Namche: 3472 m
Ghat: 2578 m
Distance: 14.1 km (103.2 km total)
We woke up around 5:15 thanks to several dogs in a paddock down the hill barking at each other, but this hour has not really been a problem because it’s already getting light by then, and we’ve been tending to be in bed by 8 pm so are still managing to get a decent night’s sleep.
After breakfast we split into different groups to go shopping, each with a ‘minder’. We had a wander through the Saturday market just to have a look around, and took a short cut from there out of Namche. We got to the toilet stop with the ‘first view’ of Everest and enjoyed about 15 minutes there by ourselves before the others showed up. (We had passed this point coming up, but due to the cloud and rain, weren’t able to see anything.) From there it was down, down, down – much easier and quicker than going up, up, up! – to the swing bridge across the river. There was a lot of traffic on the trail, and several times crossing bridges we had to wait for dzopke convoys coming the other way.
We still had stickers to give out to kids that we saw along the way, and started making a point of saying ‘Namaste’ (hello) to porters and other people we met along the way, waving to people chipping stones to build houses with – just to try to break down the barrier between us as a relatively rich tourist and them as someone whose sole purpose in life is to carry stuff up hills, and acknowledge their worth as a person.
After lunch (another picnic, at a tea shop we had stopped at coming up) we ended up walking much of the time with Rishi and the Sirdar, Pasang. (The Sirdar selects and manages the porters.) We had seen a lot of porters today carrying very heavy loads – 5-6 cases of beer, sheets of roofing iron, sacks of grain, one guy with two ceramic toilets, etc. Some yaks and dzopkes seem to carry less. We asked Pasang how much they get paid. The answer was, from Lukla to Namche (a distance of 23 km and vertical gain of over 1000 m) they get paid 70 Rs per kg. The journey takes them about 1 ½ days, so you can see the incentive for them to carry really heavy loads – some of them up to 100 kg. Many have substandard footwear – sandals, crocs, canvas shoes, old running shoes with holes in them; often a few sizes too big.
Finally after many ups and downs (‘Nepalese flat’) our campsite came into view. We arrived about 4:15. At afternoon tea Rishi collected the tips, around USD60-80 each (6000-8000 Rs). They were divided between the staff (11 porters, 5 cooking staff, 3 Sherpa guides, the cook, and the Sirdar) and put into envelopes. We were each given two or three envelopes to give to them in a little ceremony that we had after dinner. After receiving their tip and being applauded, they went around each of us, shaking our hands. It was quite a celebratory atmosphere.
Next day
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