Pictures from this part of the trip can be found in the gallery.
Today was the beginning of some relatively easy days on the trek. We had plenty of time, so there was no need to rush on the way back down. We had an extra day in our schedule because of skipping the acclimatization day at Tengboche, so we decided to use that to make our trek back to Lukla easier than it otherwise would have been.
We were happy that the descent to Dughla was much less crowded than on the way up. We heard this was because a lot of flights into Lukla had been cancelled days ago, so there were fewer people on the trek. Also, we were descending early enough that the ascending people hadn't yet made that point. We took the trail to Pheriche south of Dughla, so we didn't have to cross the scary bridge or see the dead yak (which ok with us). It was a long traverse across the valley to Pheriche. We saw some free range yaks grazing in the valley (they blended in well at a distance), and Julie saw a baby yak with its mother.
Originally, we weren't sure whether we were going to stop in Pheriche or push on. Mark's stomach was still bothering him, and he wanted to make sure we had access to a western toilet, so we asked to look at the rooms and bathrooms in Pheriche before making a decision. The rooms looked great and there were actual flush toilets and a sink (wow!), so we decided to stay there. This turned out to be a good decision, because Ken's stomach was suddenly very upset, and he spent the rest of the day visiting the bathroom and popping Pepto pills.
After getting settled into our rooms, we had a late lunch. The lodge in Pheriche felt the most "hotel-ish" of any place that we had stayed in quite a while, which was a nice change. After lunch, we wandered around town a bit and saw the local hospital and the memorial to fallen Everest climbers. There were a lot of helicopters going to and from the hospital.
Since we had time and there was space for us, we changed into our "inside" clothes and spent the afternoon playing canasta in the dining area. It was really nice to have someplace warm to spend the afternoon -- virtually the only time on the entire trip where we got that opportunity. We ate dinner at the same table, played a few more card games after dinner with Mahesh, and turned in early like usual.
This was another relatively easy day. Julie and Mark enjoyed Sherpa Bread with an omelette for breakfast, which was a puffed bread / pastry that tasted a little like a savory funnel cake.
As we were leaving town, we were impressed by the line of yaks that were walking up the street (with their shepherd behind) automatically turned into their home place. On the way, we took a detour to see the Pangboche Monastery, in the hills far above the trail we had originally taken out of Tengboche. It was well worth it, with good views of the valley and also got to see the monastery itself. It was the original monastery in this area, and it felt "lived in" unlike the Tengboche monastery. On the way out of town, we ran across some local kids, who were excited to see us. The little girls each gave us a shy "Namaste" and bowed to us, and the older boy gave us all a high-five. He really put his back into it!
After leaving Pangboche, we walked a few more hours to Deboche, where we had lunch in nice sunny weather. Ken was the first to use the toilet, and got pointed toward the "local" latrine. It was, er, very full. Overflowing, actually. Mahesh found Julie a better toilet when she had to go.
After lunch, we ascended another 45 minutes or so into Tengboche. We had forgotten how hard the last section would be! We arrived in Tengboche in time for the afternoon monk ceremony at the monastery, but this one was cancelled too. While waiting, we watched a fat horse try to beg treats from some hikers. We nicknamed him the "panhandling horse" and watched him make a pain of himself for much of the afternoon out our windows.
Unfortunately, Tengboche was infested with another large and obnoxious Chinese group of nearly 40 people -- a group of climbers and their family and friends that were trekking up to see them off. They took over nearly the entire lodge, and seemed to think that they were the only ones there. There were also some other oddities with this group. For instance, several of them had brought along violins, apparently to keep up with their practice. (They were not good enough to warrant this.)
Another side effect of the large group was that dinner was awkward. We got seated at the right time, but the only place to sit was at the table with the guides. Mahesh said that it was ok for us to hang out in the warmth, but we felt bad about taking space from the guides, so we went up early and played cards in the room while snuggled in our blankets.
After getting up too early due to noise from the big Chinese group in the room next door (Ken banged on the wall to no effect), we took our time getting ready and had a leisurely breakfast in the blissfully empty and quiet dining area. (Everyone had left by the time we got down for breakfast.)
