Day #5 - First Himalayan Night. Sunrise Lodge (Phakding)

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Preparations for bed are no quick and easy thing anymore – they require pre-planning and some effort. Whilst day time temperatures are a nice 20c, nightime temps drop below freezing. The nightime temperatures will only get lower as we sleep at higher altitudes, with a highest nights sleep at Gorak Shep expected to be -8c or lower in the room.



All water to drink from is provided by our porters and guides from boiled water. At dinner time I hand over my camelback water bag (now empty) and my two 500ml drinking bottles (also empty) to the porters, and they return them some 30 minutes later. I take these to my room, lay out my sleeping bag and insert the sleeping liner. The now very warm camelback and drinking bottles are placed in my sleeping bag and make extremely good hot water bottles. In the morning the water has cooled down well enough to drink from and is used as that days water supply.



All my electrical equipment, including batteries are bundled up into my fleece jacket and put in a waterproof stuff sack, sealed (in case the waterbottle splits) and pushed to the foot of the sleeping bag. This is done to stop the cold damaging my electrical gear and also to keep the batteries from losing charge quickly. This routine I expect to repeat most nights.



By the time I climb into bed at the incredibly late hour of 8pm, there isn’t a great deal of room for me in my sleeping back – but at least it is warm.



I expected now the anxieties of the flight to Lukla were over, and the days exertions in the sun would guarantee me a great nights sleep. The guide the next morning did ask me if I slept like a baby? Indeed I did – I woke every hour and half, was thirsty (as all my water was still hot and undrinkable) and also hungry. I had also spent most of the night wrestling with my sleeping bag, as the large bag of electrical equipment in the foot of the bag kept slipping off the end of the bed and onto the floor – taking the sleeping bag with it.



After such a restless nights sleep, and with the sun lighting up the top of the mountain behind the lodge, I decided I might as well get up and face the new day.

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