Kenja to Goyem 2

I couldn't resist taking too many photos of the rhody forest.

There were some beautiful white orchids on some of the rhody trees.

We finally made it to our teahouse at 1630 topping out at a little over ten thousand feet having climbed almost exactly 5000 feet today.

Many of the buildings are built with dry laid stones without mortar.

The wife used this stove to heat water for tea when we arrived and cooked dinners to order for six trekkers plus two guides and three porters.

This is her china cabinet. Meals were served on everyday dishes of stainless steel and plastic.

This building collapsed during the earthquake and has been rebuilt.

The 2015 earthquake knocked down another teahouse next door. Now the fog.  Temp was 54 degrees F when we arrived.  I'll be sleeping in by feather bag tonight.

Kenja to Goyem

Saturday, May 12th 5,230 feet 0715

During our walk yesterday,  we saw what looked like our nettles.  Ramesh said that, indeed they were nettles and, like us, they eat them or use in infusions. He mentioned it to our host and they picked nettles and made me a nettle garlic soup for dinner. It was thick with nettles and corn flour.

Chopped nettles and garlic on the left are for my special soup. In addition to the soup I had vegetable fried rice and ginger tea. Earlier I watched the cook pound a piece of ginger in a wooden mortar and pestle to extract the juice.

Our room last night was about 5x8 feet, with just enough room for two small beds.  Mike and I had to take turns getting undressed and into bed. There was a thin (1") piece of soft foam over the boards so it was a hard bed. Being tired made it feel good and I got a good night's sleep.

We wanted to get an early start this morning so we packed up, ate breakfast (porridge w/ raisins for me) and departed Riverside guest house at 0715.  Departing elevation was 5230 feet.

We went uphill pretty much all day.

Not long after we started we came around a switchback and had a dazzling view of Dudh Kunda peak.

At a rest stop we met this couple who have a teahouse. Not much business now since many people fly to Lukla to start their trek. They had these beautiful lilies just over the wall.

This young man carried a good load of hay from the upper fields down to the family's animals.

At the bottom edge of the rhododendron forest the blooms were finished, but we saw plenty as we progressed up the hill. The rhodys were all sizes but most were impressive trees.

Haven't had cell reception for two days so I'm writing these updates as memos intending to post them when cell reception improves. Each memo has limited space and I'm about out on this one so will continue in another post.

Bandar to Kenja

Friday May 11th

Had oat porridge with cut up bananas and reconstituted dry milk for breakfast. A pretty good start for the day.

Started out at 0810 going downhill for a change. Near the river, we started uphill to cross the hill between rivers.  At the top, back downhill again. When we got to our teahouse, we were about 5100 feet, having lost almost 2000 feet of hard earned elevation gain. But that's how the trail works on this part of our trek. We stay at teahouses on, or near, rivers and cross the hills between the river bottoms to get from one to the other. Once we start heading north toward Everest there will be more steady elevation gain.

Wherever we've gone we've seen new construction.  Lots of houses and commercial buildings going up to replace those lost in the big earthquake.

Also, many new roads being built.  Ramesh says the electrical company pays for them. It's difficult building roads up and down these mountains.

In a cool corner of the trail we admired a wispy waterfall.

When not going up or down, the trail wound around the hillside.  At times there was mountain on one side and a vertigo-inducing precipice on the other.  No place for the faint hearted.

Ramesh pointed out cardamom (alaichi in Nepali) patches here and there in shady moist places. We saw some cardamom patches with sprinklers helping to increase the moisture level. Right now the local people are getting about $12 per kilo for the seed pod. A decent daily wage for a man in this area is  $15 so cultivating cardamom is a good side business.

Nepali goats start climbing early. Many families have two or three goats in a nearby shed where they are raised for meat. When I asked if they sell the skins, Ramesh told me they eat the goat skin but sell skins of the larger animals.

Here's our home for tonight. We got here about 1230, had a cup of tea and then lunch.  I tried vegetable curry again.  It was about the same flavor as yesterday's but with more green vegetables.

Our rooms were up these seven giant steps.
The first time up with my pack was a struggle but after that I was surprised how much stronger my legs were after only three days of exercise.

Most houses have plants along the walls. There were a few pots but most plants grew in repurposed containers.

Update

 Just to keep you updated, we are in Ringmo tonight.  I managed to connect through a WiFi card I purchased a couple days ago.

I have eight updates to post to my blog.  Problem is the service here is so slow I can't upload photos.  I'll wait to post the updates until I have service good enough to upload the photos.

Just want to let you know that we're all well and enjoying our trek. As soon as I get decent service I'll bring you up to date.

Harold

Bandar, More

Friday,  May 11

Went for a stroll this morning and thought you might like to see what caught my eye.

Rock wall behind our room

Prickly pear tree

Bananas, green onions, cows under and people over. 

This pile of rubble is all that's left from the teahouse where Ramesh stayed five years ago. Nice daisies foreground. 

The facilities sport a flushing toilet. 

