Heading pie-wards
Trip Start
Sep 23, 2004
1
13
77
Trip End
Ongoing
Where I stayed
Sagarmatha National Park, Nepal
Sunday, October 24, 2004
The following day took us up the torturously steep path to Mong La, where I developed huge blisters from my bandages, then carried on to the lovely village of Kumjung. We saw danphe along the path- lovely irridescent dark blue phesants with turquoise and orange wings. The haunting sound of their cries mixed with the tinkling yak bells and whistles of the herders to create a melody unique to the Khumbu. Kumjung proved to be quite an metropolis, with street lights and green rubbish bins. Our rooms had their own lights, the loo was inside and there was a funny box in the corner of the main room in the lodge which had moving picture on it. We eased ourselves back into the modern world by watching Chinese tales of a yellow kung-fu fighting Monkey.
The onwards route to Namche took us through woods and glens straight out of Scotland. We stopped at the Everest View Hotel just as the clouds rolled in, and decided against one of their rooms (costing the princely sun of $175US a night) in favour of a much more affordable cup of tea. We then headed on to Namche where our first port of call was one of the bakeries for apple pie, followed by a reunion with the Internet to let the world know I still existed. I felt that my need for contact with the modern world was satisfied and would have been quite happy to have gone back up into the mountains, but sadly flight times were calling me and so we returned to Luckla, though not before creating the day's entertainment in a small village on the trail when we paused to use Oli's waterpump- between the filter and Nibbles we gathered hordes of spectators. At journey's end we visited the Wave Pub for our first beer in nearly 4 weeks. The next morning the Sherpani of Sonam lodge whisked me down to the airport, wrapped me up in a white scarf for good luck then set me on my plane back to the sounds and smells of Kathmandu. As our plane took off, the clouds drew in again, pulling a curtain over the glory of the mountains.
