300 Cups of Tea...and counting

A quick hello from Namche Bazar, where the air is thin, the yaks are good looking, and the mountains are all above average - WELL above! We saw our first view of Chomlungma (Sherpa name)/Sagarmatha (Nepali name)/Everest (tourist name) today. And Lhotse and Ama Dablam! Though they really have nothing on the North Cascades (what could pssibly be better?) I will say one thing: They are huge. Really huge. Really, really, really huge! Beautiful, yes. Cold, yes. Amazing, yes. Okay, that's saying more than one thing, but really, seeing them in person is pretty darned impressive. These mountains are STEEPand SHEER. We've climbed the stairs of Cirith Ungol multiple times ("come on hobbitses, up, up, up the stairs we go") only to descend them again on the other side - so far we've hiked UP more than 26,600 feet, and DOWN mre than 21,300 feet! (Namche is at 11,300 feet.)

We're staying in an incredible spot in Namche (Sherpa trading and trekking hub, two dadys walk from Lukla, 15 days walk from where we started). We asked for a room for three, and since there were no triples, we ended up in their private prayer room (Sherpas traditionally follow Tibetan Buddhism) for thge same rate as the cell-like rooms that are everywhere. This is an incredible room - large, ornately decorated with Tibetan and Buddhist artifacts, tapistries, paintins - it's like being in a mini monastery - we sleep on the benches around the edge of the room that are covered in Tibetan carpets - there was an oil candle burning in a little shrine, there are windows on two sides overlooking Namche and out to soaring peaks. Last night the moonlight on the snowy peaks was ethereal, and the stars sparkled above. We feel pretty darned lucky. Most accomodations are quite basic, and always cold (this one is cold too, but so beautiful, and there are soft quilts to bundle up in!).

So, hiking for 15 days or so - the first 12 days on the "old" section of the route to Everest Base Camp (most folks now fly into the tiny airstrip at Lukla). On that section we felt we'd been transported back in time a thousand years - plwing with yak/cows with wooden plows, threshing grain by hand, many houses without chimneys - the smoke just finds its way out through the eaves. We ran into only a few Westerners each day, if any, and it seems the Sherpa village life went on as it had for years, and we just passes through it, whereas nw, on the main route, life revolves around the hoards of trekkers - it's quite the amazing contrast. We're really glad to have experience the quieter, slower paced life of the first section, even though we felt quuite foreign and often out of our element, and had to regularly ask directions to find our way. But we managed and had somoe amzaing experiences.

Some random thoughts:

Busride - We tok the "super-express" bus frojmn Kathmandu to Shivalay, where we started hiking - people and luggage piled inside and more peop0le and luggage on tp, 10 hours of bouncing and jolting along a road that makes Holden's road book like a 4-lane highway through Iowwa, people throuwinhg up out the window (when you're lucky), in the aisle or your lap (when you're not so lucky), constant stopp9ingand starting, Nepali music blasting at deafening decibles from the bus speakers, but NO BREAKDOWNS! It was quite t6hye experience and one we've decided not to repeat, so we'll be flying back to Kathmandu from Lukla on Decembe 5!

Cheese Factory - We were staying at a guesthouse on an 11,500 foot pass, and went exploring to find Nepal's first cheese factory (built by the Swiss in the 1950's). We got lst and ended up0 at a monastery school ("Uh, this isn't the cheese factory is it?"). One of the teachers showed us all around, introduced us to his students, took us inside the monastery building - beautiful tapestries, beautiful everything - showed us pictures of the Rinpoche (3rd incarnation) and someone olse who was on his something like 35th incarnation. Then he sent the kids to show us the way to the cheese factory. On the way, a bunch of them stopped to sled down the steep grassy slope on sleds made of boards. They were havingh a blast, flying down the hill in their maroon monks robes. Finally, we got to the cheese factory - small, medieval type place - copper kettle boiling over a wood fire - looked like something out of Pillars of the Earth (11th century). We tasted the cheese - incredibly yummy - it's Nak cheese not Yak cheese (Naks are female yaks).

Dal bhat for dinner, tsampa prridge for breakfast. Dal bhat for dinner, tsampa porridge for breakffast. Milk tea, and more tea, and more tea. We're staying healthy!

Lamjura Pass - We stayed in a tiny guesthouse - they invited us in to sit by their kitchen fire, the stove is a clay thing, with holes where the flames come out and pots sit on top. The family (mom, dad, 6 year old daughter) were so very friendly and generous - kept bringing more tea and rice and lentils and tsampa porridge with yak milk (I mean Nak milk!). When we left in the morning the little girl came running out with 3 apples for us - not easy to come by at 11,000 feet. What a gift!

One day we hiked up to a large monastery above the village where we were staying. We got to go in to where there were over a hundred monks sitting crosslegged in rows on cushions, chanting. First however we had to be blessed - sprayed with water, then water was poured from a beautiful ornate teapot into our hands which we slurpped (hoping not to get sick from it, but hey, you've gotta take a few chances with germs when you've got this kind of opportuhnity). Anyway, we sat in the back. It was like something out of the movie "7 Years in Tibet." Down the middle aisle were the long horns, drum, cymbals, short horns - the noise from them is so foreign, so different - nothing like that sound, cacophony really, in the Western world. Then monks went up and down the aisles with snacks - cookies, candies, fruit pieces - the monks in the back kept turnbing aroujhnd and smiling and offering us treats! Anyway - it went on and on - monks chanbting,, blaring horns, chanting some more,, smiling at us.

If all this souns ideal -
Everything smells like dung. Dung is everywhere. We are pretty stinky too (I imagine) but i doesn't matter because everything is stinky. We're being very careful not to get dysentary. So far so good!

Anyway, gotta go - really. Internet is rather expensive here and not too reliable, the o key sticks (so you may have to decipher some of what I've written, excuse the mistakes, no time to proofread), so we won't be checking our emails until we're back in Kathmandu in early December. Meanwhile, things are going great, we have a million stories, we miss you all, and we'll see you later! Pictures yet to come (when back in Kathmandu).

That's it for now.