Day 7 : Acclimatization Day @ Dingboche

Day 7 : 14/05/2010
4280m, oxygen levels were low, I did have a little trouble breathing overnight, but did manage to have a very sound sleep, felt refreshed when I woke up in the morning. I knew it was near freezing weather outside and didn't want to go out till the sun was out. And also, We had to go all the way to the dining hall to wash our faces as there was no basin near any of our rooms. Long way for me at least, as I had my room at the other end of the basin. Lady @ the hotel was kind enough to give us warm water, washed my face and walked back to my room. Sun was clearly out and I did feel like taking a sunbath. I just sat on the rocky pavement in front of my room talking to sun. Folks started waking up one after another. Soon, Kanchuki came out of her room and I said "Good Morning" to her. She had a habit of drinking Bed-Tea. Sudhir, Kanchuki and I grabbed a cup of black tea each and sat under the sun. It was a nice feeling as we were beating cold weather and sun was with us. Today was the acclimatization day, Would have been great had we not needed to venture out and trek some peak. But, God was not that great either. He sent few of his disciples in the form of Kiran and Om Bahadur Ji. Soon, We were given orders to get ready by 8 to start summit the peak just behind our hotel.

We just had a look at the peak and it really looked like a small hike after doing Namche and Tengboche. Kanchuki instantly said, we'd come back in half an hour. None of us knew that this was not it, there was more to hike. We had to gain 600m to reach Nagarjuna Pea. Javed bhai and Sachin wouldn't want to acclimatize as they were not yet fully recovered from Diarrhoea.

Breakfast : Bread slices and Scrambled Egg.
I just had scrambled egg leaving bread.

Started the hike @ 8 in the morning, all was well, everyone of us moving at a decent pace. Om Bahadur Ji in the lead and Fab 5 (Abhishek, Aditya, Kanchuki, Sudhir and me) was following him. Ramesh n Swetha, as usual were playing the second fiddle. Followed by Ali bhai n Padmaja. Fab 5 turned Fab 4, as Abhishek was losing some pace. We were constantly in the hunt, taking very tiny breaks every now and then. To be frank, the terrain was little tough. As we were climbing up, Maddy had some problems in breathing. We persuaded him to take some rest and bring down his pace or call off the hike. We were hardly 30 minutes away reaching the peak. We 3, Satish, Kanchuki n Sudhir, kept going, going. Om Bahadur Ji summitted first, I followed him, Kanchuki n Sudhir followed us ! Let me tell you, we had to really struggle in the final 15 mins, as there was hardly any route, we had to literally do some bouldering. As I reached the peak, I could see three firangis smiling at me and say congratulations and I thanked them back. A breathtaking view at the top, you could see n number of mountains around you in 360o, but `Ama Dablam` was the closest. Sudhir was sweet enough to grab some cool pics of us.


Finally, only one young lady from TrekD, Pune group managed to reach the peak. We resumed our journey downhill, met Kiran and Padmaja on our way. It was still more than 45 min trek for them, so Padmaja had to abandon her dream to summit Nagarjun as our lunch might get delayed. Earlier, when we were on top, Om Bahadur Ji narrated us a great story of how these hills have formed and why the peak was named as "Ama Dablam", "Ama Dablam" translates to "The Mother's Charm Box". Kanchuki was all ears listening to him, apparently there was a feud between Shivaji and Sukumar, and blahblahblah. I couldn't catch much of Om Bahadur ji here. Reached our hotel by 1:30PM, after 3 hours of strenuous trek.

Lunch Time. Lunch : Aloo curry with Rice.
We had lot of time left in the day, so time to play some UNO n BLUFF. I played few very poor games here. Kanchuki and Sudhir, our two book buffs of our group, deeply into reading some stuff. They literally ditched us. Mr n Mrs Ramesh, Sachin, Maddy, Paddy and I were playing. Played till 4 in the evening, and slept till 6. Sudhir and Kanchuki barged into our room and invited us for an evening walk. I felt great and concurred their idea. Kanchuki, as she always was, very fond of bakeries. She managed to find one at the village entrance, a "French Bakery". We walked down to the bakery and ordered one Capuccino and one black forest for all of us. Kanchuki paid the bill and said this was her treat as her sister was granted visa. Walked back to the hotel and it clocked 7:30. Everyone else had finished their dinner by then.

I had ordered for an "Egg Sandwich", and the best food I'd consumed so far in the trip. Sachin also tasted a couple of bites, he liked it too. We slowly slipped into singing some songs, as usual, Kanchuki n Padmaja were at their best. I contributed wherever I could. Bored after listening to too many old songs from them, I broke the jinx and sang some good new hindi numbers. Sachin and Javed bhai also joined the party. Mingma suddenly came to us and said we were making lotta noise and firangis have an issue sleeping. We had to call it a day, and so we did.

An eventful and memorable day of my life comes to an end.