Nepal. 7 April

I'm grumpy and even the cocoa isn't helping--it's weak. I'm in the lodge dining area at 5 pm in Tengboche. The Kiwi couple are here (Emily and Eddy--they hired porters and seem to be doing much better), but we talked earlier though and now they're on the other side of the room. The couple dominating the room are an annoying American couple. They are arguing about their musical tastes at lunch (they have a CD player that they share), and they were still arguing here. The guy was also slamming Salman Rushdie because her wasn't pro-American.

This was all after a harder day than I expected. And after getting to Tengboche it was quite cold, but the porter hadn't shown up yet so I was cold.

I took a few pics of the monastery and went to my room and covered myself in blankets. This is by far the worst place we've stayed. Tiny plywood rooms, lumpy bed, of course no heat (all lodges are like this though, they have a wood stove in the dining room)--and a squat toilet.

At three I got up and went back to the monastery, on the way passed our porter. I'm not sure how long he's been sitting there. I was under the impression that there was a prayer session at three. There was not. In fact we could have gone in any time. It was quite amazing. I took a whole roll in there. It was very dark, so most probably won't come out.

--On the trail earlier we passed some Tibetans. The men usually have their hair braided in pigtails which are then wrapped around each other. They seems to be dirtier and lower class. They sell goods on the side of the trail. I'm assuming in their own country, they're doing better. Kagi haggled with one and bought two rugs--

--After the monastery, I went to my room and finally changed into warm dry clothes and went to the dining room. After telling Kagi I'd like some tea, we never saw anyone. Then he left and never came back. I'm assuming he misheard me. After a while, I took it upon myself to order some (bad) cocoa.

Oh yes, and I was stupid and didn't put sunscreen on yesterday while wearing my sleeveless, so my arms are burned a bit.

The trail has also been harder than I was expecting. I'm sure the "rest" day helped, but it's not like I'm skipping up the mountain today.

I talked with a Swedish couple for a while, although you never would have guess they were Swedish. Kate was fair but dark haired. Alex looked Mediterranean--dark skin, thick eyebrows. He was interesting. Trained and worked in the dental industry but couldn't get enough time off so quite. Now he does computer consulting for 1-2 years, then travels for a year. He'd been to Nepal 7 times. He guessed I was from California when we talked about kayaking. (Somebody else guessed I was California for a completely different reason, but I can't remember who or why).

I also watched 4 older Canadians play Clubs. One of them was clearly a shark, another ok, and 2 weren't very good. I really wanted to jump in.

After a while everyone settle into reading or writing in the warm lodge. I had run out of things to do, so I went off to me 100 R (US $1.25) room went to bed.