Everest Trek Day 5: Tengboche to Dingboche

  Dingboche, Nepal
Sunday, December 2, 2007

Tengboche (3860m) -> Dingboche (4410m)

Wow. I haven't shaved or showered in 5 days now. And I think this is really wearing on me. This lodge did indicate that they had hot showers available but the "hot" means that you get a hot bucket of water for the right price. Moreover, it's definitely getting close to freezing or worse and the shower stall is located outside. So needless to say I'm not "showering" tonight either.

The room that we stayed at last night (in Tengboche) was the smallest we've stayed at during our trek so far (6' x 6'). Even my cubicle at work is bigger.

Our Room in Tengboche

And facilities are at their most basic. A toilet would have been a nice bonus but I suppose the hole in the floor will have to do.

And all this for the highest price we've paid for a room thus far. All indications show that the price for the room versus the facilities we get can be characterized as an inversely proportional relationship. So the more remote we get, the more we pay and the less we get. Ah well, it could be worse. We could be in a tent.

One interesting item we ordered from the menu last night was Mars momos. Now we've tried a variety of things during a trek usually involving noodles or rice with soup with some random vegetables thrown in if we're lucky but one of the area delicacies that we seem to order often are momos.

Momos I think would remind people of perogies more than any other food I can think of. So there is a dough like exterior and inside there can be one of many things stuffed in such as chicken, potato, cheese, or buffalo (since they don't eat cow). We have usually also seem them come either steamed, fried or a preparation where one side is steamed and the other is fried. But this was the first time we came across something named Mars momos so obviously we had to ask what that was about.

So what they do to prepare Mars momos is they take a Mars bar, chop it up into about 6 pieces, and then cover each piece in the dough, and then they steam or fry them up as the client wishes! When asked whether this was really any good one of the kitchen staff replied saying that he wouldn't recommend it. Yeah, like that was going to stop us from ordering it. So we ordered them fried just to maximize the unhealthiness of our choice.

You know, they were damn good! I think it served as a fantastic dessert item for us. Sadly, this would be the first and last time we would see them on the menu.

Anyways, back to trekking.

So it was really cold in our small room this morning. I am positive that there isn't an ounce of insulation in the walls. I believe this was the first time that I had put all my thermals and even my fleece hat on during the night for sleeping. Actually the down sleeping bag that I rented is quite good. But being this cold in the morning in our room certainly doesn't encourage us to get up and start our day. But we manage.

Monestary gates

In fact, once we get up a out we did another quick tour of the monastery, take some pictures of the spectacular mountain scenary around us, and then only starting heading towards our day's destination.

Today would be another day with a serious climb in altitude. About 550m up in total. We could have opted to make the small town of Periche our destination today instead, as it lies 100m lower in altitude, but we felt it would be better to see how our bodies handle the higher altitude of 4410m in Dingboche.

It was quite different starting out this morning as the ground was all frosted over and what water we saw was iced over. But as we progressed the sun climbed higher and bathed the valley in warmth which melted some of the ice.

The trail was a well-defined rock path for much of the morning and there were plants and many trees surrounding us and covering us.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

This would change starkly as the afternoon came about as at the end of the day there wasn't much besides shrubs and truly barren landscape.

Other then watching as the landscape turned from tree-filled to barren, we keenly observed Ama Dablam as it was in view for us for much of the day. Moreover, our view perspective of it changed as we trekked onwards making it even more interesting to observe.

Ama Dablam

Although most, if not all, of the bridges that we have crossed have been solidly constructed we did have to cross one today that was literally just a couple of boards. Fortunately it was not too high up to cause too much of a scare but I wonder how it would be during the rainy season.

Mazen crossing the bridge

When we reached our day's destination (Dingboche) we were both quite thankful as I was starting to get an altitude related headache once again and Mazen was really running low on energy. I actually still did a very short hike upwards partly to hopefully acclimitize better and partly to just take some photos of a couple of stupas that were present on the neighbouring hills.

Stupa

Our guesthouse was better than the one we stayed at the previous night but of course it was basic as per usual. When we arrived all we could think about was warming up to the stove. So they filled the stove with dung some time after we arrived. It's odd but even though they seem to stuff the stove with dung it seems to burn off really quickly. I think they got to start feeding the yaks something else, heck maybe even feed them chunks of wood instead of their usual diet of grass.

One special treat was that the owner's son (Ang Namgel Sherpa) actually summited Everest 3 times (always as a helper to British teams). So once each year starting in 2005. It was interesting talking with him about his experiences although when asked how long it takes for him to go up Everest he said about 5 days. Well, maybe it helps that he lives at a higher altitude because I believe it usually takes climbers 2 months to summit Everest with proper acclimitization. We also asked if he ever feels the effects of altitude when summiting and he simply said "no". Ok, maybe he wasn't the most talkative guy. In any case, his father (who was quite a conversationalist and his English was quite good) is not really happy with his son climbing Everest because of the danger associated with that sort of endeavour. But I'm sure it's good money for the son.

Fill the stove with Dung!

Anyways, another beautiful day to trek. We once again had fantastic views and spectacular weather. On top of that we actually met some one who had summited Everest multiple times. That in itself perhaps even topped the Mars momos that we had the night before. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.