We were awakened during the night by a very heavy rainstorm but, fortunately, it was fine we arose just after 6:00am. Checking the vital stats before breakfast my HR was 62bpm and O2 at 90%.
After an early breakfast we started off at around 7:40am heading to our day's destination - Namche Bazaar. The pathway begins on the western side of the river and undulates a bit before it crosses a swing bridge over the Dudh Koshi between the small villages of Bengkar and Chumoa. We had a good lunch at Jorsale just after the Sagarmatha National Park entrance, after crossing the river once again. The scenery looking back down the river was great as shown in this picture.
Looking back down the Dudh Koshi towardsBengkar
After crossing back over the river slightly north of Jorsale we crossed again where the Bhote Koshi joins the Dudh Koshi near the start of what is a long slow climb. There were many other trekkers, some in large groups of about 20 people, who were sometimes quite pushy to get past us. Also many heavily-laden Yak trains in both directions made for some exciting moments. Ang Nuru had already instilled in us the safe way to deal with Yak trains - get off the track if possible on the high side (you don't want to be pushed off as a Yak blunders past) and watch out for the hooves and the wide-spreading and very sharp horns. The Yaks are not aggressive - they are naturally large and made much wider by the loads that they are carrying. On a few occasions are horn embellished head came close to me and I just grabbed a horn and pushed it away without difficulty. Still - we had to be wary.
We found ourselves leapfrogging some of the pushy groups who had already passed us. As I expected - I was quite slow and happy to count out 50 or 100 paces, depending on the steepness, and then stop and let my heart rate subside from about 120+bpm to something more sensible before continuing. On very steep sections I was down to 25 paces between rests but we weren't in a hurry so taking it a bit easier was no big deal. We arrived in Namche Bazaar just after 3:00pm - about 6 hours and 20 minutes after starting out - quite weary and ready for a rest.
We found ourselves leapfrogging some of the pushy groups who had already passed us. As I expected - I was quite slow and happy to count out 50 or 100 paces, depending on the steepness, and then stop and let my heart rate subside from about 120+bpm to something more sensible before continuing. On very steep sections I was down to 25 paces between rests but we weren't in a hurry so taking it a bit easier was no big deal. We arrived in Namche Bazaar just after 3:00pm - about 6 hours and 20 minutes after starting out - quite weary and ready for a rest.
Namche Bazaar from the southern entrance.Shirley, Barry and Passang in the foreground.
From the southern entrance, everything in Namche Bazaar is above you - a fact not lost on our weary bodies. Namche Bazaar nestles around the sides of a large cirque with the village centre about halfway up and in the middle of the valley. In the picture above, our hotel - Hotel Norling - is slightly left of and above the centre of the picture.
After arriving and settling into our rooms we went down to the dining room and had coffee etc, staying there until dinner time at 6:30pm. After the long hard day - about 1000 metres ascent - we were in bed early, albeit reading and listening to our MP3 players. We again measured our oxygen etc after leaving the dining room for bed and my HR was 70bpm, O2 at 86%. My pedometer reading was 14629 for the day but I'd say my pace length was probably closer to 50 cm rather than 75 cm as normal due to the steepness of the climb making a total distance for the day of somewhere between 7.5 and 9km.
After arriving and settling into our rooms we went down to the dining room and had coffee etc, staying there until dinner time at 6:30pm. After the long hard day - about 1000 metres ascent - we were in bed early, albeit reading and listening to our MP3 players. We again measured our oxygen etc after leaving the dining room for bed and my HR was 70bpm, O2 at 86%. My pedometer reading was 14629 for the day but I'd say my pace length was probably closer to 50 cm rather than 75 cm as normal due to the steepness of the climb making a total distance for the day of somewhere between 7.5 and 9km.
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