Our hike for the day started with another descent to the river. We had tea in Phunki Tenga, then ascended to Namche Bazar. It wouldn't be a downhill day without some uphill sections, right? At least it was easier going this time around, because we were adjusted to the altitude. So Julie was slow instead of painfully slow. Julie and Ken had a close encounter with a porter as we approached Namche on one of the "Nepali flat" sections. Julie was spending more time looking at her feet when she looked up and saw a large load of construction materials about 2 feet from her head. She jumped aside and missed getting hit, but not by much. Fortunately, Ken (right behind her) noticed her jump aside and also managed to avoid it.
We were happy to be back in Namche where we could take a hot shower again. (It had been too cold to take a shower any time since our previous one in Dingboche.) The shower was in the basement, so it was relatively warm, and we were really happy to have the chance to be clean.
After showering, we sat down in the moderately warm dining area and played cards for the rest of the afternoon, like in Pheriche. For a while, we had to endure a really loud conversation between 3 clueless millennials, one from the U.S., one from the Netherlands, and one from Russia. It was nice when they finally wandered off and we didn't have to listen to a lot of ignorant rambling any more.
For dinner, we each had a sizzler. When it arrived, half the people in the dining room rushed over to find out what we had ordered. (Sizzlers are served on a cast-iron skillet and sizzle, much like a plate of fajitas back home.) Julie and Mark had a chicken sizzler (their first meat in a week) and Ken had a vegetarian version. Unfortunately, around dinner time, Ken started to realize that he was getting a cold.
Today's big challenge was the descent from Namche Bazar, which kicked Julie's butt on the way up. Because it was a relatively short day, we had breakfast at 8am and left after that. It was a long couple hours but much easier than the ascent. The main challenge was avoiding porters with extremely large loads (Mahesh said they could be carrying 100kg or more). In comparison, our porters had very little to carry.
We had lunch in Monjo, just outside the national park. The weather was quite pleasant, and we sat outside in short sleeves. While we were eating, we saw an older (mid-50s) woman struggle in. The rest of her group arrived before we did, and she was quite a bit later. She looked winded, and we hoped that she wasn't trying to reach Namche Bazar that afternoon. If she was, it was going to be a LONG afternoon, since the trail after Monjo is much harder than the trail up to Monjo.
After lunch, we continued to Phakding, about half the time in the rain. We were glad that we didn't have to descend in the rain all the way to Lukla (the original plan), because we were pretty tired. We could have made it to Lukla if we had to, but we were glad that we had used our spare acclimatization day to make this a short day.
In Phakding, we stayed at the small Kalapathar Lodge. The beer lodge we had stayed at on the way up was "full" because they had taken a reservation for a big group going up, although that group didn't make it into Lukla due to weather. We were the only people at our lodge, except for another American woman who was also on the way down. She had traveled to Nepal 30 years ago, and this time around she had been trekking with her 24-year old daughter who had been doing a study abroad semester in Asia. They had been doing the Gokyo trek, and the woman was suffering from bronchitis, so she decided to come down on her own.
One last day of trekking! We left relatively late again, since we only had a few hours to Lukla. We ran into a number of animal trains. Mahesh was braver than most of the guides and led us alongside the mule trains while they were walking, when the other guides with larger groups had their people wait. Our philosophy: stick to Mahesh like glue and we probably won't be trampled. The final section into Lukla was more uphill and much harder than we remembered, but we were still feeling pretty good by the time we arrived.
Our lodge in Lukla was right next to the airport / helipad, and Ken enjoyed watching all the helicopters come in. They landed quite close to our hotel and to each other.
After getting settled in, we went for a walk around the airport and then around the entire town. Toward the end of our walk, Mark suggested that we stop into an Irish pub to get a beer and just sit somewhere warm for a while. It turned out to be a pleasant way to spend an hour. Mark tried a Nepali microbrew, Julie had fruit juice, and Ken had a Coke.
After returning to the hotel, we had a good dinner. When we talked with Mahesh, we learned that we needed to leave at 6am the next morning for our flight to Kathmandu, so we went to bed early.
It turned out to be a very strange night for Ken. He initially used the bed (not the sleeping bag) but had a huge allergic reaction to something in the pillow, sheets, or blanket. So, 45 minutes after going to sleep, he had to get up and drag out the sleeping bag. After that, didn't really get warm (or fall asleep) until after 2:30am. After a bathroom break, he finally got warm, then really hot, then finally fell asleep for an hour or two before waking up on his own before the 4:30am alarm.