travel
Action stations
Test your mettle against some of Asia’s toughest challenges. Conquer Everest (Base Camp) Climbing the world’s highest mountain is a dream shared by millions, but few have the chutzpah, cash, skills and lungs to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Visiting Everest Base Camp as the climbers and their guides prepare for summit bids during the best weather window in May is as close as most of us are likely to get. The camp is a 14-day hike up the stunning Kosi valley from Lukla airstrip, through rhododendron forests, past prayer flag-bedecked monasteries and picturesque Sherpa villages, with a night or two acclimatising in the bustling town of Namche Bazaar. It’s a popular route, with many lodges and teahouses providing food and accommodation along the way, but it’s easy to get off the beaten track. Travel independently, hiring a guide on arrival or join a tour and let someone else work out the details. Where to stay: Nepal Uncovered (www.nepal-uncovered.com) takes small groups on an 18-
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day trip to base camp and back. Experienced climbers can have a crack at climbing Everest with International Mountain Guides (www. mountainguides.com), which also organises trips to Everest Base Camp, the Khumbu Ice Falls or Lobuche Peak. Hike Tiger Leaping Gorge Take the high road through the 16km Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan Province. One of the deepest in the world, with mountains rising a dizzying 3,900m above the surging Jingsha River, a tributary of the Yangtze, this two- or three-
day hike offers some of the most spectacular scenery in China. In spring, flowers paint the slopes in glorious technicolour as the path winds around 24 bends between Qiaotao and Walnut Grove. High up on the northern bank, it’s a fairly strenuous walk through villages, bamboo groves, farmland and forest, past often vertiginous drops. The old lower path has now been turned into a vehicular road popular with tourist buses, with a new (flat) pedestrian trail close to river level to a viewing point above the rock where a tiger is said to have jumped 25 metres across the waters to escape a hunter. There’s even a statue of a tiger on the opposite bank. Where to stay: The gorge is a two-hour bus ride from Lijiang. The Halfway Guesthouse (tel: +86 8888880200) is one of several places offering hot meals and beds with views. Tina’s Youth Hostel is close to the rapids of the middle gorge, with a car-rental service (tel: +86 8878806638, 8806079).
Run the Borneo Death March This "ultramarathon" is a five-day event from April 28-May 2. For experienced adventure racers only, it follows the 200km “death march” across Borneo undertaken by Australian and British prisoners of war in 1945. The route follows that taken by 2,345 POWs and Malaysians from Sandakan to Ranau, through swamp, jungle, and the highlands and lowlands of Mount Kinabalu. Only six survived. The tragedy is little known outside Malaysia, and the ultra-marathon is being run in remembrance of the men who died. It traces the route in reverse, from Ranau to the Kinabatangan River near Sandakan.