Om Madan Garg, a 6-year-old kid of Indian descent, is the youngest Singaporean to complete the Everest Base Camp expedition in Nepal. In October, Om travelled for ten days with his parents before reaching the south base camp in Nepal. In October, Om travelled with his parents during a 10-day period, trekking 65 kilometres to the south base camp in Nepal, which is located at a height of 5,364 metres.
According to the Straits Times newspaper, With the help of a guide and two porters, Om, his mother Gayatri Mahendram, 39, and father Mayur Garg, 38, began their 10-day trip on September 28. The entire adventure was chronicled by the family in a seven-part series on their YouTube channel.
The Singapore Book of Records has recognised Indian-origin six-year-old Om Madan Garg for becoming the youngest Singaporean to complete the Everest Base Camp trek in Nepal. The adventurous child is no stranger to travel; ever since he was just two and a half months old, his parents have taken him on backpacking trips to Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos.
Om, a Kindergarten 2 student from Canossaville Preschool, stated, “I want to see the whole world.” Om’s 65-kilometre trip led him past remote regions, Nepalese temples and monasteries, and picturesque views of Himalayan mountains including Everest, Lhotse, and Lhotse Sar.
The boy and his parents were on a once-in-a-lifetime excursion, and as the going got tough on the crooked and rough pathways up to the Everest Base Camp, lollipops, raisins, and cookies kept Om Madan going.
Mayur, a senior business analyst who enjoys mountain climbing and has scaled summits in Tanzania, Russia, and Indonesia, visited Everest Base Camp in November 2021 and felt a family trip there would be fun.
The family made it a point to stay active every day for six months ahead of the trip in order to get ready for it. They also viewed YouTube videos of other trekkers who had documented their routes.
Mayur said, “We live in the Yio Chu Kang area, and we walk to the Marina Bay Sands area which is about 10 km away. It takes us four to five hours, but we just go.”
The regimen also included trips to places like Fort Canning, swimming, and climbing stairs.
Om noted, “Fort Canning was hard because we had to go up and down the stairs 30 times. But because it was hard when we were training when we went to Everest Base Camp, it was easy”.
Even for adults, the high-altitude hike’s elevation rise of roughly 2,500 m is difficult. The group left the Nepalese hamlet of Lukla, which is located 2,860 metres above sea level, and travelled to the Sherpa capital of Namche Bazaar (3,440 metres) and the frozen lake bed of Gorakshep (5,164 metres), all of which are on the way to the Everest Base Camp (5,364 m).
The family’s original itinerary was for a 13-day hike so they could cover 5 km per day at a leisurely pace. But because of the severe weather, their helicopter trip to Lukla’s Tenzing-Hillary Airport, renowned as the world’s most perilous airport, was postponed for two days.
In particular, on the first day when they travelled 12 kilometres to the village of Benkar, the family had to make up for the lost time by covering more ground each day.
Gayatri, a senior physiotherapist, remembering the first day of the voyage said, “Om coped and went along, but towards the end, I got a bit of altitude sickness and had headaches. It’s a difficult journey because it’s all uphill.”
On the second night of the expedition, Om became ill. “I had a tummy upset, and I was feeling yucky. I had to change my trousers three times, but I only had three pairs of trousers. I had to wash my trousers in cold, cold water,” he noted.
Om’s parents continued, saying that after getting some rest and taking some medication from a nearby drugstore, he was able to complete the trek.
“There was a plan for every kind of situation. We had helicopter tickets already booked. If something breaks, we thought, we will fly back,” stated Mayur. Thankfully, there weren’t any serious setbacks for the remainder of the journey.
While on the trek, the family would get up at 6 am every day, eat breakfast, and then set out on the trail at about 8 am. They would travel for a few hours, stop for lunch, and then continue until 3 o’clock when they would retire for the day to one of the neighbourhood tea establishments.
To pass the time, Gayatri recalled, “We brought all these little card games to play with Om, and we had notepads, so we’d also play games like tic-tac-toe to pass the time”. Due to the cold and the lack of activities available after dark, they retired to bed around 7 o’clock.
Other trekkers were in awe when they saw the small youngster on the trail. A group of six Singaporeans donated Om their team T-shirt as a memento when the family first met them.
“They were so emotional after seeing someone so small doing something that they were doing,” said Mayur.
He referred to the 150-metre-high suspension bridge that is a well-liked photo stop along the route and stated, “My favourite part of the trip is the Hillary Bridge because it’s higher than all the other bridges.”
The family’s arrival at the base camp on October 7 in the late afternoon was a source of pride. Gayatri remarked, “All those emotions that we felt, the stress, the strain – it was so surreal”. Om praised his accomplishment by saying, “I felt good, I did something I’ve never done before.”
After staying the night in the nearby town of Gorakshep, the family of three flew back to Kathmandu.
After Everest and Mera Peak, Ama Dablam is the third-most-popular Himalayan peak in Nepal among climbers, and Om has his eyes set on another challenging expedition to its base camp. On the Everest Base Camp hike, he got a view of that mountain range. Om remarked, “It looks beautiful.”
