Dr. phil. Damien François
I’ve been friends with Jamling Bhote for a couple of years now. We call each other “sathi”, which is the Nepali word for “friend”… Personally, I like to refer to Jamling as “Mr Smile”. As you can see on my own website (www.thechooyuproject.net), I recommend Jamling’s company, EverQuest Expeditions, for… expeditions. Of course, I recommend them for trekking as well, but since I have been friends with another trekking company from the very first year I visited Nepal on, I wanted to “split” the flowers…
Why Jamling? Why EverQuest? In the course of my 11 expeditions and 12 additional treks (11 times in Nepal), I’ve come to experience quite a bit in Nepal. I’ve ended up in, and experienced all kinds of situations – with “local” companies, and also Western-run ones. My adventures and misadeventures will be documented in my forthcoming book: “The Everest 2014 Problem”. Jamling is special because he personally deals with you. He doens’t just take care of a “client”, no, he’s taking care of you. His excellent English allows him to make you feel understood, and, hence, comfortable. Jamling is very client-orientated and budget-conscious. He will not offer you suspiciously low prices because he knows out of experience, that the bottom line almost exclusively means a tightrope act, which, too often, leads to restrictions that can mean big problems – and death. The man is, I repeat it, too experienced to take unnecessary risks in an already extremely dangerous environment. Mr Smile is down-to-earth: he obviously likes to run expeditions on the highest mountains on earth (he’s summited K2 twice!!!), but he is not money-driven – a very rare thing, nowadays.
I will be part of Jamling Bhote-EverQuest’s 2015 Everest expedition. In fact, I already was in 2014. Yes, the infamous 2014 season… I had received a sponsorship through friends, out of blue, early in January 2014. Immediately, Mr Smile gave me a great deal and offered me to join his Mount Everest Spring 2014 expedition. The rest is History… For this expedition, Jamling had invested a lot in the finest base camp equipment there is – thickest Exped mattresses in every client’s tent, biggest GoalZero Yeti solar power system, wifi, etc. Refund for the scandalously cancelled Big E 2014 expedition would have meant he’d need to sell these back, I guess. Well, not exactly, :-)) but nonetheless, Jamling understood that clients had been hijacked by a terrorist-like power and assured me he would do all he could to facilitate my coming back to Everest in 2015. Mr Smile kept his word – not a common thing in the world of expeditions – and delivered: I guess he really wants his Belgian “sathi” to step on the highest point of the planet next May 2015…
So, I can honestly write that Jamling Bhote’s reputation – ALL (no exception!) people I mention his name to, as my Everest guide, tell me: “Yeti, you’re in good hands, with Jamling” – is not overblown, but very accurate: he is very good at what he does. This is also why I have decided to cooperate with him and be his contact person here in Europe. I am now featured on EverQuest’s website. It makes me happy and proud, to be Jamling “Mr Smile” Bhote’s Belgian sathi and EverQuest’s little help in Europe…