Namche Bazaar (3440m) :
1am in the night and it’s hot! I know, it sounds dubious! But that’s what happens when you get too tucked in a cosy warm teahouse. There is no gap in the windows for a cold draft to flow in, no loose hinges for the door to suddenly sway open, no layered smelly quilts to adjust to your needs. It is way too civilised! I can’t sleep in such comfort. If I throw aside the big fat duvet, it feels cold. If I embrace it, it feels hot. And if I try to make a half-n-half arrangement, it fills my body with a strange sensation of cold and sweaty patches! There is no middle ground. There is no sleep.
 |
| Acclimitisation Day |
Altitude can play tricks with the body. With this trail, the challenge is the fast altitude gain which leaves very little time for the body to adjust. Most of the people have trouble sleeping or digesting and then as we go up, other altitude related issues crop up quite commonly. So I spend the night playing with the duvet, wiping the sweat off my back and sniffing my nose.
Namche Bazaar : Acclimitisation Day - Hotel Everest View / Syangboche (3880m) [Day 3]
There is magic in the mountains. I know I sound like a broken record when I say this but I feel this so earnestly so very often! As I step out into the terrace in the morning, a gorgeous stretch of bright white peaks shine at me in full glory. The bustling town of Namche bazaar sits snugly with Kongde Ri (6187m) to the west and Thamserku (6608m) to the east. And as I bathe in the warm Sun on this terrace this morning and stare at them, I feel love. I complain about the sleepless night and my sniffing nose but I can’t help smiling. I feel alive. Also, the hotel provides hot water which means a shower after 4 days! No doubt, I am smiling!
 |
| Morning View from the terrace |
The plan for the day is to climb up some 440m to a viewpoint - Hotel Everest View in Sangboche for acclimatisation. Call it a rest day! But before we start the hike, my friend’s shoes need repair. The shoe soles (souls?!) had already given up during the big hike to Namche bazaar the day before. Our guide helps us to get the repair done but forgets to tell us that every minute we delay for this, we risk getting more and more clouds at the top of the view point.
 |
| We set off... |
So when we start at about 11AM in the morning (way too late to start a day in the mountains), little puffy clouds have already started floating in and perching on the slopes. We start slowly through the town along the steep stairs of the narrow uphill trail. Lungs and calves seem to protest right away!
 |
| Rest and Look at Thamserku |
In about 20 minutes (what felt like an hour!), we are at the Tashi Delek Monastery from where the trail splits - the one on the right goes to Tengboche (to be trodden the next day) and the other one goes up to the view point. I pause here and look around. I can see the brown bottoms of the snow peaks! The town of Namche bazaar looks so far down now whilst the peaks at either end of the town now seem to have joined hands and gone higher and bigger!
 |
| Namche Bazaar - view as we hike up |
As we keep climbing up, Thamserku seems to accompany us on the side. I won’t deny I am a bit biased towards this one! But then on a turn on the path, Ama Dablam appears! This is my first sneak-peek of Ama Dablam and I am in absolute adoration of this peak already! The more and more I see of her, the more I fall in love with her!
The clouds seem to engulf the scene now. But that too has an undeniable mystic beauty to it. The winding trails, the soft clouds, the elusive mountains and the wide green-yellow valley with a touch of autumn in it - life is good.
 |
| Cloudy but So Beautiful ! |
When we reach the Hotel Everest View, the mountain show is all shut with a thick cloud curtain! I sit at the hotel viewpoint and look at the very costly menu handed over by the hotel staff. A French toast costs 750nps! We stick to coffee and look at the clouds with sad eyes. Probably by seeing our desperation, the cloud shifts slightly and we get a brisk view of - Lhotse and Nuptse from which we imagine the position of Everest and satisfy ourselves!
 |
| Cloud sweeping in fast ! |
In ideal weather, you get to see two eighth thousanders from here - Everest and Lhotse and also the iconic peaks of Nuptse and Ama Dablam.
