Nepal first-timer questions

Hi everyone, I'm headed to Nepal for 3.5 weeks prior to a work assignment in India, starting next Wednesday. I have a couple specific questions that I'd greatly appreciate your advice about.

First, I'll be traveling solo and plan on doing the Everest base camp trek. My inclination is to do it independently without a group, guide, or porters. The only thing I'm a little uncertain about is trekking solo, for any length of time. I've read that it's a bad idea, that people get lost and disappear, etc. Is it difficult to find trekking buddies if I just show up in Lukla? Is the trail busy enough that there will always be people around if I don't find trekking companions? Or would you advise a solo trekker to join a group?

Next, I've read a lot about water purification options - tabs vs getting boiled water on the trail vs steripen, etc. Is a lifestraw a viable option? Steripens are pretty expensive and I don't know that I would use it after this trip. Lifestraw is more reasonably priced and seems to make similar claims as the steripen, but I admit to not knowing much about purification.

I'll be in the country 25 days, plan on 15ish for the Everest trek and a couple in Kathmandu, which leaves around 7 unplanned days. Do you have any suggestions for a Nepal first-timer? I was thinking of exploring some of the smaller towns in the Kathmandu valley but would love recommendations for other things I should check out

Finally, any book recommendations, either on Nepali history or contemporary Nepal?

Thanks!

I can not look into the future and see what might happen to you. But I can tell you about my seven treks in the Khumbu, how I have never had any guide or trekked with an organised group, and how I have still not been robbed or killed. And I have not disappeared either.
On the other hand I have mostly trekked in from Jiri, which many independentents do.

Trekking solo in Nepal is certainly safer than many other trips or activities you could do.
The trail is extremely busy. Way too busy in fact.
I purify the water with iodine drops. In high altitude, I actually often drink stream water without any treatment.

Lifestraw is fine. If it is the suck-through-a-straw version, you cannot add flavouring to water, drink from a cup, etc. I prefer to drink from a bottle not a straw.

Iodine has at best "moderate" efficacy against giardia and no efficacy against Cryptosporidium.

It’s very possible to meet up with people but it may not occur until several days later when sitting around lodges acclimating in Namche and on the trail you will see the same people at your own pace and strike up conversations. It’s not significantly dangerous solo if you are a sensible and confident person as there are many people on the trail. Being solo you are responsible for your own security and belongings so take precautions. See past posts such as the recommended gear lists.

There is an extensive water purification recent post discussing options and issues. Personally and for reasons mentioned in that post I dont think lifestraw is preferred as filters do not deal with tiny virus like Hepatitis A and norovirus that are a risk in developing country contaminated water supplies, impractical to use on a daily and hourly basis as you need to suck on it all the time rather than let water freely flow. However, if you dont mind that and give it a try at home, filtering plus using the simple and cheap locally available in shops Piyush product chlorine drops is 100% effective as the chlorine kills virus and the filter screens large bugs like crypto and giardia parasites. None of the other methods, trusting boiled water from lodges/ filtering/ chemicals are as effective.

None of the other methods, trusting boiled water from lodges/ filtering/ chemicals are as effective.

IF water has been brought to a boil, it is the most effective. No data suggest filter&chemical is more effective than boiling or Steripen.

But agree, good filter and simple chemical very effective (as is Steripen). Boiling uses fuel (too often wood) and gets pricey (personally, though, I feel "boiled" water likely was boiled and certainly brought above 80°C, which is effective).

Thanks everyone! Much appreciated

Yes I forgot about steripen UV radiation method very effective subject to issues that were discussed in the past post about what’s the most effective and fullproof method yet practical, less time consuming way.

Sorry to go over these issues again in detail but I feel not all the issues are understood. Each treatment method has its weakness. The issue with boiled water from lodges is that you don’t really know it comes properly boiled water as they usually give it to you from flask bottles in the kitchen which you may not know the history. Waiting to see the water boiled in front of you and measuring temperature is not practical and environmentallly not good for deforestation of the area.

Even using steripen alone also has a weakness, where cloudiness, debri and organic particles I have seen in the water can reduce the UV effect of killing all the bugs so as a first line of defence that is easy to do one should try to use a clear water bottle to inspect clarity and physical particles to decide if proper water clarity conditions exist for steripen UV radiation to reach bugs. Using filtering with steripen increases the probably of better sterilisation.

Hence why filtering with chemicals/steripen appears to be the practical and more effective method where one thinks that is needed. Without getting too much into it in reality on a trek a number of conditions and situations can exist-

1. You get boiled water from the lodge kitchen flask in the morning, at tea stops, lunch and night. It feels hot enough or luke warm and you decide from there its ok to drink. It should probably be ok to trust. If not sure you treat it.

2. You are walking between lodges several hours apart and in need of water and there is a clean looking black plastic pipe in the hill side, stream or water fall and you decide to fill the bottle and treat it. The water is likely to have some black particles in the bottom 10% of the bottle, which can only be seen if the bottle is clear. You treat it with steripen or chemicals but the black particles are a risk so the only way to make sure is to filter it which also removes crypto and giardia bugs that are more resistant to chemicals. Steripen can deal with those bugs if the black particles or any cloudiness are not reducing the effectiveness of UV radiation on those bugs, but if filtered this improves the situation. Cloudy water will also affect steripen and also chemical treatment somewhat less for different reasons. Even the most effective chemical method chlorine dioxide tablets needs 4 hours to kill the crypto bugs which is not practical as you need water faster in at least 30 minutes. So clear water bottle, filtering plus chemical treatment or steripen seems the more fullproof and effective method.

Also note the boiled flask water comes from the same water sources in lodges as in No. 2 above so can have small black particles and cloudiness so if you try to treat it as a precaution the issues can still be present and filtering that as well can be a good idea but cloudiness will not be removed. To fix cloudiness only another less cloudy water source can fix that or if not possible add twice the amount of chemical treatment and let it stand for longer time such as 1 hour.

The problem is all these best methods of water treatment are tested in clean laboratory test environments, but those conditions don’t exist on a trek so the most practical, space and time efficient methods are needed.

So that is why it can be I good idea to filter plus treat water to address the weaknesses in each method. However, it is ok to use only one of the treatment methods if proper water conditions exist for each to work as intended.

So to make water treatment practical and as least time consuming yet effective, it appears the following can be done without too much complication:

1. Use clear water bottle to visually inspect water see if anything further needs done to remove black particles or whether steripen and chemicals will work properly in the first place. This is easy to implement.

2. Where possible use the boiled water flasks in lodges as a first line of treatment.

3. Where boiled water is not available or you do not trust it then treat it with combination of filtering and chemical or steripen.

4. If cloudiness is an issue try to avoid it or refill water bottle with another source, otherwise use filtering and twice the dosage of chemical treatment. Steripen is less effective in cloudy water. Note water cloudiness is less of a problem on treks.

If you feel any one of the water treatment stages or combinations of the methods are too complicated, at least just use one of them as each alone alone should dramatically improve the situation. Even just using the cheap and mostly effective local Piyush chlorine droplets alone is very good. If you get Giardia parasites it can be easily self treated with medicine.

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