Day 11 : Periche to Namche Bazaar

I had such a sound sleep yesterday that I woke up at 7 in the morning, everyone was ready for another hectic day at office by then, an 8-9 hours trek. Ali bhai had recovered magnificently and was in great shape to commence our journey back to Namche. Started @ 8 in the morning, saw a couple of marathon runners jogging their way up the hill, practicing for a marathon event from EBC to Namche scheduled @ 29th May. We were walking at a decent pace, taking too many breaks to take snaps. Meanwhile, our wonder couple (Ramesh n Swetha) looked to be in a real hurry to reach Namche and walked past us, and Abhi gave them some good company. All three had disappeared from the scene in just a matter of ten minutes. We were to go past Shamore, Pangboche, Debuche, Tengboche, Phungi Thanga villages to reach Namche. Four of us, Kanchuki, Sudhir, Aditya and I have together reached Pangboche @ 9:45AM, as Ramesh, Swetha and Abhishek were already waiting for us there. This was the same place we took a break during our forward journey. We sat down at a table, munched some snacks and had some hot lemon, Ramesh and Swetha had left the place by then, Sachin, Paddy n Kiran had arrived after few minutes.

We left this place @ 11, crossed the river "Dudh Koshi" to reach Debuche, and on our way we met a student from Tibet and who entertained us with some hindi and tibet numbers on his mobile phone while we trek uphill from Debuche to Tengboche. I loved this patch so much, full of RhodoDendron trees, a visual treat to the eyes. We all lied down on grass and took a small nap for 10-15 mins. Ali bhai, Javed bhai, Sachin n Paddy have joined us then. Resumed our journey and reached the Tengboche monastery after twenty minutes. Left the place at noon, now comes the difficult part of the trek, downhill 600m from "Tengboche" to "Phungi Thanga", walking pole did help in minimizing the stress on knees and ankles. We took all the care and reached the foot of the hill in 1 hr and 30 mins. Swetha and Ramesh have already reached this place, and they were all set to have lunch. Kanchuki and I have assumed the same seating positions as we did during our trek uphill. We were in for a pleasant surprise on that day as the blazing sun gave way to cool breeze and dark clouds. We swiftly moved into the dining hall and had lunched big time.

Lunch : Aloo Curry, Rice and Daal

Resumed our journey into the final leg of the day's trek, a slight uphill trek to Namche Bazaar. Ramesh & Swetha have spearheaded the attack and Fab 5 followed them. This was the only part of the trek, where you'd find a proper walking path constructed and maintained by some locals, absolutely no stress on knees, ankles and any joints. It pretty much resembled the KBR Park jogging track with just the background being different. We walked for at least a couple of hours, still there was no sight of Namche Bazaar. To be frank, it was a pretty long walk, I was dying to see Namche Bazaar from some distance. We were suddenly enthralled by the surprise thrown in by the nature, a dense set of clouds hovered the mountains and we could hardly see the valley, river and mountains on the other side. This was one of the breathtaking moments I experienced during the trek.

Abhishek pushed himself ahead from all of us and reached Namche Bazaar at least 10-15 mins before. We (Aditya, Sudhir, Kanchuki and I) headed directly to "Everest Bakery" and ate what not, everything, from pizaa to french fries, chocolate cake to capuccino. Headed to our hotel @ 7PM, dumped our backpacks in our respective rooms, we were lucky to get a room with a good view of Namche Bazaar and a very calm ice mountain behind the bazaar. Everyone of us had a hot shower here after 7-10 days and hit the dining hall sharp by 8. I soon regained my appetite, much credit to the Everest bakery, had 3-4 Omelettes, followed by Daal Rice. Had a good hot shower and reached the dining room for some drinks.

Locally brewed millet beer known as "Chhang"/"Thumba or tongba" a bamboo straw is used to suck the water and alcohol from the fermented millet. You can keep adding water as you keep drinking the tongba, until it is finished. "K", Sudhir, Maddy, Sachin, Paddy and I have tasted this and it tasted weird but different. Meanwhile, Javed bhai, Ali bhai and Sachin have made good friends with some local police and a military officer. We finished drinking by half past ten in the night and we hardly cared about the time as we didn't have to walk long way tomorrow, very small downhill trek to Phakding, that too only afternoon.

Drink session was over, Cards session was started. All of us assembled in my room and pulled a blanket as a replacement to the table, clutched its ends under our feet. Kanchuki, Paddy and I were sitting on one cot, Abhi, Sudhir and Maddy were on the other side. Business as usual, started with UNO games and later shifted to BLUFF. Kanchuki had first time won the BLUFF game, and she was right away on CLOUD 9. Cards went on till 2 in the night and we called it a day then.

Pretty eventful and stressful day comes to an end here.