Namche Walking Past the door

Arrived in Namche this afternoon. In the last 28 years since I was last in Nepal I have harboured a feeling that Nepal is the finest country I have ever been in. Having come back I have confirmed that for me. This country has a very special quality. It has amazing, jaw dropping scenery, and remarkable people.

As I walked around the corner this afternoon it was at the end of a really thrilling walk up the Dudh Kosi gorge through emmaculate pine forests and flowers and glimpses up to towering snow clad peaks - Kusum Kanguru. On the way we bumped into Ang Phurba Sherpa. DB made the introductions. At 62 when he walked around the corner with a stride and perfect physique I felt this is someone of bearing. And with it perfect English and immaculate manners. I took his portrait.

And as we meandered up among the trekkers and mingled with the porters the contrast could not be more startling between the boy carrying the door or indeed the boy carrying the new telephone antenae for Tangboche which kept on getting stuck in the trees and he had to do delicate reverses.

Last night we stayed in Phakding at the Namaste Lodge. I enjoyed this immensley. The owners wife was highly "motivated" and ran in and out of the kitchen in a whirlwind and shouted and generally cooked and dispensed chang. While her husband Nima Dorjee Sherpa sat impassively in the restaurant. It transpired that we were both born in 1957. There followed a day long intermittant review of our lives and philosophy. late in the night as Tshiri Nima topped up the chang Nima Dorjee told me that he had been with Bonnington on the 1975 Sw face expedition. He left the trekking business and worked in the US to make the money to start his hotel. A common theme.

Will post some images tomorrow after download.

Off to load the film and get the "big" LF camera fired up at 6am tomorrow as the sun rises over Everest.