Most Inspirational Moment
For a one-off inspiration: seeing yak herders on the open mountainside collecting yak dung for fuel and realising that a way of life which has existed for hundreds of years is still practised.
For the more gradual inspiration more appropriate to a long-distance walk, it was the slow change in colour and vegetation from late summer in the lowlands to autumn in the uplands.
For the small things in life it was realising in Samdo at 3,860 m that the sun on the tin roof of the shower cabin outside the teahouse meant that a hot bucket shower was not only possible but actually desirable.
Thoughts on Group Leader
I have been on many Exodus trips, but for sheer unconfined, unabashed, joyful exuberance and enthusiasm Chandra takes the prize. The image of him singing and dancing in the local bus on the way back from the end of the trip, as we swayed and lurched millimeters away from a drop of hundreds of metres into the gorge below will stay with me for the rest of my life.
In terms of practical competence, the three trekking guides we had were outstanding: Prasan (the head guide), Sagar and Mingma.
Advice for Potential Travellers
If your fitness is not permanently high, make sure you do (as a minimum of preparation) the Exodus training plan. Then you won't notice the long distances and hard ascents and will have plenty of time to take in what you are walking through.
Don't arrive expecting to be able to buy the snow spikes from the guide as you can't: you will need to walk into Thamel to get some.
If you want to save space on your packing for the flight, the down jackets and sleeping bags you can hire from the guides are really good quality.
Suggestions
Although you lose the motor traffic after the second day, you don't lose the road for much longer: it's been blasted a lot further. What prevents the traffic from using it is the lack of bridges to connect the blasted sections, but once the funding is found to build these the jeeps will be there. Fortunately the guides have found paths and sections which, in the main, avoid the need to walk on or even near the road, but its use by motor traffic will inevitably change the way of life, just as it has in other valleys and locations.
Despite all that is said about plastic drinks bottles, they are still on offer in every teahouse and they just end up being burnt in stinking heaps. A Steripen or filter bottle might seem to be an expensive investment even after netting off the cost of bottled water, but for the sake of this environment it must be worth it.