Day 3 : Phakding to Namche Bazaar

Day 3 : 10/05/2010
An early morning weather woke me up earlier than expected n required, off the bed @ 5:30AM. Didn't have a sound sleep overnight, but decent enough. Not in a mood to start the trek at all, very lazy and drowsy feeling I had that day. Fortunately, no muscle pains/strains, as I'd put in lotta hardwork hitting the gym and road over the past couple of months. I just thought I'd wash my face and went out to the cellar of the hotel and opened the tap. My God, tap came into my hand and whole water sprinkled onto my body, completely wet my clothes. I managed to wash my face with the near freezing water.


Reached the breakfast table a little early than everybody, learnt my lesson from the other day at Kathmandu. Had Half fried omelette, not enough to my standards, but it was pretty evident to me that I started losing the appetite day after day. On any other day, I'd have gulped at least 5 of those. All of us have reached out to start the proceedings of the day and everyone looked very fresh. Target was clear for the day, Namche by the end of the day, from 2652m to 3440m. A pretty demanding ask, but we were all up for it. All of us have started the hike @ 7:30AM in the morning, instantly five of us have gained the lead. Kanchuki, Sudhir aka "Mr. Restless", Abhishek, Aditya aka "Maddy" and myself. And we continued to be the group which led the team remainder of the trek. Our lead "Om Bahadur Ji", though he was 57, he contained lots of pace, all the time we would have to do the catch up. We rested at a point after an hour and a half of strenuous walk, as we usually do for everyone to catch up and regroup. Bahadur Ji pointed me to a peak, and said "Yeah Thamserku hai". I was also told, this was the peak never conquered. I found some love for this group It has an altitude of 6608m, It has a very sharp nose and beautifully covered with ice, an absolute delight to the eye. As we discussed this, Kanchuki, Abhishek, Sudhir and Maddy joined us. I narrated the same story to everyone of them, and they were all ears to me. We halted for 10-15 minutes there and resumed our journey. Munched a power bar sponsored by Kanchuki.


It was not that hard terrain, but too many ups and downs. Mostly we were going by the river side and thrilled by the cold breeze passed across. Had lunch at "Hotel Namaste" and resumed our hike after a brief ten minute break. Earlier Abhishek took some interesting snaps with the mountain in the background. Reached "Lajra Bridge" which connected the Phakding mountain to Namche Bazaar, constructed over the river "Dudh Koshi". All five of us waited @ the bridge for the rest of the team to regroup. Kanchuki managed to capture some beautiful snpas, and Sudhir was sweet enough to include me in his pics. We also met a bunch of veterans from Argentina, who were also on course to EBC. Place where two rivers merged, "Dudh Koshi" and "Bhut Koshi", a sheer delight to the eye. We took our time off to settle down and prepare ourselves for the strenuous trek uphill to Namche. Fab Five (Satish, Sudhir, Kanchuki, Aditya n Abhishek) have spearheded the journey and trekked uphill relentlessly. Swetha and Ramesh also maintained some decent pace.

We were taking a break as and when necessary, both short and long ones. I very much loved this part of the trek taking tiny breaks after every 30-40 steps and moved ahead before my muscles relaxed. Trekked for almost for two hours with breaks here and there, and reached a place where we could finally see Namche Bazaar. Felt good Kanchuki also joined after few minutes, and later Sudhir, Aditya and Abhishek also joined the party. We reached Namche Bazaar and found the "Hotel Kamal" where we would be putting up that night, Aditya and I were the first to get into the hotel. We dumped our backpacks and rested our butts in the restaurant upstairs. Rest of the party arrived after an hour or so @ 4:30PM.

Meanwhile, Tasted some good black coffee at the restaurant as "Hotel California" was played. Had a hot shower for 330NPR (200 INR) and hit the dining room for dinner. Watched a documentary post dinner by National Geographic Channel, "Everest - 50 years on the mountain", featured Peter Hillary, son of Sir Edmund Hillary and Dawa Sherpa. I was feeling a mild headache and painfully dozed off.

A stressful second day @ office comes to an end here.