Walks of our room are recycled boards salvaged after the 2015 earthquake.  Top left CFL is our light. Knotholes and cracks are par so Russ and Jeff two rooms away could follow our conversation this early morning. 

Shivalia to Bhandar

 May 10th,  1230

Midday rest stop at Deurali allows me to catch up on today's adventure.

We decided to get started earlier than yesterday so we ate breakfast and got on the trail at 0740.

I thought yesterday was a tough climb. Today we got an education.

We went up steps. We went up inclines.  We went up dry creekbeds.  We climbed 3050 feet in five hours. Not much for climbers and marathon runners, but for our party of one old man, two medium old men and one 36 year old office worker, it was a tester. Like climbing from Seattle to the height of Snoqualmie Pass on a stairway. 

We crossed an ancient bridge and passed the occasional old mani walls, but always going up. 

We stopped for lunch here in Deurali and rested our tired bones. I had vegetable and garlic soup and a bowl of vegetable curry. There was a jar of Schezuan pepper (Ramesh called it Nepali pepper)  on the table so added a spoonful to my garlic soup. Tasty and tingly at the same time.  the curry turned out to be a sort of vegetable stew with very little soup. Good but no curry in it. 

Heard some thunder so stepped outside to find the clouds rolling in. We (Ramesh) decided it was time to go so we headed downhill to our teahouse for tonight in Bandara. 

We dropped from 8150 feet to about 7000 on a steep trail cut in several places by the new road they have punched in. 

I was about 100 feet from our teahouse when the first big drops kicked up dust so ran to the teahouse and got out of the downpour just in time. 

The sponge on the bed in Jiri was firm. The one in Shivalia was so soft it was easy to ground out on the plywood base. The one here in Bandara is so firm it's like sleeping on a carpeted floor. Good thing I like a firm bed.

Mike and I share rooms as we go along. The view out our window today is a pastoral scene.  There is a field with a nak (female yak) tethered to a piece of rebar. An  old stone wall runs along our side of the pasture. On this side of the wall are calla  lilies, an apricot tree, a prickly pear tree loaded with fruit and some beautiful red roses. In a garden nearby I saw nasturtiums, snap dragons, chrysanthimums and several kinds of daisies.  An interesting microclimate here in this part of Nepal at 7000 feet. 

This teahouse has a community dining area, toilet, kitchen and shower (cold water only) on the ground floor. Upstairs (45° with 12" risers)  are nine sleeping rooms.  Ours has three beds and a single compact florescent bulb. No electric plugs upstairs since they sell one battery charge for one dollar downstairs. 

The kitchen has an interesting cook stove. Looks like it is made of high temperature mortar hand formed over brick. 

Jiri to Shivalia 2

May 9th, late afternoon

After breakfast and a stroll around town, we broke out walking sticks,  donned our backpacks and started the first day of trekking leaving Jiri at 0930.

Ramesh, Harold, Russ, Jeff, Mike and porter Gidi

Walked a way on gentle trails and then the work began.  For two hours  we climbed, sometimes gently, mostly not so.

We started at about six thousand feet and topped our at about eight thousand on trails like you see.  Needless to say, this old man was huffing and puffing to keep up with the younger guys.

Our guide,  Ramesh, found a nice little wild strawberry patch for us to to take a break and have a snack before heading down the other side of the hill to Shivalia, our destination.

I thought going up was hard but going down was even worse in a way. Not so much of a cardio workout, but tough on the knees and legs.  We used our walking sticks to good advantage here

There were many rhododendron bushes and even small trees along the way but found only one in bloom.

After the tough climb we were eager to check into our teahouse at 1445.

After a cup of coffee, I was hoping to take a shower but decided to work on this blog entry instead.  No internet so made this up as a memo and hope to copy and paste when the power comes on.

Power was off when we checked in and has not come on yet so no WiFi. Hope to have power before too late so I can post this update.

Power, and WiFi came on around 1800 so am gong to give it a go.

Well, WiFi was too slow to post and internet connection was little better so will try again tomorrow.

Jiri to Shivalaya

Wed, May 9th

(A quick note.  I hope you'll excuse the frequent typos and misspellings. Sorry to not catch and correct them all.  I'm posting from my smartphone under marginal conditions and sometimes with tired and blurry eyes.)

Violent thunder and lightning brought heavy rain from 0400-0500 this morning but the skies cleared to partial clouds by 0600. 65°F in our room and 56.6 outside.

I'm sure this room isn't typical, but thought I'd give you an idea of the accommodations.

Furnishings are two beds, a small nightstand, a small wall-mounted TV and five hooks to hang towels or clothing.

There is a small (3.5'x5') bathroom outfitted with a lav, toilet and hand held shower. Clean and neat, it's in the room, which is a plus.  Russ says this is the best we'll see so we should appreciate the luxury.

A sheet of plywood serves as springs on the bed. I was happy with the firm bed.

The soft foam mattress is about three inches thick.

The owner says this hotel was destroyed in the big earthquake.  They did a good job of rebuilding.