Now it is important that you understand that a rest day, whilst on a damn long walk, is not like a Sunday sprawled on the couch, with a bag of chippies, a beer, and Netflix.
First thing to do is hike about 350 metres up a hill at absolute snails pace, one slow step after the other. This is necessary to assist with acclimatization. We need to have been higher during than we are to sleep at night.
This arduous walk was well worth it for the views of the mountains and the valley below. We stopped at a stupor, which is built to honor the dead and for a break at a wee tea house. We didn’t buy anything as we had bottles of electrolyte solution that we had to drink. We need to have a litre of that a day and another 3 litres of fluid. Obviously, I did need to use his toilet.
The hard walk was well worth it as at the top was a one woman monastery. We were shown around her home, which was built in a cave on a steep cliff. Then we were invited in for a ceremony and received a blessing to give us luck going over the pass. A necklace was put around our neck, and then she asked for 100 rupee donation. So another scramble through the money bag in the dark. I hope her blessing works.
She is 75 year old female monk, and we were told that she was completely snowed in for 21 days straight last winter. But it wasn’t so bad this year as she had a solar powered battery and a light bulb. Tough lady.
After that wee jaunt we have jobs to do. Clothes are washed.
- The first cycle is stomping on them on the floor while having a just-warm shower
- The second cycle is a rinse in the bucket that provides clean water to wash your bum with.
- Then wring out as much water as you can by hand
- Find a line in the sun with a breeze and hang up with the 5 pegs I have brought from home. Sometimes lucky enough to supplement with pegs provided.
Other jobs include tipping everything out of my pack to find the one item I have lost. Kay and I both seem to lose something that we have put in a safe place on a regular basis.
Updating our social media, attending to feet, reading and chatting with other trekkers, and shopping takes up time, too. We bought chocolate, sweets and biscuits for the Pass day as we will be about 10 hours before a tea house.
A large family group was staying here. One was a Nepalese man who lived in the next village until he was 9 years old. He then moved to Switzerland. He had brought back about 12 members of his family to see his birth place. Having arrived by Jeep, they were celebrating with bottles of the local whiskey. They were a fun lot.
