Beautiful Serene Mount Everest just above the tree bit sticking up, behind the closer range . The familiar triangular face.
Prayer flags
A Chorten
Tengboche monastery newly built after the fire in the 1990’s .
We left the comfort of Zamling and from now it’ll be downhill (in the comfort stakes that is, not geographically lol)
Well the first half of the day until lunch is mostly flat, traversing a lovely path around the mountainside and then a long descent to Phungi Thanga beside the river where we stopped to eat. Half way to lunch we looked up from the path and as it was a beautiful clear day, there she was standing in front of us, still a long way away but standing majestically and mightily above Lhose just to the right of her. Finally she has revealed herself to us and it was a beautiful sight of the familiar white triangle set against the blue sky. Mount Never-rest, oops I mean Everest lol. I have to keep my emotions in check or the task can become overwhelming. In fact I’m not even thinking about climbing yet. I’m just taking it one day at a time.
After lunch then it’s up, up and some more up to the amazing Tengboche monastery.
This monastery had to be rebuilt which took ten years. It survived for centuries with Kerosene lights as it had no electricity. Then they had electricity put in and a monk put his heater too close to the curtain and set fire and the whole monastery burned to the ground.
The views from here are amazing and there is a great bakery where I buy more chocolate cake.
We continue downhill then for about 20 mins until we reach our beds for the night at Everest Rhododendron Hut, Deboche. The standards sure have gone down, there’s no electricity until the generator starts up at nightfall so also no WiFi. The rooms are pretty clean though but there’s no en suite bathroom or electric blanket now. In fact, there’s no blankets at all now so it’s time to get the sleeping bag out.
Wherever the shower is I will not be in it. My little routine is to get into my room, take all my clothes off (whatever the temperature, although usually still in the afternoon it’s not that cold yet), I have a wet wipe wash, put roll on deodorant on my arm pits and on the soles of my feet and talc my feet. I have to take good care of my feet, it’s important to keep them clean and dry more than any other part of your body. You can climb with stinky arm pits but if your feet aren’t in good condition then it could be a game changer. Then I put on my ‘pyjamas’ which is my really lovely, very expensive capilene bodysuit thing. It cost me over $200 US. But this little baby is to keep me warm when climbing inside my fat suit. It also doubles as my pyjamas and I wear it to dinner with a long sleeved Ice Breaker top over it.
At dinner the generator is on (we can hear it outside) but it keeps stopping and the lights go out so we keep having to switch our head lamps on to see what we’re eating. Although with hindsight it was probably better not to. I had chicken curry and rice and whilst the rice and the curry sauce was nice, I left the gristle. They must have very bony chickens out here, I couldn’t find any meat.
In the night I’m woken up three times by a menagerie running across the tin roof right above my head. I heard many rats scrabbling and other larger animals. I think at one stage there was a Yeti and couple snow leopards up there lol.