Today was a `rest day' in Namche Bazaar. I was planning to have a rest day every other day while ascending, to aid acclimatization. Lal brought me a water basin for washing and some tea when I awoke. I asked him where the toilet was, and he told me it wasn't very nice. He was right. The room with the squat toilets was smelly and filthy. For breakfast, I had two chapatis (Indian flat-breads) and an omelet. I tried to teach Lal to open my combination lock, which was difficult since he had never seen one before. I was unsuccessful, for now.
This morning, I went exploring on my own. I started out on the trail to Tengboche which we would take tomorrow, and followed it to a view of the Dudh Kosi valley we had come up. The high bridge was now visible far below. Around the corner was a view of Lhotse, an 8000 meter peak near Mt. Everest, and Ama Dablam, which has an oddly shaped, pointy peak, and is probably the most recognizable mountain in the region. Lhotse's head was in the clouds, which also obscured Mt. Everest, whose tip should have been visible from here, above Lhotse's ridge.
I turned back, and stopped at the `Sherpa Cultural Center', which was mostly just a nice hotel with a stupa in the courtyard. Then I climbed the hill beside a military base, which had a basketball court, to the Sagarmatha National Park Visitor's Center, and saw some nice exhibits on the mountains and Sherpas. The Sherpas migrated to this area from Tibet a couple of hundred years ago, and their culture and language still reflects their Tibetan Buddhist background.
I could see people climbing a very steep hill above Namche Bazaar, and followed them, since it looked like the views from there would be great. The hill led past some prayer flags to the small town of Shangboche, high above Namche Bazaar, where there is an airstrip and government yak farm. There, I passed some porters who were carrying large cuts of meat, apparently yak legs, on their backs. Sherpas will not kill any animal, but meat from animals that die in an accident may be eaten, or meat may be brought from outside the region for tourists.
By now, I was beginning to wish I had brought some water. I passed a tea-house, but did not stop. I knew the Everest View Hotel should be not much farther, and I wanted to stop there. I was correct, and soon I came upon the hotel, a popular stop for people on day hikes out of Namche Bazaar. Many such people were here this morning, sitting on the terrace behind the dining room, where there would been an Everest view if it were not for the clouds.
This hotel is unique in the area. It is a luxury hotel, at least by local standards, built by the Japanese. There is a volleyball court in front of the hotel, and two outhouses, which have running water and porcelain squat toilets. A room reportedly costs around $100 a day. The restaurant is also rather expensive, and the waiters are formally dressed. I sat on the terrace, and ordered a small pot of hot chocolate and bread pudding with apricot sauce. The hot chocolate was good, since I was cold and thirsty. It was served in a thermos, with tea cups having the hotel's name on them. The bread pudding was somewhat unusual, and appeared to have been fried, with a trickle of apricot sauce on top. The hotel is at 12,700 feet, 1400 feet above Namche Bazaar. The towns of Phortse and Tengboche were visible across the valley, where we would be walking tomorrow.
![[Namche Bazaar]](../images/icons/namche_small.gif){kind=icon}
I returned via a more western path through Shangboche, going through the heart of the town at the other end of the airstrip, and down a less steep trail through an area which was apparently very sacred, high above Namche Bazaar. There were numerous prayer flags, chorten (similar to stupas), and mani stones, and a large number of yaks. Big boulders, house-sized, were everywhere, and the homes of Sherpas were scattered among them. By now it was becoming very cloudy and visibility was limited. Further down the hill, as I entered the town, I came upon a long wall made of numerous small mani stones, and just beyond it, a large Buddhist temple with prayer wheels along the front, and an enormous prayer wheel inside, which a couple of German children where happily spinning until their parents went in and stopped them. I went inside with the Germans and a monk to view the gompa, which contained a Buddha statue and numerous religious objects. The monk allowed me to take a picture of the gompa, and I left a few rupees in the donation box.
I continued down into town and looked around the shops a while. Assorted crafts and clothing were being sold by Tibetan women along the street. The merchants would bargain a little, but not very much. I liked the stone carvings from Tibet. I bought a couple of carved stone elephants, which had baby elephants inside. One was for myself, and another to use as a gift from Namche Bazaar. I was planning to wait until the way down to buy things here, but Lal could carry the elephants. I also bought three postcards, since there is a post office in town. However, I never found anyone working in the post office, so I was unable to mail them.
As I shopped, someone came up behind me and gave me a big squeeze around the waist. It was Lal, who told me he had expected me at lunch, and would meet me at the lodge soon for an early dinner, since I had not eaten. Actually, I had had a snack at Everest View, and a Snickers Bar and Coke while shopping, so I was not too hungry yet. I looked around town a little more, and bought a comb, since I had left mine in Kathmandu. Then I went down into the center of town to see the stupa. Next to it, along a stream, water-driven prayer wheel buildings were being constructed from stone.
I returned to my room and rested until dinner time. Meanwhile, someone latched my door from the outside, and I had to shout to get someone to open it. Upstairs in the dining room, I met an Irish trekker, who was staying in the next room, and turned out to be the person who mistakenly latched my door. He said he had been having a lot of trouble with the altitude. He was an enormous man with a loud voice and a strong accent, who used obscenities in every sentence. His guide knows my guide, and I had met his guide twice before: once on the climb to Namche Bazaar when he walked with Lal, and once on my way back from Everest View Hotel, when he said ``Namaste'' (a Nepali greeting conveying respect for one's soul) to me while headed the other way.
The Irish man said he had been discussing politics with his guide, who I believe is a Sherpa, and learned that practically everyone in the hills is a Communist. This was also clear from the ubiquitous campaign posters for Communist candidates in the November election. Many guest houses displayed the large red posters, with sun or plow pictures, prominently on their doors. My guide mentioned that tourism was sharply down this season, and he believed that fear of political instability may have kept people away. I told him I had become somewhat nervous, myself, in July when I read about the `Nepal Bandhs', or general strikes, being staged by the Communists to protest attempts by the Prime Minister to exclude them from the November elections.
As the sun set, yak dung was brought in to burn in the dining room stove. There is a shortage of wood here, and yak dung could be seen drying on walls all over town, to be burned in cooking and heating stoves. Lal helped keep the stove burning. I had curried vegetables with dal bhatt and Ra Ra noodle soup for dinner. This was a very large meal, and Lal had told me I probably wouldn't need the soup, but I was making up for skipping lunch. The Irish man's guide told us that he had recently been on an Everest expedition, which was trying to set a speed record by climbing from the base camp to the summit in 18 hours. He said he only made it to within 400 meters of the summit, because of bad weather and frostbite, but that four people made it to the top. There is some controversy over whether any actually made it within 18 hours. We went to bed at 7:30 and as usual, I slept about half the night before waking.
Scott A. Yost, 1994. All rights reserved.