Namche Bazzar to Kyangjuma

Most guides recommend a 2 night stay in Namche Bazzar to help with acclimatisation, but we only stayed 1 and then moved onto Kyangjuma.   This small town is slightly higher than Namche Bazzar but a couple of hours down the trail. 

We headed up and out of Namche Bazzar towards the Shyanboche airstrip.  This is a hard steep climb to start the day with and certainly gets the heart going.  Some of our group were beginning to see signs of mild AMS, this included people much fitter than I.  This shows how variable altitude is on the body, it truly is a lottery.

 We headed up to the Everest View Hotel (3880m), which unfortunately didn’t give any views of Everest due to cloud.  It was up there somewhere but I was yet to see it!  After a cup of tea, we headed down through a wood towards Khumjung.

 

Khumjung and Kunde are 2 small villages in a valley, notable for their green roofs.  It is very picturesque.  We had a short wander around the Edmund Hillary School before a visit to the Kunde clinic.  Both are funded by overseas donations and were founded by Sir Edmund Hillary.  He is well liked by the locals and his work here after his famous climb probably gave him an even greater legacy than he would of. 

As we headed towards the Khumjung monastery the weather got colder and rumbles of thunder echoed round the valley.  At the monastery we had hoped to see the Yeti Skull, however the monks had popped out down the valley so there was no one around to get the case out!  It started snowing as we were here, only lightly, but was a contrast to the warm t-shirt weather the day before.

We headed down to Kyangjuma to our teahouse for the night.  Today had been a long day but very enjoyable with some great views even with the changing weather.