Himalayan mornings are incredibly cold. Our room at Phakding had no heating to speak of, so we were reliant on our sleeping bags and a musty old quilt to resist the cold. We could see our breath in the air as we quickly scrambled into our walking attire. I shivered as I stripped off the thermal layer (£10 from Boyes!) which would serve me well in the colder days ahead.
A brief breakfast of toast and flavoured tea and we were on our way. Namche Bazaar was some five hours away and represented a steady gain of around 830 metres in altitude.
The track wound around the tight valley sides, lifting us up above the turquoise waters of the river below before bringing us back down leading us through small villages each catering for trekkers. Small stalls sold water, chocolate, toiletries fizzy drinks and beer. There were plenty of places selling bracelets, traditional woollen hats and gloves, jewellery and other items that could be bartered down to pennies.
Soon we began to climb towards Namche, perhaps the most famous of the villages en route to Everest Base Camp. Lip balm and sun cream was applied liberally to all our faces with Paul being the notable exception. He quickly turned a tomato red though it didn’t seem to bother him during the trek.
Our first 7000 metre mountains appeared as we neared Namche. Majestically towering over the valleys and crowned in snow, you felt as if you were entering another realm, true and godly heights that made you feel small and insignificant yet grateful and thankful to be in their presence. Onwards we trekked, our poles beating out a steady rhythm. I noticed conifers and mosses carpeting the path and surrounding hillsides and in a few places wild flowers flourished. I recognised Rhododendron and a few other plants that scratched a living in the relatively moist soils.
The slopes were largely wooded below 4000 metres.
We encountered more and more fellow trekkers with Andrew seemingly intent on speaking to all of them. Wearing his smurf hat he soon became known to many of the groups that would share the same paths and tea rooms on our journey upwards.
Like us, Trekkers heading towards EBC looked fresh and full of excitement whilst those coming down looked weary and were often bugged by the Khumbu cough. An irritating, tickly cough that plagued many climbers on the approach to EBC and remained with them on the journey down.
Donkeys and Yaks became a familiar sight on the trail. Sometimes they’d be in herds of twenty or thirty and jostled along by a herdsman or woman. They were amazingly docile and showed no signs of annoyance or stress at having to share the path with slow moving trekkers.
Like everything in Nepal, the animals work hard and without complaint. Pleasingly, trekkers treated the animals with the upmost respect and never seemed agitated when they temporarily blocked off paths and bridges.
The ever obedient Yaks on the EBC trail.
We arrived in Namche, mid afternoon and settled into our tearoom. Knowing we were to spend two days there to acclimatise meant we could relax and take a wander round the town. Like everywhere else there were shops and stalls selling trekking essentials. There was a bakery, an Irish pub, money changing facilities as well as tearooms, hotels and houses built into the curve of the hillside. Namche was well over 3000 metres and part of our acclimatisation walk the following day would give us our first view of Everest.
I bought ear plugs, Vic’s vapour rub, headache tablets and Diamox, the medication used to reduce the effects of altitude sickness. This was a key moment in the trip for me because during my first night at Namche I had felt a shortness of breath which left me anxious and without sleep. The Diamox would stop this and assure me that it was only altitude sickness and not the impending heart failure I had built it up to be. Ear plugs drowned out snoring and the incessant barking of dogs. The vapour rub acted as a decongestant to open up the airways and soon after I was able to sleep.
Paul had no such luck, he was not comfortable with ear plugs so had to endure the scampering of mice across the ceiling floor. Paranoid they were in his room, his torch zipped about like a policeman searching for burglars.
Our trip up to the Everest View hotel was an acclimatisation exercise, taking us up to almost 4000 metres before returning to Namche to sleep. This would give our bodies a chance to adapt to the higher altitude the following day when we’d trek to Tengboche.
The walk up to the EVH was exhilarating and afforded us our first, distant view of Everest. Set back from Lhotse and some of the other giants, a wispy cloud hung around its blackened summit. We made our way to the EVH and had tea and snacks staring over at the peak. I thought briefly of all those who had lost their lives trying scale it from the pioneer days of Mallory through to the 1996 disaster of which so much has been documented.
The following day we left Namche remaining high for a time before dropping right down to the river for lunch. Our appetites were already beginning to suffer and it was all I could do to force a plate of noodles down me. We needed to eat because we faced a two hour climb out of the river valley to Tengboche our resting place for the evening.
Thankfully on arrival we found our appetites and helped ourselves to cake and brownies in a bakery. The bakeries were a common feature in the villages who recognised many trekkers had not lost their sweet tooth. At least not yet.
Chris and I noticed a game of football taking place and before long we were kicking about with some Monks at nearly 3900 metres. Not known for my tireless running on a football field, I decided that I would employ a passing game to offset the speed advantage of our younger holier opposition.
Chris seemed to forget he was playing at altitude with a few lung busting runs which unfortunately did not bring him the goal he was craving. Our match finished at 4-4 and was one of those small but memorable parts of our experience. It reminded me to how wonderful football is at its heart, a beautiful game.
Taking part in what was probably the highest game of football in the world that day.
Another game we played was Dhumbal, a card game instigated by our guide Pawan. It would become a means of bonding after a day of trekking. We’d play after food on an evening to pass time in the tearooms. Pawan was very competitive and had clearly spent many hours of his life playing the game.
However, he did not have it all his own way. The idea of the game is to leave yourself with a card or cards with a value of less than 5. Then you can stop the game. The value of your opponents’ cards counts against them. Once you reach 100 points you are out. It was a fun game and more importantly it enabled us to get to know Pawan.
We left Tengboche for Dingboche the next morning. From here we would acclimatise for the push to EBC. We set off in high spirits after a good night’s sleep unaware of the tough days ahead. We were entering the unknown and it would come at a price for all concerned.
