Tengboche to Dingboche

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The room we were staying in opened up into the dining room so it’s unsurprising that we were woken up rather early by staff and other trekkers getting up. The hard beds and pillow that felt like it was made from wood probably didn’t help either. The room was so tiny the beds touched the wall on 3 sides which meant Stephen and I had to sleep apart for the first time since we’ve been traveling. It was a little weird. Fortunately being next to the restaurant also meant that the room was relatively warm so getting up wasn’t too painful.

The walk started with an easy descent into Deboche. After just 15mins or so there were around 3 groups of lodges so we needn’t have worried about not being able to find somewhere to stay had Tengboche been full. It’s only disadvantage is the views aren’t as good being lower down in the valley.

From here it was a fair distance to Pengboche which we walked up into. There were a number of tea houses and we managed to pick up some veg samosas and a huge apple danish for reasonable prices for later on in the day.
By the time we walked up to the next village it was lemon tea time and we were pleased to discover it was just 65 rupees. We ate our samosas outside, in the sun, with views back down the valley.

It was a steep ascent out the back of the village and being over 4000m it was hard work. After a while of relative flat we descended to cross the river. From here we climbed up. Initially it was hard work being steep but then flattened out and we ended up descending into Dingboche around midday.

This spread out village is a collection of teahouses, shops and small farms. After trying a few lodges we found one which seemed comfortable and a similar price to most of the others. The room prices are once again fixed at 500 for the whole village so it’s just the food prices that vary. Although they’re all pretty high.

After changing we ate some lunch and then went for a wonder around the village. We followed the path out the back toward Chukkung - after the last lodge there are just small farms. Walking to the last house of the village we meandered towards the river and sat on a rock having a cuddle, watching the mountains in front of us. It was lovely and quiet.

We returned to the lodge for hot choc (disappointingly made with water) and our apple danish. I’m now trying to stay awake until bedtime!

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