We spend some time here and then gradually descend down. On our way down, we visit the Sagarmatha Next Centre, a waste-upcycling facility and art gallery. It’s a humble initiative and very strategically placed on the trail so that people can appreciate the effort. We speak to one of the founders of this gallery. He is from Australia. Apparently, he first visited this place 40 years ago. He then kept coming back and since the last 10 years, has been living here, in Syangboche. He says, the only time he climbs down the altitude is in January for a change to Kathmandu.
 |
| Sagarmatha Next Centre |
On the way down, I slip twice! Humph! I blame everyone else apart from me for this. Obviously! I am hungry. No one seems to care. Not that I have said it out loud. But is it not obvious! We only had coffee up top, due to the exorbitant price! Now my tummy needs food. My legs don’t seem to work unless my tummy is fed. But then my friend wants to visit the Hillary statue. Outrageous! I bring on my scary, angry face. This seems to have worked. We quickly finish the statue visit and head into a cafe for momo and tea. Happy Me!
 |
| Momo time ! |
Namche Bazaar (3440m) to Tengboche (3875m) : ~10 KM, ~6 Hours [Day 4]
With the usual routine of daal-bhat-sabzi for dinner, another hot and cold sleepless night followed by a toast-eggy breakfast in the morning, we are ready to take on the day! My cold is a little better today. Less ‘water of india’ flowing out of the nose, so a little relief, fingers crossed!
 |
| Gompa on the way... |
Within ~20minutes or so, we climb up to the Tashi Delek Monastery from where the trail splits and this time, we follow the trail on the right. I was sad the previous day because of the cloud shutting my view. But today’s Sun and the sky (and our wise decision to start early) compensates for it all! The lovely Thamserku smiles back and very soon, Ama Dablam appears again. Once she is here, there is no going back! This peak is so gorgeous and it keeps getting bigger and prettier (if that’s possible) as we walk along.
 |
| Ama Dablam ! ^.^ |
The initial part of the trail towards Tengboche is pretty flat. We walk along the Doodkoshi river forming a deep gorge valley on the right with a constant view of my favourite Ama Dablam in the front. It is a very nice trail with birds cooing, greens zinging, the river gurgling and the Ama Dablam just being!
 |
| Pretty trail today... |
Quite often on the trail, we hear our guide getting all excited - ‘juba coming, side please!’ That’s his warning shout to give way to the yaks (juba in Nepali). He advises us not to look directly into their eyes. Apparently, that might trigger them to hit us!
 |
| 'juba' coming ! |
Midway on this flattish part of the trail, we see a bunch of musk deer! One of the deer in the group appears to be the boss as he stands tall and still. He looks at us. He doesn’t flinch at the sudden human commotion. The rest of the herd look happy grazing the field under the protective eye of their boss.
 |
| The Boss! |
As the trail winds up, we catch a glimpse of Everest, a tiny peek of the peak behind Nuptse. Everyone gets excited to see the highest peak of this world.
 |
| Mt. Everest |
But I must say, even though it’s the Everest Basecamp trek, the view that you get of Everest is nothing compared to that of Nuptse and Ama Dablam. It is almost as if Mt. Everest is saying - get a peek at me but look at all these wonderful mountains that hold me in their cradle! It’s ironic yet has a poetic justice to it, I suppose. The grand buffet of peaks you see on this trek is simply precious! So don’t just come for Everest here, come for everything!
 |
| Happy as a clam! |
The flattish trail goes downward beyond a point. It continues to go downhill for a while and brings us right by the river. This is where we stop for lunch. As we sit here and hoover up our soupy noodles, we can see the trail in front. It is all steep uphill from here on!
 |
| Rest mode on |
Like, one of the fellow trekkers said - this one is a beast! The trail goes up and up through the pine forest and doesn’t seem to end. The path is quite well done with stony, rocky steps. Many trekkers prefer gradual slopes rather than steps but my screaming calves seem to prefer the steps more at this point. A family with two little kids are on this trek with us right from Lukla. The tiny girl and the dad walk up the trail with surprising ease, like a walk in a park.
 |
| Somewhere on the trail before the beasty climb starts! :D |
What seemed like an endless staircase suddenly ends with a sign board that says - Welcome to Tengboche! Ah what a joy! Suddenly, the pine forest vanishes and a wide valley opens up. On one side of this valley, stands the Tengboche monastery, the largest gompa of the Khumbu region. A few guest houses dot the sides of the valley as it plunges slightly in the middle.
 |
| Crawling up to Tengboche... |
We visit the monastery (it has an entry fee now, can’t remember how much) and sit inside the prayer hall for a while. As I listen to the monks chanting, I feel a warm sleep weighing on my eyes. We stay in the trekker’s hut tonight. We finish the dinner (usual again!) quickly and hit the bed early tonight.
 |
| View from the Tengboche Monastery |
The temperature seems to have dropped a few degrees at this altitude. We are almost nearing the 4000m mark now. Things would be drastically changing from here on!
 |
| Sun going on sleep-mode. Will I sleep tonight? |
No comments:
Post a Comment