us knows exactly why but we thought that getting your heart-rate back up seemed to be pretty painful, but after 10 minutes, once the heart rate settled, things became a little easier.

Finally, after 2 and a half hours of toil and just as the calorie counter attached to Nick Walker ticked past 7,000, we hit Namche Bazaar. Namche was by far away the best town we stayed in on the way up, and justified it's status as the capital city for Sherpa's. We were directed to our hotel, again Hillary and Tenzing were split into different hotels, and I thought the third flight of stairs was going to finish me off. As I walked downstairs to have a shower (my final shower for the next 13 days), I saw Butler refusing to climb anymore stairs and begging Sambu to get him a room on the ground floor.

That evening a few of us gathered to test out some Yak Steak and sup on a well-deserved lager. Only 1 was consumed though as I started to feel a bit tipsy as I drained the can. Further enhancing the dizziness was running up a set of stairs with Chris. We both stopped at the top to catch our breath and remarked at how tough the game was going to be, bearing in mind it was a further 1700metres up.

Day 2 Lukla to Phakding - Yeti Airways, Heavy Packs, and Common Accents

Blinks and I awoke to our 4am wake-up call too tired to appreciate what exactly was about to start happening. We had both woken a little earlier on in the night, Blinky woken from my snoring and me from the pillow that Blinky slammed into me. Dressed in my zip-off shorts, ankle-high hiking boots, grey socks, matched with my obscenely white legs, I trudged to the bus looking quite a bit like a German schoolboy.

The flights were split into Hillary and Tenzing with trektators and medics allocated to each, and it was decided for ease then the first day would be split the same. Amusingly, Yeti Airways was taking us the short 25-minute hop from Kathmandu to Lukla, form where our trek would begin. Through the primitive security checks, which involved not much more than adorning each bag with a sticker that said 'security checked', we headed out to our plane. Nervous jokes were exchanged before they made way for proper nerves as the air stewardess handed out cotton wool and a boiled sweet. I'm not generally a nervous flier, but I was absolutely sh1tting myself as we sat on the tarmac. So much so that I readied the airsickness bag as I started shaking pretty noticeably.

Putting away down the runway like some students Volkswagen, we finally got airborne and my nerves subsided enough to take in the view. I'd received a tip to sit on the left-hand side of the plane which was a masterstroke, as for 25 minutes I was treated to some amazing scenery, with various snow-capped Himalayan peaks jutting into the sky, most of them resembling sharp pieces of dripping ice in a deep-freeze turned upside-down. The pilots pointed out Everest to us just before we descended into Lukla. When I say 'descended', I mean the mountain rose to meet the plane at the worlds hairiest airport. 18 people died on a similar flight last October trying to land on the sloped runway pincered in by mountains and valleys, but thankfully we had every passenger down safely.

Lukla itself was where it started to hit home what was about to happen. We were carrying our packs through the small village, with huge peaks basically on 4 sides of us. The air was noticeably thinner than what I'd ever been used too, and I really started to worry that I'd overpacked. I didn't know it at the time, but these were 3 pretty common themes throughout the entire trip for everybody involved.

Once we setout, I found the going fairly easy, which was pretty fortunate considering the first couple of hours was a 300 metre descent. Throughout the afternoon, I had to keep reminding myself to look up at the mountains instead of down at the ground as I walked. When I looked up I noticed a massively imposing summit. One that I couldn't imagine anything ever being any bigger than. Nir told me the mountain I was looking at peaked at around 5700 metres. This worried me. I tried to imagine where 5100metres would be on that mountain and thought to myself that was how high we were going. And then we were going to play up there. The few small inclines we'd faced had me puffing already.

Nick, one of our medics, reckoned that we'd be burning 4500 calories a day minimum, which is about double the normal daily intake. With this in mind, I set about lightening my chocolate load and trekked the last 90 minutes with Wes' documentary camera in my hand. Wes showed me how to take a few shots, which I duly did. At first I was pretty nervous with the expensive equipment in my hands, but after an hour I fancied myself as a budding Steven Spielberg. What i didn't realise was this was about the last time I'd see any camera on the trek. The 2 camera's we had were uninterested in me and Mark Jordan from ITN was a virtual stranger to me the entire trek. He did take a great liking to Butler due to his Essex accent (he was worried the ITV viewers wouldn't take to the large portion of privately educated accents on the trip), and also to Breck for his Aussie twang, Amusingly, far from being 'common', Breck went to King's College (possibly the most exclusive school in Australia) and has a degree from Cambridge.

We hit the first teahouse that we were to stay in and I was pleasantly surprised with how modern it was. I was told to expect accommodation to be similar to the village hall we all slept in at Kinsey's weekend. Far from this, we had separate twin rooms with ensuites that flushed, a communal shower-type-device, and a pleasant enough dining hall for everybody to sit and eat/play cards/do their journals etc. I have stayed in worse hostels in major European cities.

Petrified of being late in the mornings, I tried getting myself into a routine of packing and getting my clothes ready for the next day before joining everybody for dinner. I managed to avoid joining a fair smattering of us who enjoyed a pint and then an evening in the Public Bar's of Phakding and took myself off for the first full-nights sleep I'd had since the Wednesday night in London.

Food Count - Omelette sandwich for breakfast. Fried Bread, Vege's, Spuds, and a slice of unidentified processed meat for Lunch. Swimming Pool of Garlic Soup and Chicken Neck and Vege’s for Dinner. After advice from Kirt, I braved the chicken.