Our Trek Days 11,12,13

April 16, 2008 - Six hours of trekking today dodging Yak poo and crowds of people going up. It was hard work but feeling heaps better helped I can tell you. It was so nice to be back in Namche. This place is a little oasis nestled in a valley surrounded by mountain ranges capped with snow. We shared lunch with a couple of oxen who were just hanging about our tables - it really is a funny, but normal sight to be seen along the trail. Retired early to bed hoping for a good sleep and the sound of barking dogs kept us awake for most of the night grrrrrr.

April 17, 2008 - Dog Hunting!!!!!!!!! When we finally got over our lack of sleep we took in every bit of Namche whilst sipping on coffee, chatting and eating the best pastries. We were watching the Prayer Flags blowing in the breeze, the smell of incense burning, the frequent stream of hikers trekking through the streets of Namche, the enchanting sounds of Tibetan music playing in the background, the Nepalise people doing their washing in the streams and hanging clothes over rocks to dry, the children playing simple games in the streets and finding so much pleasure from those games. In the evening as we sat in the warm tea house talking about our journey we met a guy who was trekking with his neice 18 and nephew 15. My thoughts immediately diverted to thinking about bringing my boys trekking. What a culture shock it was for this 15 year old.....but he was enjoying every minute of it and it certainly was getting him away from the "computer".

April 18, 2008 - We awoke to the Nepalise stone masons chipping away at rocks to help form part of a new building. This was a daily occurrence in Namche. The chipping started at about 6.00am and continued on through the day until night fall. The other sound which had become very common was the sound of rescue choppers. I would say that we would hear this sound at least 4 times a day. People just push so hard to get up those mountains and get so sick they can't get down without the aid of a helicopter. Just imagine the costs involved in evacuation - It doesn't bear thinking about............We worked hard to get to Phakding with plenty of time to spare, so we decided to push on to Lukla which was another 2 hours down the track. Did I say down????? I certainly didn't mean down. We had so many steep hills to climb before finally getting into Lukla it wasn't funny. I think I had lulled myself into a false sense of security thinking that it was Down. We stopped at a stream on the way to refill our water bottles as there was a sign attached to the pipe coming out of the wall written by the Monks that said "safe holy water for drinking". No way was that holy water - it had so many floaties in it, even our guides wouldn't touch it. Anyway we made it to Lukla eventually, but were pretty tired, so we didn't do much that night....just practically had dinner and were in bed by 7pm.

Our Trek - Day 2

7 April 2008 - Today we set off from Monjo at 8.00am, after having apple pancakes for breakfast - mmmmmmm stodgy! This trek proved to be a lot harder even though it was to be a shorter distance of approximately 4 hours. We had to deal with some pretty grueling slopes whilst ascending to an altitude of 3400m, finally reaching our destination of Namche Bazaar at approx 12.30pm. It was half way to Namche Bazaar that we saw our first view of Everest - what a beautiful sight it was.... We were in oar of its greatness. Our lodgings for the next 2 evenings was a place called "The Holiday Inn" - it sounds good doesn't it? Well it was another simple tea house which suited us fine, as we were able to interact with the local Sherpa people and have some fun. We were to use tea-houses as our accommodation for the duration of our trek.

Brad and I both had slight headaches on reaching Namche and I had slight shortness of breath, which is quite a normal given the altitude we were at. We were advised that if symptoms arise just to treat the symptom with panadol or something similar and wait to see if things settle down. Apparently if you still have a headache in the morning you don't go any higher. The saying goes - Dont take a headache higher! Anyway for us it was good news, after a good nights sleep we were both fine, also we were to have a rest day in Namche to help with the acclimatization. We spent our rest day buying up some more warm clothing, as everyone we met was telling us how cold it gets from here on in - good advice as we were to find out down the track.