Himalayan Trek Part 4

Day 8 – Dole to Namche 20.05

Today, we trekked from Dole (4200m) to Namche Bazar (3446m). We expected the walk to be quite easy, as we were heading back, but Loren remembered that we had gone down quite a steep hill on this leg of the trek, that meant we would be going up that same hill today. She was right, but we didn’t remember just how big it was.

It was actually a mountain, not a hill, and the trail zig-zagged back and forth, up and up and up. It was one of the worst and most difficult climbs of the whole trek. The other two were the climb up to Namche Bazar and the climb up Gokyo Ri. Still, we managed to do the walk in 4 hours and 50 minutes, instead of the predicted 7 hours.

We finally saw some landmarks that told us Namche Bazar was not far away. On the way we saw some more mountain goats and neks, and we were lucky enough to see the Nepali pheasant again! It’s not a common sighting, as they are very timid, so we crept close and watched them for a while. There was the colourful male, and the brown female.

Sherpa Museum

Just before we arrived in Namche Bazar, we stopped to see the Sherpa Museum, which was located just above the town. The first thing we saw at the museum was a display of traditional Sherpa household items. There were cooking utensils, food dishes, big pots and urns for storing wine, butter and water. There was also a range of traditional hats, which we surreptitiously tried on, and some clothes storage boxes, covered in fur. The Sherpas are quite religious, so there was also a prayer room, with lots of religious items on display.

After this, we went down to a basement where they showed us a slide show of pictures of traditional Sherpa life. We saw religious ceremonies, weddings and feasts. In one part of the wedding ceremony, the young couple have butter smeared on their heads! They also showed us slides of beautiful pictures of the mountains and villages. These photos were taken by a Sherpa photographer. The name of each mountain appeared with it, which was veeerry helpful for us, as we had trouble understanding Narendra’s accent a lot of the time.

The next part of the museum to see was the photo gallery. A lot of the pictures there were the same as the ones in the slide show, but we saw some others too that we were interesting, and that we hadn’t seen yet. In another room, they had pictures of everyone that has summited Mt Everest, and related newspaper articles from all over the world about the climbers, and other Everest related stories. It was interesting to see which countries sent expeditions to climb Everest, and how often they went. One story was about a guy that did the Base Camp to Namche Bazar marathon in 4 hours!

Some of the interesting people that climbed Everest included: a 70 year old man and a 19 year old boy. The exciting thing is that although Mt Everest is the tallest, it’s definitely not the hardest mountain to climb. People make a big deal of it, but any fit person could climb Mt Everest, they just need to have enough money to pay for the expensive climbing permit.

Outside of the museum, there were lots of tents set up. We were surprised, as we hadn’t seen anyone up to that point who was using tents for sleeping instead of tea houses. We saw some more from our tea house window that afternoon as well. It was a relief to make it back to the tea house for lunch, and we welcomed the familiar sound of masonry from outside the window. A house was being built just behind our tea house, and both times we were in Namche Bazar, we became mesmerized by the hammers chipping at big rocks, sculpting them into bricks for the walls. They had completed one storey of the house since we were last there!

It started raining heavily two hours after we arrived, so we were very glad to be safely inside the warm tea house. We decided to spoil ourselves, and take our first shower in 8 days of trekking. It was so nice to be under hot water again, and to feel clean! That evening we had some beer and tried some more of Narendra’s local millet wine, while we played cards together. Artur was not impressed with the wine, as it reminded him of the rice wine we had in China. Loren found it much better than the one we’d had the night before, and much better than rice wine, so she enjoyed it.

Day 9 – Namche Bazar to Lukla 21.05

Today was our last day of trekking! We were both very relieved at this, as trekking back the same way can get boring. We had quite a long way to go, as we were trekking from Namche Bazar (3446m) to Lukla (2800m). The first part of the walk was going down the huge mountain we had climbed to get to Namche Bazar.

Hundreds of prayer flags hang from the suspended bridges

It is not very comfortable going down such a steep slope, as your knees take the impact of every step down. It was nice to finally be on a fairly flat trail again once we were back down from the mountain. The trail was fairly easy from there until Phakding (2652m) where we stopped for lunch.

After Phakding, the trail sloped upwards fairly steadily. Loren was getting anxious to arrive in Lukla, and Narendra was walking fairly slowly, so we overtook him and charged on ahead. We quickly realized that the trail was not going to flatten out anytime soon for us to catch our breaths, but that it continued rising even higher.

We had not been overtaken by anyone on the trail at that point, and we had overtaken some fast-walking Americans not long before. We heard them behind us, so we sped off with renewed vigor until we made it all the way to the top of the mountain! At the top, we waited for Narendra, and walked with him to our tea house. Once we arrived, it started raining, so once again our fast pace had saved us from getting wet!

That evening we met some people from America who had been trekking in the opposite direction to us, and had been camping the whole way. Their guides cooked dinner outside for them and set up a buffet inside. Looks like camping can be done in style! It was their last night too. We had some beer to celebrate our engagement and finishing the trek, and we played some more cards with Narendra. Loren continued her winning streak, but refused to give up her secret. We didn’t party too hard though, as we had to get up at 5.30am the next morning so we could take the plane back to Kathmandu.

Day 10 – Lukla to Kathmandu 22.05

We were rudely awakened by Narendra the next morning, just after 5am. We forced ourselves out of bed, and had a small breakfast. Just after we finished breakfast, we were told that the weather wasn’t good, and the airport was closed until further notice. We were more than a little worried, as Narendra had told us that once he was stuck in Lukla for a week because the weather kept the airport closed. We decided to go back to bed, because we had no idea of knowing how long it would be until the weather cleared.

This time when Narendra woke us up with his knocking, we were very grateful, and we rushed out the door to the airport. By 7am we were on a plane and staring out the windows at the beautiful mountains. Loren appreciated the view so much more than the first time, now that she knew what it was like to be high up in those mountains.

Back in Kathmandu

When we got back to the hotel, Artur decided to have a quick nap so that he’d have energy to celebrate his birthday which was today! Happy Birthday Artur! Loren went wandering around the Thamel, looking for some more things to add to his presents. After he woke up, we went to a nice little restaurant and had a birthday lunch, complete with big slices of chocolate cake from the patisserie nearby. Artur opened his presents, and was thrilled everything that he received. He got some souvenirs from the trek including a badge for Gokyo Ri, a big landscape poster of the Himalayan mountains.

In the evening, we caught up with Bishnu, the guy that organised the trek for us. He took us to an excellent pizza restaurant, the food was exceptional - especially after 10 days of tea house food! Loren surprised Artur by ordering him a fancy Tiramisu birthday cake.

After dinner, we went to a local rooftop bar with a great live band. The bar had a fairly bohemian atmosphere, so we decided to smoke a shisha. We tried coca-cola tobbaco first, then cappucino - they tasted pretty similar though. The bar had a great range of cocktails, and we managed to sample quite a few.

We managed to get comfortably sozzled, not excluding Bishnu who was interrogating us on dating techniques in Australia. We finished the night quite early, as we had to get up to go white-water rafting the next day. But Artur felt like he had a spectacular birthday, despite being away from friends and family.