Marty the Motorcycling Giraffe
Story 36 Marty’s amazing Asian adventure part 2 Marty and Santosh the snowboarding yak
Marty the Motorcycling Giraffe is on one of his most amazing adventures as he is visiting Asia, after a lovely time in India, where he met a knew friend called Jai and visited the Taj Mahal, Marty is now sat on the roof of a train heading for Nepal and a small town called that is high in the Himalayan mountains.
After passing through the border between India and Nepal the train track started to rise steeply up the mountains as the train raced through the Nepalese countryside. A cold wind started to blow and Marty felt every exposed sat on the top of the train.
“If it gets any colder up here I am going to be worlds only blue Giraffe” Marty thought to himself as the surrounding countryside started to turn white with a thick covering of snow.
Marty was very pleased when the train finally came to a stop at Kathmandu station, and he could climb off the roof. Marty quickly got his very long and very stripy scarf (that Mrs Smith made for him when he visited London on a previous adventure) and wrapped it round his neck (a rather long job)
“That’s better” said Marty to himself “I feel a lot warmer with my scarf on”.
As Marty trudged through the snowy streets, towards the hotel he was staying at tonight, he looked up at all the snowy mountains that towered above the small town and often seem to disappear into the clouds looking like they would go on rising into the sky for ever. Marty was very excited because tomorrow he was going to start a hike to the base camp of the highest of all the mountains, Mount Everest .
Although Marty has climbed very high mountains before in Africa and in South America , he has never climbed as high as he will do on this adventure.
Marty’s hotel in Khatmandu was very nice and had a big log fire burning in the main lounge area. So Marty sat in front of it warming his hooves before deciding to go to bed to get some rest before his big climb to the base camp of Mount Everest the next day.
The next day after a big breakfast of twigs and leafs, Marty met up with Adesh his guide, a rather small man with a very old wrinkly face and grey bear, who was going to take Marty to the base camp of Mount Everest.
“Namaste” said Adesh “I have never had a Giraffe climb with me before” said “have you ever climbed any mountains before”
“Yes” replied Marty very proudly, “I have climbed Mount Kilimanjaro back in Africa and the Andes mountains in Peru to see the lost city of Machu Pichu”
“They are fine mountains indeed” said Adesh “but Everest is the tallest mountain in the world and although we are only going to base camp and not to the top, you will still have to climb higher than you have ever done before”.
Marty thought that this sounded like a very exciting adventure.
Soon Marty set off following in Adesh’s footsteps; it was very tough going trudging through the deep snow and up the steep slopes. It took four days and nights before they arrived at the base camp of Everest and Marty felt very cold in his tent each night and was very glad each morning when Adesh brought him a cup of hot tea and bowl of piping hot porridge. (Marty usually only eats twigs and leafs, but in this climate he was very happy to eat something hot)
Adesh was a very quiet guide and didn’t talk much as they trekked up the mountain, but at least he seemed to know the correct way.
Marty was feeling very tired when they finally reached the base camp of Everest, where there were a few other parties who made a similar trip and one group of intrepid mountaineers who were intending climbing on to the top of Everest.
“Wow” said Marty to the group of climbers “you must be very brave to be climbing to the top” as he looked up the snowy slopes to see the top of Mount Everest was still disappearing into the clouds.
“It will certainly be a great adventure replied one of the mountaineers “who added “maybe you should come back one day Marty and climb the whole of the mountain, and become the first Giraffe to ever reach the top of Mount Everest.”
“I would like that, maybe I will one day” said Marty.
Soon it was time for Marty and Adesh to start climbing back down to Kathmandu
Marty and Adesh had not got far down the snowy slope, when they heard a strange noise coming form behind them they looked around to see a large cloud of snow billowing down the mountain towards them
“Weeeeeee!” came a noise from inside the cloud of snow, and as it came nearer Marty and Adesh could see the cloud of snow was being caused by a Yak coming down the hill on a snowboard. The Yak came to a skidding halt just in front of Adesh and Marty, throwing snow up and into their faces
“Namaste” said the Yak “I am Santosh the snowboarding yak, and I live here on these mountains”
“Jambo, I am Marty the motorcycling giraffe, all the way form Africa ” replied Marty.
“I have never seen a giraffe in the Himalayas before and I don’t think you could ride a motorcycle up here” exclaimed Santosh.
“No, I don’t think so” laughed Marty and he added “snowboarding looks exciting”
“I have a spare snow board in my back pack, if you would like to have a go?” offered Santosh
Marty said that would be great , so Marty and Santosh climbed back up the slopes a little way to find a good spot to snow board down, while Adesh quietly and patiently watched them.
After a few instructions from Santosh, Marty felt he was ready to go snow boarding. So they Marty and Adesh jumped on their snow boards and started to whizz down the mountains slopes at great speed.
“Wow! This is fantastic” shouted Marty
But suddenly Marty found that the snow board wasn’t that easy to control and he was heading straight towards the edge of a cliff…. “Oooh quick, help me Santsoh” shouted out Marty.
Santosh quickly caught up with Marty and shouted for him to lean to his right.
Marty did this and the snow board turned away from the cliff edge just in time.
“Phew that was close” exclaimed Marty, but as he look back at the cliff edge he didn’t notice a rock sticking out the snow and Marty hit the rock and full speed, that sent him and his snowboard spinning into the air, Marty land with a loud flumpy noise into a deep pile of soft snow, so that only his neck and head were sticking out of the snow.
Marty wasn’t hurt and he and Santosh were soon laughing about how he flew through the air.
“Snow boarding is great fun” exclaimed Marty as he dug himself out of the snow “but I think I prefer motorcycling”
Marty thanked Santosh for letting him have a go at snowboarding and he and Adesh carried on back down the Mountain to Kathmandu .
At Khatmandu Marty said “asante sana
Soon the train was rocketing along the tracks out of Nepal and into China
Marty the motorcycling Giraffe
Look out for next weeks tale of adventure Story 37 Marty's amazing Asian adventure part 3 Marty wlks on the Great wall of China , to be posted on Sat 25th Feb 2012
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