1- November- 2014 - Trek to Tengboche

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1- November- 2014 - Trek to Tengboche

As we woke up our last day in relatively heat and comfort, it struck us that it was now the adventure was going to begin for real. After a quick wrap up of our gear and towing the bags up to the breakfast we found ourselves seated in the nice cushy sofas eating our toasts and drinking our mandatory ginger lemon tea. The trek started out through Namche's small alleys when every villager was about to open up their stores and herding the yaks.

The sun blessed our steps on the streets as we began with a 15 minutes uphill walk. After that, we reached the side of the mountain where the path was relatively flat for several hours. As we felt the energy bursting from our bodies, we managed to walk quite far always having the valley, river and mountains to our right. Feeling the sun in our face as the monumental view grasped our sight made us stumble occasionally on the small rocks and roots that were on the hillside road. We were also able to spot the national bird, Dapi, which had a blue-reddish shimmer of it, and at one occasion we saw it fly for some distance before disappearing in the bushes.

A quick tea-break in the sun with first row seats of the mountain view was a nice warm up to the hour of downhill walking before we reached the river down in the valley. After our lunch, noodles as usual, we made our way to the bridge over the river, only to witness one of the yaks drop their packing in the middle of the bridge. After a quick rush and releasing the animal of the ropes and packing, the yak herder took it back to solid ground so all the people that had been waiting could use the bridge again. On the other side of the river we passed a military outpost before the real uphill walk would begin. As we felt that our feet stumbled upon more or less every stone in order to minimize our effort in walking uphill, we also catch up and passed a lot of other trekkers. As this was a really steep part of the walk we experienced the importance of walking SLOWLY! This is the only way avoiding unnecessary altitude sickness. You're able to drink a lot of ginger tea and eating garlic soup, that will ease the strain, but if you walk to fast, you'd not be able to enjoy the trek due to dizziness, headache, sickness etc.

We reached Tyangboche a little earlier than expected, so we had to wait for our porter to catch up before we could get into our rooms. After that we had a quick 15 minutes uphill walk to a ceremonial site where the monks in the monastery have some dancing and festively activities once a year. This will happen within one week, and if we're lucky, we will be able to see it on our way back.

Running down from the hill back to the village, we spotted the grand monastery in the middle. We walked in there and saw the monks practicing their dancing for the festival. Dressed in their regular monk outfit, they were really skilled at moving as a group, always getting in the right position, back to back, with another dancing monk, in order to create a beautiful dancing pattern. The funniest thing about this was that some of the monks seemed to have sneakers -  maybe not so traditional, but definitely more comfortable. Walking further into the monastery we reached the core of it. Where the monks sit and pray and read out of books each day. We had to take of our shoes and take of our hats to show respect and we weren't allowed to take pictures or film. But after entering the sanctuary, we understood why. The walls we're filled with paintings of Buddhas life. Huge drums we're standing in the middle of the room which the monks use to play at. Flutes of different sizes, from half a meter up to three meters where lying in the room. Old books where flanking a special library corner close to the huge Buddha statue and in the middle of the room were the monks benches were they sit and pray each day. We would recommend this for anyone passing by, a marvel to behold!