Himalayan Odyssey(10)

Tuesday 9th October, 2007 (O2 88%, Pulse 68)

Today we are continuing the journey from Tengboche to Dingboche, having spent the night at Pangboche. The previous evening had been enlivened by an English group from the medical profession while we watched 'Point Break' on the DVD player in the dining room. After all the publicity about smoking being bad for you I am always amazed at the number of health professionals who smoke. This group was no exception with some of them, including young women, taking regular breaks outside to have a puff.

Pangboche is at about 3,900 metres and the morning was brilliantly clear. After an earlyish breakfast we headed off along the track up the valley.

View back towards Pangboche

Continuing along we were soon passing along the way this beautiful autumnal display across the other side of the river.

Autumn colours across the river

The blurred vision issue is fairly constant but, apart from being annoying, is not causing me any significant problems. Both Dominic and I are putting it down to hypoxia.

We passed the inevitable Yak train along the way but there is generally much less traffic of all kinds here than there was over the last few days.

Yak train near Shomare - north of Pangboche

The last part of the track up to Dingboche, after crossing the river (again) is quite steep but fortunately not too long. We reached the village after about 3.5 hours of relatively comfortable walking. Along the final stretch we saw a flock of Himalayan Pigeons as they wheeled across the sky.

As we went up through the village towards our lodge we stopped for a few minutes to watch a couple of young Sherpas outside a shop playing a game a bit like billiards but played by sliding disks of some sort across a board to score points. Ang Nuru asserted that he is a champion at this game - I'm not going to try him out though.

Barry and Shirley were enjoying the remains of their rest day at the Sherpaland Lodge when we arrived. I had chicken soup and a boiled egg for lunch and then a good lie down in the afternoon.

After resting for a while we got Chiring, our porter, to do some washing for us. We can finish drying it tomorrow which is an acclimatisation day for us.

O2 82% Pulse 72, Pedometer 5814.