October 8, 2006: Namche Bazaar - Acclimatization Day

Sharp at 6 am the hammerers outside started working on the lodge construction next door. I laid in bed for a little longer and got up around 6:30 am. Toast, tea and a veggie omelet. Around 8 am, Bharat and I left towards Thame. We wanted to hike for a few hours to further acclimatize (is that spelled right???) to the altitude. At the top of the Namche bowl, we could see Ama Dablam, quite possibly the most beautiful mountain in the world. Unfortunately, there were lots of clouds around and the views were limited. For a couple of hours, we walked through a beautiful valley until we came to the village of Thamo where we had some tea. Kept going and after about 3 hours since we left Namche, we saw Thame from far away on the other side of the valley. The guidebook says total distance from Namche to Thame is 7 km. Well, this sure does sound much closer than it feels it is. We did not walk slow, we had no packs with us, walked for 3 hours and were still ways away from Thame. Anyway, I looked at the steep climb up to Thame on the other side of the valley, looked at Bharat and said: Enough acclimatization for today, let's go back to Namche. It was already 11 am and the weather also was not good. So we headed back to Thamo where we had lunch, fried rice and tea. I can see that this valley must have some incredible views when there are no clouds, but we hardly had any views.

Nepali Toilet

We were back in Namche around 2:30 pm. Wanted to take a shower in the lodge. 200 rupees, but no towel. So I went to the first store in Namche and bought me a towel. Back to the lodge to have a shower. For dinner I had garlic soup, fried rice with veggies and apple pie. No more beer :(

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