Today we were up for our normal time as it was
going to be a long day today walking as we were headin for MUSHI on the other
side of LUKLA. Most people with common
sense would stay at PHAKDING (where we stayed on our way up from LUKLA) but no
not us ‘the Browns’ we were going to motor straight on through.
We left NAMCHE just about 0800 hours and started
going down hill, which was good and bad as it played havoc with my knees with
the amount of rocks that you had to climb over to get down. On our way down from NAMCHE we got to our
first major hanging bridge and on the other side you could see a man with a
bloody long hammer smacking away at some rocks
Kaji had informed us that they were building a
second bridge for the trekkers and the one that we were currently using was
going to be for the SHOPKAs and YAKs carrying the loads. Whilst we were there one of the monks
appeared at the same site and we think he may have been there to bless the
bridge making but we’re not entirely sure
On our way towards PHAKDING where we were going to
stop for lunch (at the same place we stayed overnight at on our way up) we got
caught up with a mule train waiting to cross the bridge that we had just come
over but we couldn’t get past until they had started on their way.
Mule Train
waiting to cross a bridge
We eventually got to PHAKDING just after 1300 hours
(a proper lunch time) and by this time I really wished we were stopping there
for the night, but no we still had a good few hours trekking to do to get to
MUSHI.
We set off again just around 1400 hours but before
we still had at least an our to go to get to LUKLA (by this time it was 1545
hours) we had to ask Kaji to book us into a lodge in LUKLA as we had decided
that we would not be able to make it to his home before nightfall as by this
time both my knees had swollen and my hips were playing up to compensate how I
was walking (Charlie was in the same condition with his hips too, must be that
we are getting old). Kaji (bless his
heart) understood and got us booked into PARARDISE Lodge and we finally arrived
about 1730 hours, the whole day we had been literally on our feet walking
nearly 9½ hours which was even longer than the day we climbed KALAPHATAR and
back to LOBOCHE. I was well and truly
ready for some tea and then my bed.
I am grateful to Kaji as he is an understanding
person and we said for him to go home and we shall see him on Sunday prior to
flying back to KATHMANDU as all we were going to do tomorrow (knees permitting)
was have a slow wonder around LUKLA (which incidentally isn’t big) and chill
out.
So today was our final trekking day and boy I am
glad of it.
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