Himalayan Travelogue Part 13 – Up to Mong La, down to French Fries and Fried Eggs

Cold morning in Dhole and no fire in the common room so we ate as fast as possible and made for Phortse Tenga at a pretty fast clip.  Then we made what was an hour and fourteen minute climb up to Mong La, with the extra weight in the packs it was a challenging climb.  However, back at lower elevation and over two weeks in the Himalayas it wasn’t so bad.  We stopped at Mong La for a quick cup of tea, a short rest and to take in the view which from there is truly spectacular.

Nives in Mong La

The picture is of my friend Nives at Mong La the first time we came through.  Mong La improbably sits on the top of a peak like a Himalayan rest area.  Reaching the top there are several little lodges and our two stops there were magical.

Our tea stop was brief and we were on the march again, our goal was back to the Moonlight Lodge in Namche and back to internet connections, hot showers, sit on toilets and great apple pie in the bakeries.  However my back was starting to bothering with the extra weight, we came down off of the hill from Mong La and stopped at a lodge and our guide Lhakpa really wanted to move on through and get to Namche but Philippe and I were tired and as tempting as Namche and all it held was, a grumbling stomach won out.  So we stopped to sit in the sun and have a snack and it is time to truly introduce you to my friend Phillipe, or as he became to known as, Tatanka.  Philippe is from France and speaks excellent English although he doesn’t believe that so much, he’s a big and powerful man and happened to have a Tatonka bag.  I don’t know what that means in German but it quickly got co-opted to the Lakota Sioux word for Bison.  The following two pictures show exactly how well my friend took to his new name:

Tathanka Horns

Tathanka Tail

Philippe Is a very social man who speaks several languages, when we sat down another Frenchman joined us at the table and the French began to fly.  Then several Germans sat at the next table and the German began to fly.  It was fabulous sitting there in the middle of several conversations going on at once in English, French and German staring out across the Khumbu Valley with the high peaks in the distance.  It was one of few truly cosmopolitan and amazing moments of my life, and then the Frenchman’s meal came, fried eggs on top of French Fries.  At that moment it seemed to be the greatest culinary invention in the history of mankind and we order it immediately, much to the dismay of Lhakpa who now realized he’d lost the battle to keep us moving.  Fried eggs, French Fries and a coke, it was delicious and different and in that moment has to have been one of the best meals I’d ever eaten.  One of those meals that eaten anywhere else, at any other time, would barely be palatable was  a veritable feast in the Himalayas.

Eventually Lhakpa did get us moving and when he finally did he demonstrated his desire to get us quickly Namche with a blistering pace.  It was a downhill run but my back began to hurt again, but it was time to tough it out, I did and the payoff was spotting two blood pheasants on the way into Namche, awesome.  Finally we were back at what seemed like home, Namche, The Moonlight Lodge and a reunion with our friend Tom who had gone down early because he was ill and the cold beer that the reunion promised.

The Moonlight Lodge

Himalayan Travelogue Part 12 – Renjo La Pass and Machermo

 On this day the group will be leaving to go over the Renjo La Pass (17,800) feet and down into the Thame valley.  I had been thinking a lot about the pass, I’m not a good descender and there was a possibility that the descent would be icy and I just wasn’t feeling confident about it.  The last thing I wanted to do was talk myself into a fall so I made the decision to go back down the Gokyo Valley and to Namche with a plan to meet the group in three days in Mende.  My friend Phillipe had not been feeling well and he decided to make the trip down with me and one of the guides, Lhakpa.  Breaking from the group meant no Yak support and so instead of light day packs we were carrying full packs, still not a ton of weight but definitely more than we had been carrying up to this point.

It was a sad morning saying goodbye to the group and we watched them as long as we could as they slid up the side of Gokyo Ri, heading for what looked like an impossible path to reach a notch in the mountains. 

Looking across the third lake to the Gokyo Ri trail

Finally it was time for us to go and we retreated down the Gokyo Valley, this time staying on the opposite side of the river which gave us new villages and vistas.  We were heading for Dhole but our first stop was at Machermo a place I was very excited to be getting to.  Why you ask?  Well on the maps of the Khumbu Valley there is a notation at Machermo, “site of Yet attack in 1974, 3 yaks killed and woman thrown in stream.”  Being as interested as I am in the Yeti, Machermo was certainly a high point on the trip for me, unfortunately I’m unable to locate my Machermo photos at this time, but they weren’t that exciting, just me by the village sign.  The other thing both related to the Yeti and very interesting was the area just outside of Machermo, for the first time on the trek we found ourselves walking through actual forest including something that looked a lot like Spanish Moss on the trees.  This really seemed like the first habitat we encountered that could actually support a large creature like the Yeti.  For more on the Yeti check out the link below:

http://www.dystopiantimes.com/content/tom-slick-expedition

We made Dhole (13,254) in the afternoon, it’s a sleepy little village and we had a great afternoon sitting in the sun, having a beer and watching crows stealing food off of the packs on the backs of the yaks coming through the village.  The lodge at Dhole had very little heat in the common room and none in the sleeping area and it may have been the coldest night of the trek.  Getting up at 3AM to urinate and the water in the squat toilet was actually frozen, I was very thankful for my mummy bag that night it was going to be a cold morning.