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Published: February 19th 2019
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We spent last night in a room in the basement as the rest of the lodge was full. It was warmer than where we have been but being below the kitchen got noisy quite early. Whilst annoying to wake up earlier than planned we at least got to join Bart for breakfast before he headed off to Lukla to catch his flight tomorrow.
After a leisurely breakfast (of giant apple pancake) we got out the map and planned a walk for today. Despite the fact Namche is once again in the cloud today we decided to go for a wonder. The walk we picked was a 4-5 hour tour of the local villages.
Stephen first had to fix his shoes as the soles have now more or less disintegrated.
We headed off towards The Everest View Hotel for morning coffee - a luxury hotel with spectacular views. The walk above Namche is steep as the hotels at 3880m and Namche 3340m.
We walked passed the Namche airport en route, which is no longer used but was made by the hotel. It’s a tiny strip of gravelly, flat-ish scrub land. I’m not surprised no pilots want to try and
fly into it!
Slightly further on we had the surreal experience of watching people playing golf at 3800m with views of mountains behind them. Unsurprisingly the hotel was just above the course.
We walked up the stairs into the hotel and through reception to the dining room. I was surprised to find it extremely cold. The cloud was still bad so there wasn’t much sun, although the views were fantastic when the cloud broke a little. We sat down, after a while Stephen went and found a menu. The prices were high but not terrible. The service, however, was. Nobody paid us any attention and we hadn’t been acknowledged at all since arriving. Deciding that it was too cold to stay, and refusing to pay the 10% service charge for such terrible service we continued on our way to find tea somewhere friendly.
Fortunately Khumjung village was very nearby and it was an easy walk down into the village. We soon found a friendly, warm teahouse to serve us lemon tea and French toast. Stephen is exhausted and struggling with some bug but seemed to perk up after warm food.
Continuing along our walk we saw the Hilary School and the longest Mani walls in Khumbu.
The next village was Khunde. This is famous for its hospital, Hillary view point and monastery. We walked past these but didn’t go up to the viewpoint as the cloud had once again descended by the time we arrived.
From here we headed back to Namche via Jaro and Zarok villages (which didn’t have anywhere appealing and open for lunch). Once back in Namche we decided we fancied chips and a burger or sandwich for lunch. The ‘steak and burger house’ kindly obliged us with a rather delicious cheese burger.
By this time the cloud had come in really thickly and it was feeling very cold.
We went back to our teahouse to change before being greedy and heading back into the centre for afternoon tea. There are loads of bakeries here and we picked the Sherpa Brasserie as it is lovely and warm inside, the cakes looked good and the chairs comfy.
Stephen went for the Baileys chocolate cake and I had an apple & banana crumble and hot chocolate. There were amazing. After the trek the prices don’t seem so bad either!
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