Nepal. 4 April

It's seems like about 12 days since I last wrote--but it was just yesterday. I woke at 4 am, before my 5 am wake-up call. Attempted a shower, but Hot wasn't hot enough, so I just sponge bathed.

Went downstairs & had brkfst. Then Chandra came and we went to Shangra La and had brkfst again. I also checked my pack at the hotel and left shoes, extra batteries, cup…stuff I didn't need. Turns out now, I should have kept my backpack cover. But I could have left my bedroll. Chandra mentioned what a light traveler I was--which came as a surprise.

On the way to the airport, we talked about Michael Jackson & Monica Lewinsky. I met my guide at the airport, a Sherpa named Kagi from Solu. He's very nice and speaks English well. Solu is near the area we are trekking in. The domestic airport would have been very confusing w/out Chandra. Kagi & I boarded and 30 min later were at Lukla. There were a number of Brits aboard (taking up most of the 18 seats). One of them started quoting lines from the movie "Airplane." It reminded me of meeting other campers in Wyoming who told fart jokes, that is, you can always find people w/ your sense of humor anywhere--it made me smile--I haven't done this much writing by hand since high school--my hand is killing me--

--Had a disconcerting moment on the plane when the pilot had to wipe the condensation off the window w/ a rag. Then kept flicking on the gauges because they weren't aligned.

Anyway we landed and Kagi hired a porter. The street was dressed up because a Lama was coming. We bought a prayer scarf and waited. 3 hours later we left and he hadn't come.
--

Watching Sherpas carry stuff is amazing. They are usually only about 5-5'2" and wear thongs or vans. Then they use these woven baskets to carry stuff and walk w/ a short T shaped cane, which they rest the packs on while stopping. They usually carry 2, 3 & sometimes 4 peoples backpacks in their baskets. It actually looks like an ice cream cone with 2 or 3 scoops. My porter (I think his name is Kumar) is about 5' and wore converse style shoes with army fatigues pattern. At some point I remembered that Chandra had told me my guide was a big guy, so I guess I was thinking somewhere between Matthew & Tim dimensions. I never made the connection to Kagi though, who is on 5'10" about 180. Then I realized that is big for a Sherpa!

(7870 ft)
It took us under 3 hrs to get to Phakding, but we stopped for lunch at Thalsharoa. I had tea (I have been drinking tons of tea, since I know it's safe. You can get black tea or milk tea. I switch.), veg fried rice & garlic soup. All were pretty good. I stopped by their toilet & finally saw what a squat toilet was, a porta-potty type shack with a hole in the ground. Fortunately, I didn't have to squat.

Just before lunch we crossed a suspension bridge, which was kind of scary. I'm told there are 3 or 4 more tomorrow, one of which is 125 m long, and very high over the river. They are generally built by Swiss or Nepal Core of Engineers, but that doesn't make it feel any safer when you are crossing. The river we keep crossing is the Luk Kosi (koshay)--Milk Water.

By 2:30 we were stopped for the day. I had some hot lemon water, then we walked around a bit. We crossed over the next bridge & came back. On the other side was a campground for group trekkers. I was glad not to have done that because it started raining. In fact it rained for a few hours, pretty hard at times. I hope for not much of that. I do have rain gear, but left my bkpk cover at the hotel.

(Tashi Taki Lodge)
The lodge is nice, I have a double room to myself with a padlock. It has a decent foam mattress on a wooden bed. After a while other trekkers came in to the lodge, a family of Israelis (whom I had thought were French--there are many French here. ) (Chandra even speaks fluent.), about 10 Japanese (many wearing face masks--not sure if it is for dust or SARS) and a Canadian who I talked to for a while. I eventually had some potato momos (dumplings) and veg fried noodles. They were OK but very bland, and the "soy sauce" didn't help. I also had a small pot (4 cups) of cocoa--which was a mistake because I've had to go to the bathroom a couple of times. The bathroom has a real toilet, but the floor is wet and I couldn't make it flush. After dinner I went to bed, wrote for a while and was asleep at 9. Now it's 3 am and I'm awake (we don't leave until 7) so I'm finishing my journal.

It was only a couple of hours, mostly downhill, but even up my HR never went above 158. No blisters, although I did re-tied my boots tighter. I'm looking forward to Namche which should take about 5 hrs. We'll spend an extra day there acclimatizing--

--While I took extra care to hand check my film at SFO (the guard played an April Fools Joke on me and said it would take 1 hr--it took 5 mins), the other airports wouldn't do that, or I forgot. It would be wise to get a film safe pouch next time. You have to get checked at every airport between connections.