At 2:30 PM, when I penned this on my diary, we were at Tengboche, 3830m and five hour walk from Namche. We stopped here for lunch. Telephone is Rs. 20/min and internet, yea, for Rs. 10/min. I called home and checked mail. It was wonderful feeling to talk with my beloved from this point and I know it won’t be possible until the evening of May 29.
The saddest part of our tour so far has been the weather that has curtailed us from seeing any mountains. I hope it would be fine tomorrow. I even joked during our walk that we would probably return Kathmandu without even seeing glimpses of mountains. It could be possible, the porters told us and we laughed with heavy heart.
During our walk from Namche to here, we saw beautiful gorges and hills with fading redness of rhododendrons. The sights were eye-soothing and that made our long walk a bit easier.
Bhaswor and me on the way to Tengboche.
10:10 PM, Pangboche
Settled at Pangboche, two-hour walk from Tengboche, for the night. After lunch in Tengboche, we walked downhill and uphill to reach this small villages at 3930m.
On the way, I met the Philippine expedition tam. I happened to know a little about them because of my visit to the Philippines last month for a seminar. The team was actually formed as one but later split into two and were being sponsored by two competing TV channels. The team was first Philippine to ascend the highest mountain in the world. The team I met was actually sponsored by ABC CBN and actually set the record.
We later met two more members of the team including a reporter. The other guy was very interested to run Everest Marathon and promised to come back next year.
We have rented a two-bed room for Rs 200 a night. Before dinner we had a wonderful time as we five, sans Todd, sat in a room and joked about girlfriends of Deep and Bikash. It also reminded me of my home and wife and a pinching realization that I wouldn’t be able to call her for next seven days.
At dinner, we met a few Sherpas who had just returned from the Everest expedition. A guy among them made it for fourth time and spoke very little with us. I asked if ascending Mt Everest is as enjoy for him as the foreigners. He just smiled. They believed Appa Sherpa’s 16-time record was not as great as it was in media as what he was doing was just walking on the prepared way to the top.
Today, I learnt that every hotel in the route have a separate setting for the porters. They would provide them a common room to sleep which was, off course, free. I went to see the room here and it was clean and well bedded. I loved it because since we started from Lukla, I was wondering where there porters go at night.
We also invited our porters to eat with us at our costs. One of the porters said he had eaten on the way. I tried to reimburse it with a hundred rupee bill but he didn’t accept it.
Walking was a lot easier today although we walked for more than five hours. On the way, we saw a Danfe – our national bird for the first time. The hills were all covered by beautiful Rhododendrons and foggy weather was making it look like blurry red.
