Sange, Gopal and Yaddub

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It occurs to me that I haven't yet told you all about our guide and porters. We have Sange as our guide, he's 23 and from a village in the mountains. His English is a bit dodgy. Gopal and Yaddub are brothers who own a farm about 3 days walk frm Lukla and they do portering to earn a bit of extra cash. They are fantastic people. Tiny, strong as oxes with a terrific sense of humour. I have bought a Nepali phrase book and the hilarity that has stemmed from me trying to say various things in Nepali has been classic. I think I'm going to have to work a bit harder at my Nepali.

In the evenings we all sit in the lodge with the porters gathered round the stove. Last night one of the porters told a story that had all of the porters in hysterics and involved a rather rude hand gesture. Unfortunately we couldn't get our porters to elaborate. I rather think we provide a lot of the subject matter for their stories.

We walked to Pangboche today (3900m). Found a really nice lodge where we managed to get a hot shower. I cannot tell you how nice it is to have a hot shower after you've not been able to for a few days. On the way we saw the '20 Minuters'. The '20 Minuters are a group of 5 English people who we always seem to bump into about 20 minutes from wherever we are going hence the name. As you trek you keep bumping into the same people as you go up and it's quite nice. You feel bonded with them.

We are all feeling well and off to Dingboche tomorrow - over 4000m.

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