Namche Bazaar
So nice to be out of Kathmandu and in the Khumbu valley again.
I am guiding for Adventure Consultants, along with Mike Roberets, Ang Dorji and Lydia Brady. More about them later. My job is to look after a little sub group, Cheryl and Nikki. Yesterday Mike collected the official permits for the mountain and flew in to Luk;la, catching us up in Namche. Today Cheryl Nikki and I walked over to Thamo and upto the monastery of Lawder (that is how it is pronouced, I have no idea how to spell this name). At home in th Alps we can do training/acclimatisation day hikes with hill or mountain tops as targets, here that is quite impractical. The tops are over 6000m high. So, a good set of acclimatising targets at this stage of the expedition is the wonderful group of high monasteries dotted on the hills high above the villages.
Lawder is a Gelupka sect establishment, this is the sect of the Dalai Lama, and sits at around 3900m. The trail to the monastery is dusty, winding a steep path up through juniper bushes. Once there we were greeted with smiles and invitations to drink and eat.
The resident monk, Norbu, and his assisting nun Ani, plied us with mint tea and boiled potatoes till it was time to leave their laughing smiling faces. Buddhists, what is not to love about them? Far away in another world politicians dance to another tune. Who is to say which is the real world?
Tomorrow we set out for Dengboche, Pheriche, Lobuches and so on to base camp. That is where the next blog will come from.