25 May 2024
It was extremely warm or even hot in the night. I discarded
one layer sometime around 1230 and could sleep after that.
Although today we were to walk long distance most of it was
going down. Hence, we were not much worried. So far Gods had been on our side
and I was pretty sure that they would carry us for these two days. At about 7 I
finally got out of bed. Quickly got ready to move and headed to the dining room
downstairs.
 |
| Tashi |
When we had come to Namche Bazaar, we had walked around 15 kilo meters. Out of which 7 was complete ascent with rapid altitude gain. Today, we were to lose the altitude and get back into low altitude zone. Also, Ghat is very green. That was going to be an advantage.
We had good breakfast of momos, Tsempa Porridge and Omelette
with tea and coffee before starting today’s odyssey at 8 AM. When we were
leaving, the lady of the house, Pasang Sherpa who is the owner of The Sherpa
Village came to see us off. We shook hands and then she was constantly chanting
some Buddhist mantras. Tashi, her nephew whom I had befriended previous evening
told me that she was praying for our safety in further journey. It was a touching
moment. A complete stranger praying for us… (This is why I love
travelling!!! You meet good people everywhere!)
 |
| Pasang aii (Elder sister) |
The shops at the bazar were just opening. They had real good
stuff. Everything was way too tempting. Since last few years I’ve made it a
point to buy only that is necessary so I just looked at the stuff before
walking off.
The trek was pretty easy but crowded as many people were
returning from their adventure. And many were going up too. We exchanged good
luck wishes with many and kept marching ahead. Soon we reached Hillary Bridge. (The
original Hillary Bridge is now a bungee jumping station and the higher bridge
named Larche Dobhan serves the trekkers.)
Here, Gauri wanted to make a reel of herself
running on the bridge. But there were so many people crossing from both sides.
Amruta and I waited over 20 minutes on the opposite side just to record her
running. But when we saw that porters wouldn’t take a break, we decided to
abandon the plan and started walking ahead. Meantime met a friend of Ngima who
passed our message to him about us leaving.
Some couple of kilo meters from this bridge we passed by the
restaurant where we had spent more than an hour for lunch when we were going
towards EBC. And then there was a climb.
I thought that was our last climb of the day. We had reached the gate of
Sagarmatha National Park at Monjo. So here we officially exited from Sagarmatha
National Park. I was somewhat emotional.
Around 100 meters from this check post, we took a quick
break of 20 minutes for coffee. Ngima was worried about our lunch. I told him
we would reach Ghat, and then Yangdi, his wife can prepare omelettes for us and
we would be happy eating that for lunch. He wasn’t expecting that. He then
called Yangdi and informed her about our plan. We were some 6 kilo meters away
from Ghat at this time.
Now we passed through small settlements of Benker and
Toktok. At Phakding we could see the monastery up on the hill. This was first time
that I had seen a monastery and walked past it. In fact, I had ignored all the
monasteries on this trail. Such a shame!
Anyway, we soon arrived at Ghat. The distance that my watch
recorded was about 2 kilo meters lesser than what we had recorded on the way
up. I wondered why. Ngima said, he brought us down through a short cut. Then we
all laughed over it and let it go.
After lunch, I wanted to sleep but one important task was
pending. We had to clear our accounts with each other and with Ngima. Amruta
and I sat down with pen and paper and Gauri took over conversions of
currencies. We had spent in both Indian and Nepalese currencies.
Then, we spoke to Ngima about the accounts. He was ok with
that. We made an envelope of tip for Surendra.
Ngima and I chatted about other probabilities of this trek. Kind of business talks etc. And then the last part of the day: our daily
chat about next day. Ghat to Lukla is just about 6 kilo meters. I told him that
we would start late around 10 or something like as it would take just 3 hours
to walk and we would still be in Lukla for lunch. He was ok with it.
Frankly, I would have preferred to stay at Ghat for 2 days
and relax and just walk early morning to Lukla catch a flight and go to
Kathmandu directly. Ngima warned us that meant we would have to start early in
the morning at about 4 AM and probably miss the 6.35 flight and take a later
flight. I would avoid such a mess on any day. So, it was agreed that we would
start at 10 AM next morning.
 |
| Radish Pickle |
At about 8 PM we went for dinner. It was simple dal bhat with Mula ka Achar – the pickled radish. And now that it had marinated, it tasted heavenly.
We were in mid of having dinner when a group arrived with a
guide and porter. I recollected having seen the porter just a day or two
somewhere on the trek. This group had walked from Paiyya which was like more
than 18 kilo meters away from Ghat. That meant the porter had carried the load
from some higher spot to Lukla just a day or two back and was back at Ghat with
another load. So much of hard work… I have many questions as to why people in
the valley have remained financially destitute even after 70 years of first
summit and over 100 years of Everest expeditions.
This new group was out for 3 passes trek and they had
already been to EBC previous year. They were all Nepalese. We didn’t chat much
and after dinner, we quickly went to our rooms.
As expected, there was no reply from the GoI’s ministry of
External Affairs as it was a Saturday. Yet, I was rather tensed. I kept thinking
what to do about this wrongly placed immigration stamp. I was scrolling through
Facebook rather absent mindedly. Then I saw a post on Facebook made by someone
I felt can help. Thankfully, I had spoken to this person on few earlier occasions
about various things. So rather hesitatingly, at 930 PM I sent them a message,
I wasn’t expecting a immediate reply. But to my surprise they
replied. We
had a good and quick WhatsApp messaging and they gave me an email address to
communicate the issue. I sent the email promptly and peacefully went to sleep.
Stats for the day: 25 May 2024
End Time: 02:30 PM
Highest Altitude: 3462 meters ASL
Distance: 12.67 kilo meters
Social Plugin