Day 4 - Namche Bazaar (3,440 mtrs)

It turns out that the husband of the couple who own the teahouse used to guide Japanese clients and still has quite a large Japanese clientele staying there and so does a Japanese breakfast. There can't be many people who can claim to have had a Japanese breakfast in the Himalayas! 

Today we are continuing up the valley with a gentle height gain until lunch. The added fun today is that we are hiking at the same time as a few buffalo / donkey trains. These are groups of animals carrying packs, equipment and supplies up the valley.

 

 

I spend a bit of time overtaking them to take pictures and video whilst they pass. This is also quite dangerous as the paths are narrow so if they sway they can knock you down the drop into the river or if you are a bit further ahead gore you with their horns. This all goes well until my overtaking leaves me facing an oncoming train that has just come round the corner! Faced with horns both in front and behind me and a long drop to me right, my only option is to jump onto the cliff to my left and perform a rather risky traverse above the oncoming train. 

After these antics I am quite a bit ahead of the rest of the group and so come across a couple of checkpoints alone. The first one is only for those who are trekking so I walk past it and the guard shouts at me which causes all the waiting trekkers to look up in awe as I casually mention that in fact I am climbing Ama Dablam and am given a smart salute to send me on my way! I don't even see the second checkpoint and nor am I seen by the guards so walk straight past that as well. From there it is a few more undulations until the restaurant where I end up waiting about an hour for the rest to arrive - they have stopped at the second check point and been part of a long queue for our permit to be reviewed. 

Lunch is a Chinese / Nepali fusion chow mien on a sun terrace next to the path with views back down the valley. This is a lovely place and we stay there for quite a while and end up being the last to leave the area.

 

From lunch we have a wire bridge over the river

 

 

 and then a steep climb out of the valley up to Namche. This gives me an opportunity to really push on and boost my acclimatisation - quite luckily this is well below the treeline so there is quite a bit of shade from the sun. Then all of a sudden I get to another checkpoint and this time I am unable to bluff my way past which is a bit annoying as the others are some way behind but then I notice that this is actually the Namche gateway and the end of the day's trek so I would have to wait here anyway to reconvene before heading to our teahouse for the night. 

There are a few others who have also arrived a bit ahead of their group so we chat and play ball with some of the young children who live on the outskirts of Namche. There are a number of porters here as well, one of whom is not wasting the opportunity to impress the others with the ringtone on his phone (Gangnam Style) which he lets continue for a rather long time when he is called which is oddly frequently. 

A bit later on the rest of the group turn up and we got though the paperwork and head on to Namche. This is the old market town in the region where Tibetan and Nepalis would come to trade. As such it is by far the wealthiest area in the region and this was then boosted when it became the launch point for most of the trekking and climbing in the area.

 

Apparently one of Namche's  highlights is the German bakery and so we drop in there for some apple pie - apples grow pretty well in these valleys and the pie is very good indeed.

We stay there for quite a while and have to head through the back streets in the dark to find our teahouse - there are quite a number of new ones in the village but there hasn't been the same investment in the streets that lead to them!

After that it was a similar relaxed evening with a trio of stir fries (rice, potatoes and vegetable) for supper.