On the way back down

Day 14 - Dingboche to Tengboche

It was a longer day today but again, mostly downhill so the walking was quite easy. We woke up to a surprise, snow had fallen over night and covered the valley. It made the town of Dingboche really look like a mountain village so it was quite welcomed. Today was the first day in over a week that we would drop to an elevation lower than that of the continental United States and we also headed back into the forests of the lower valley. Much of the forest in this area is simply thick groves of rhododendron flowers, well its still too high for the flowers to blossom but the but the plants are there, and when you walk through an entire forest of them it is pretty cool. Walking down out of the valley meant that for the most part you had to turn around to get a views of the mountains, no problem though as the views in all directions continued to be amazing. Ama Dablam was on our left the entire day and we slowly walked the length of its base and got to its more famous side. The town of Tengboche seemed to be a haven for trekkers. Though there were only 5 teahouses in town the views there were some of the best out of any time that we'd stayed at aside from maybe Gokyo. You can see back up the valley to the peaks of Nuptse and the top of Everest, Ama Dablam was there in all its glory, probably the most picturesque spot for the mountain and there is a Buddhist Monastery, actually the largest of the region, in town as well as this fabulous bakery that hit a soft spot in all of us, we were getting a little sick of fried noodles/rice/potatos. We arrived in town early enough for the Monks afternoon prayer which I think every tourist in town flocked to see. The inside of the monastery was ornately decorated with beautiful depictions of Buddha as well as a 10 foot high statue of the man himself. It was quite impressive that such an impressive architectural structure had found its way so high up (we were still at about 13,000 feet). The prayer itself was interestng, but frankly it sounded like a dozen or so Monks randomly mumbling with the head guy randomly banging on a wooden blcok...I think I need to read a bit more about the religion before I can even begin to comprehend what I just saw. It was interesting to watch though. When we left the Monastery we sat back and enjoyed a fresh pot of tea and watched the sunset over the high Himalayas. It was amazing. Usually clouds blot out most of the views but tonight they framed Everest in Nuptse in the sky as the peaks lit up a brilliant shade of orange and red. Seems like a common theme of this trek, but it was the most beautiful sunset I'd ever seen and was an amazng way to end the day.

Day 15 - Tengboche to Namche

Today was probably the most ho-hum day of the entire trek. An easy walk down into the valley and back out to Namche. The views were similar to those that we had seen before as we were coming back through Namche for a second time on the trip. Though on this day we came to the convergence of several of the valleys of the area and we were able to see just what we had accomplished. You could look up the valley to see the glacier atop Cho La Pass, see the trails that we had walked on up the valley walls faintly in the distance, it was remarkable what we had accomplished and I wondered how I had made it up some of the steep trails that dotted the landscape with relative ease. We could see for miles in each direction, days and days of trekking in all directions and were still being surrounded by beautiful views of the mountains. On the hike to Namche we stopped through a town called Khumjung which we didn't go through on the way up. On top of a hill in Khumjung is the Everest View Hotel, aptly named because you can see the summit of Everest from it. This place is the stuff of legends up here. Most teahouses cost between $3-10 a night depending on how high up it is. Not the Everest View though. It was built by a Japanese guy for Japanese clients and costs $130 a night. They have bottled oxygen there for the guests, many of whom will just be helicoptered in (a mere $4,000) just to stay there and see Everest. We actually met a European couple who hiked there and told us they had seen Everest and were going down from there because it doesn't get any better than this view......umm, Kala Pathar maybe? I didn't argue, just kind of looked at them funny as the images of the last few days whizzed through my head. There is actually another Everest View type hotel on the ridge across the from Namche called Hotel Khunde. We actually met the owner, who is ironically Nepalese. The hotel caters to Germans and Japanese and costs $170 a night, I think there is a minimum stay there but at least the owner will fly you up there. The owner is not only Nepalese but is actually from the Everest region and as he told us, when he was a little boy he looked up on that ridge and said one day I'm going to put a hotel up there, and he did. It cost a cool million in transportation costs for the materials alone, didn't say how much it cost to build it. What people will do for their luxuries.

Back in Namche not much had changed, but the views were clear so we could finally see the mountains that were blocked by the clouds on the way up.

Day 16 - Day off Namche

Lazy day here. We were thinking about hiking for a bit but were kind of tired so we opted out of a 10 hour trek to Thame and back, we did hike for 2 hours up and down a ridge for some more views and one last look at the big fella. Every Saturday in Namche (and yes it was Saturday) a market comes to town as its the center of the region. Sounds exciting right? Total let-down. The market was just a line of people with their merchandise spread out everywhere, typical to any market really. That wasn't my problem though. It was that everything that they sold was the exact same crap they sold in every single store up here. So instead of having to walk inside a store (and once you've seen one you've pretty much seen them all, there isn't much diversity up here in commercial goods, the porters only bring up a limited number of items) you could just see a store laid out on the ground. Not very exciting, oh well. It killed some time and we relaxed and had lots of tea for the remainder of the day.