Continuing our Journey of Everest Base Camp Trek, Nepal.
Day 4: Namche Bazaar – Day hike to Everest View Hotel in Khumbu region
Today was called the Rest Day where you get a chance to acclimatize to the high altitude during your Everest Base Camp trek. In my mind, it was supposed to be resting all day, in reality, it was time for a day trek. Yes, rest day is basically a day trek instead of trekking to another place at higher altitudes. The idea behind rest day is to let your body get used to the height by taking it to a higher altitude but end up sleeping at lower altitude. Namche Bazaar is at a height of approx 3000 m. In day trek, we climbed till 3800 m and come back to 3000 m. Closer to Namche Bazaar is Hotel Everest View at a height of 3800 m. It was also the first point where we will get our first glimpse of Mt. Everest. The hotel overlooks the entire mountain range and Mt. Everest was hiding behind one of such mountain. Every sight of Everest or any other mountain is subject to weather condition. Sadly, during our day trek, the weather was super cloudy. We felt as if we are walking among the clouds. All we could see is white fog / clouds. Cloudy means it was also very cold and windy. On our way back, we also came across a project lead by Swedish guy regarding waste disposable in the mountains. He attempted to climb Everest, but couldn’t do it. He fell in love with the mountains and decides to stay in Namche Bazaar. The best part of traveling to places is meeting such people and getting to know their passion – doing something different in some different country.
We reached Hotel Everest View and hoped for clear weather. We ordered soup and hot chocolate and patiently waited for the clouds to clear. As we waited, slowly clouds started clearing and we saw a couple of snow mountains. The entire movement of clouds was fascinating as we get excited when the clouds cleared and suddenly the other cloud come over. We finished our soup and hot chocolate as slowly as possible, clicked as many pictures as possible, in all that time, all we wanted was one glimpse of Mt. Everest. To our dismay, we didn’t get any glimpse of Everest and cloud hovering the mountain was too stubborn to move! By late lunch time, we were back in our hotel and hot lunch was waiting for us. We spent the rest of the day chilling in the hotel, most importantly, taking bath with hot shower. It was our first bath after the start of the trek. For us, rest day also means bath day, if you are kind of person who can’t stay long without bath.
Day 5: Namche Bazaar – Teyngboche (Tengboche) – Debuche
So our two days in Namche Bazaar come to an end, we started our way towards Debuche. Our guide already informed us that what kind of trek we will be doing. We have to first cross the Namche Bazaar means going up for about 20 minutes and then continue walking on a flat ground from one mountain to another. It was also the last day when we will have a chance to see the Everest as later on, we will not get a chance to see it till the last day or the trek before we head back the same way. The weather was a bit cloudy and we really wished for a glimpse of world’s highest mountain’s peak. Thankfully, our prayers answered and we saw the tip of the Everest for like 5-10 second. Later on, our pathway started to decent and from 3400m height, we came down by 400m. At a particular height, you also get a chance to see Nepal’s national flower, Rhododends. It was beautiful as the road was surrounded by white, pink and red colour flower. At the bottom of the mountain was our lunch place.
Before we reach our hotel, we stopped at Tangbuche Monastery. This monastery was shown in the movie ‘Everest’ and I was bit fascinated to visit the same. The prayers at the monastery was starting at 3:30 whereas we reached by 3. We spent half an hour clicking pictures around the monastery and at 3:30 we went inside for the prayers. The whole monastery was filled with tourist as it is said that if you are heading towards Everest, prayers at the monastery is good luck for the journey. Also till the time we on Everest base camp trek, we only saw cloudy weather and we wished for clear sky in Debuche. We prayed for it and the next day our wish came true.
Day 6: Debuche – Dingboche
The day started with our trek from Debuche to Dingboche. Dingboche is located inside the valley at the height of 4400 m. The entire trek was gradually upwards with almost 1 hour steep climb. In between, we passed through the town called Pangboche. It was our tea break town where we rested for 30 minutes. The whole town is located between the mountains and the whole way weather was quite windy making it difficult to walk and breath. After Pangboche, the trek was through a vast land which was a bit flat and uphill. Our guide informed us that after Pangboche, we will not see any trees or plants and just scattered bushes as you go higher, the trees become lesser and lesser, hence, low oxygen levels. At the height of Dingboche, oxygen level is around 80% and it gets lower as you go higher.
We reached our hotel Good Luck at around 4 o’clock and spent the rest of the day in the dining area playing games, chit chatting and having our dinner at 6. The reason we didn’t go to our room was because our guide informed us that at the higher altitudes, avoid sleeping during the day as it might lead to altitude sickness like headache, loss of appetite, loose motions, etc. The day ended with a couple of games after the dinner to keep us entertained and later, just go to bed to sleep.
The Journey will continue in Part 3 of Everest Base Camp Trek, Nepal.
