Solu Khombu Trek - Day 3

Seth woke up feeling completely better.  It was a quick recovery and he's back to his own self.  Good! Disaster averted!

We woke up bright and early, once again, to find spectacular views of the snowy peaks of Caryolung, Khatang, Numbur.  It proved for breathtaking views while walking up the hill to the Selo Monastery.  The Selo Monastery was very busy during our visit.  Apparently they are expecting a visitor within the next month who is a high lama from India and they wanted to make the monastery look beautiful for him.  They were repainting frescoes, remodeling guest housing, and refinishing wood, which was everywhere.  We got the chance to speak with the head lama of the monastery Tulku Pema Tarchen.  And then, one of his monks took us around for a tour.  This monastery focuses on teaching rather than practicing, so there are many children there.  It was nice to see their classrooms and their library.

After lunch we trekked for about two and a half hours to Thuptenchholing Monastery, which is home to 600 Buddhist nuns.  We were invited into the head nun's office for tea, and ended up being served two bowls of noodle soup.  You don't really have a choice in the matter.  There was a father and son there, also, and the father was trying to refuse more tea at one point, but gave in.  When the son was approached he grabbed his cup and told her no politely, but he still ended up having more tea.  That was pretty funny.

We spend a little time in the hospital where we were able to see a bit of Tibetan herbal medicine.  There was an entire wall filled with pictures of plants that are medicinal.  That was really neat.

Solu Khombu Trek - Day 2

We woke up bright and early with tea in our tent.  It was a cold night, but putting Nalgene bottles filled with hot water at the foot of our sleeping bags helped loads.  Our trek today was about two and a half hours, once again, and it was not too bad.  Well, it was not too bad for us.  I don't know how these porters do it.  They are carrying a ton of weight and they carry it all by using a strap that rests on their heads.  Totally different from anything I have ever tried.  But, I guess we've seen that many other cultures carry loads on their heads.  This looks very difficult though and potentially quite painful.  Seth brought up a good point, that  perhaps this is why there are many older people hunched over.  Not sure.

Junbesi is a picturesque village in the valley of some beautiful mountains covered in large pine trees.  A river runs through the center of the valley and is the lifeline for the village.  They actually have a really interesting solution to drainage.  They dig ditches and lay flat rocks to cover the ditches, leaving enough space between the rocks to allow the water to drain.  We visited Junbesi Monastary.  Though it was empty, it was nice to poke around.  The monastery was painted in bright colors and had beautiful murals on the walls.  The art form here is so different from anything we've seen so far.  It's refreshing.

We, then, went to visit the Hillary Secondary School.  Sir Edmund HIllary, the first to summit Mount Everest, is the namesake of this school.  Whether he made a donation or not is something I don't know.  It was nice to watch the children play.  And it's absolutely adorable when you say namaste and place your hands together in front of your chest, because most of the time they will return your greeting.  So cute.  We spent a while watching them play.  Seth eventually turned into the main attraction.  He took a picture of a little boy that no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get him to smile.  He just looked at me like I was a giant ugly bug.  Then I saw him look at Seth and smile largely.  It turned out that he liked to have his picture taken.  Seth was soon mobbed by children who wanted to get their picture taken and then look at them on the viewfinder.  They soon figured out that you could swipe the screen and scroll through the photos.  But once two fingers touched the screen the camera didn't know what to do and just didn't do anything.  It was fun to watch as Seth was encircled by the small children.

That evening, Seth wasn't feeling so well.  He probably was running a fever, either way he was feeling pretty crappy.  Hope that remedies itself quickly, because I'd hate for it to mess up Seth's trip.

Solu Khombu Trek - Day 6 (Berkley)

I felt unwell all night.  I ended up waking up at midnight and was not able to fall back to sleep.  In the morning I felt horrible.  I was weak, my body was shaky and sensitive, and my stomach was feeling all kinda of nauseated.  Though I tried to continue, it was decided that it was a better, safer, choice for me to head back.  Whether I was feeling that way because I was sick or because of elevation didn't matter, I couldn't go on.  But, not before I got to see some yaks!  Though the people there would probably say I wasn't excited to see yaks, I totally was.  It was on my list of Nepal things to see.  And since I won't be seeing Everest anymore, at least I got to see some yaks. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="450"] Peanut butter, honey, and raw garlic. Poor choice...[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] Yakety yak, don't talk back.[/caption]

Through a little convincing Seth went on without me.  I took our Cook down to lower elevation.  Purba, our sherpa guide, was pretty convinced that what I was feeling was altitude sickness, but I was not completely convinced.  As we quickly descended in altitude not much changed.  It became a little easier to walk, but just a little.  Otherwise I still felt pretty crappy.  I was still weak, shaky and nauseated (especially since Purba told me to eat a giant clove of raw garlic for breakfast to combat the altitude sickness.  I accompanied it wit a spoonful of peanut butter, and I was burping up that combination all day.)  It took about four hours to reach our destination of Junbesi, and I felt like crap every grueling step of the way.  I was so careful not to trip and fall, or slip off the mountain in my weakness and sheer exhaustion.  At this point I'm back at the Apple Valley Lodge where I am resting, but still feeling horrible.  I meet with Seth in a few days back in Phaplu.  He's going to be completing the trip at a more accelerated pace.  HIs job is to take tons of photos and to remember everything, so he can tell me all about it.  I'm glad one of us gets to complete the trek.