Everest Trek - Day 27 Namche Bazaar to Phakding

I took a leisurely stroll down Namche hill, cursing the yak trains under my breath. Then had lunch in Jorsale before walking down to Phakding. Not exactly a strenuous day.

A glimpse of Mount Everest from halfway up Namche hill.

Everest Trek - Day 26 Rest day in Namche Bazaar

As the title says a rest day and I did sweet nothing all day long.

Everest Trek - Day 25 Phortse Thenga to Namche Bazaar

I thought that I had gained a bit of fitness but the climb from Phortse Thenga up to Mong still takes a fair bit of effort. Never mind I get there and the walk back down goes quickly enough. Again there are a large number of trekking groups to contend with. In Namche I check back into the Khumbu lodge and arrange a ticket from Lukla to Kathmandu for 4 days from now.

Everest Trek - Day 15 Namche Bazaar to Phortse Thenga

I had only just gone to my room last night and was looking at some photos when everything started to shake. I've been in a few earthquakes before and this was obviously a big one so I jumped out of bed and braced myself under the doorway to the bathroom, The shaking seemed to go on for a long time but it was probably no more then a minute. In the aftermath everybody streamed outside not really a safe place either as all the buildings in Namche are two or three stories high, really close together, and made out of locally mined slate. We milled around a bit and even the elderly owner of the lodge said she had never experienced something like this before. The building was Ok although the kitchen and dining area were a mess and some of the water pipes had come apart. The only casualty of the quake that I could locate was an Englishman who had twisted his knee when he tried to run down the stairs. I gave him some of my Nurofen tablets which I carry around in bulk to treat my own knee problems. As there were no aftershocks we all went back inside after an hour or so but I did sleep fully clothed in case another tremor would hit.
In the morning after a not so good night's sleep I set out for Phortse Thenga and as everywhere in Nepal you start with climbing up. First to the top of Namche then to a small pass at Monjo just under 4000 meters in altitude. It was midday when I finally got there and had my usual lunch of vegetable noodle soup and a pot of tea. While I was having lunch the Danes came by, turned out they were suffering from knee problems as well and had decided to turn around from Dole and go back down probably all the way back to Kathmandu. They also wanted to get back to Namche to ring home and let their family know they were OK.
I dropped down the pass after lunch and an hour later was at my destination. Walking days are getting shorter now because of the altitude and tomorrow I expect to walk no more then three hours.