This has taken a couple of days to complete – distractions of the return trip to Kathmandu, shopping and a bit of sightseeing. Apologies for that but here is the final day…
After the events of the previous evening – some of which I was not aware at the time – it was interesting at breakfast to observe the behaviour of various members of the rowdy “commonwealth” group as we had decided to refer to them. Disputes over bar bills in a couple of cases, silent, hungover looks from others. I decided to have a chat with their guide to inquire about what powers he had to take action in cases of out of control client behaviour. The answer was basically none – it later transpired he thought I was blaming him!!
So the commonwealth group left – one or two made sure they had stocked up on more beer for the day’s hike.
We had a civilised breakfast and left at leisure knowing we had no more than about 5 hours walking time today so could relax and really enjoy the achievement. We didn’t really see much of Santosh, a very well known personality on the trek route, also still suffering badly with toothache, as he stopped quite often to talk to people he knew – this is his last guided trek until the autumn season starts in September after the monsoons.
The path was gradually downwards at first – with plenty of activity along the way, longer and longer mule trains to dodge and people out farming, building, going to school and busying themselves in the small settlements we passed through before arriving in Phakding where we had spent our first night. A brief stop to shed a layer of clothing before crossing the river once again on the now familiar style of swaying bridge.
The path started to rise again and we had a stop scheduled in Ghat. Our decision to carry on walking was to a larger extent influenced as we approached. From probably 200m away we could hear, and then see, the aforementioned commonwealth group, sat outside the tea house, making a lot of noise and continuing their crusade to support the local economy by severely depleting its imported beer stock. Once again, I want to stress that I have no issue with people enjoying themselves and maybe I am getting too old and wise, however, I believe that the overwhelming majority of locals, trekkers, mountaineers on their way to climb, and others would all expect and prefer a more cultural experience than what you could get sat outside a pub on a Sunday afternoon. I’ll leave it at that – there were words exchanged as we passed but nothing of any consequence and not initiated by our group.
So we kept walking to the next main village of Cheplung and stopped at a place which had artisan bread tools and yak cheese. It was superb – just a glass of red wine missing.
We saw the commonwealth group go past outside on their noisy way and after a short while resumed our own journey. Next stop was a small cafe we had stopped at on our way up. They roast and grind their own coffee, which was cause for some interesting discussion and a sample purchase.
A short while later we left on the last hour or so up to Lukla. I really didn’t remember the path and at one point actually thought we may have taken a wrong turn as we had left Santosh behind at the cafe. Jacek was more confident of the route than me and sure enough all of a sudden we went up a stepped path, around a corner and we were suddenly in Lukla at the tourist checkpoint – Tomek already waiting having left the cafe ahead of us. We celebrated briefly and strolled the last few yards through the town to our lodge for the night. The commonwealth group were not around, they made it shortly after us. There were one or two words spoken, I will not trouble you with any more details.
We cleaned up, ordered dinner and had a meal with our porters. A slight mix up over the tip calculation was resolved later to everyone’s satisfaction.
As we were tired and reminded we had another early start next day for the flight back down to Manthali, the celebration was a little subdued. I think my own personal Everest had happened at Cho La pass, so no real overwhelming emotion, just a massive sense of achievement and pride and I suppose relief that I got through it all in one piece.
So all done – just over 150km trekked in 16 days according to my GPS tracks – minimum altitude 2500m and max altitude 5640m. I will put together a summary of the highs and lows to post separately and hopefully clarify some reasons why, at least to some observers comments (good humoured or otherwise), this has looked like “a walk in the park”, which could not be further from the truth.
