Nepal : Part 11 - EBC Trek (Day 6) - From Dingboche (4260m) to Lobuche (4930m)

Summary of Meal Expenses

	Breakfast		Lunch		Dinner
	Dingboche		Lobuche		Lobuche
	Meal	Price	Meal	Price	Meal	Price
Mine	Toast with 2 Eggs	585	Veg Egg Noodle	350	Egg Drop Noodle	390
	Hot Water	50	Ginger Tea	90	Ginger Tea	90
Sister	Toast with 2 Eggs	585	Veg Egg Noodle	350	Egg Drop Noodle	390
	Hot Water	50	Hot Lemon	90	Hot Lemon 500ml Hot Water 1liter Hot Water	90 125 250

Price of items that may matter:

	Lobuche
Battery Charge	300 per hour
WiFi	Did not notice
Mineral Water (do not remember size of bottle)	Not stated in the menu

My Story

20092013 - I wake up at 3.30am everyday. Must be due to the time difference because it would be about 6am in Malaysia. So, today, I decided to take a stroll outside because I saw the moon so bright and round and yellow. Happy Belated Mooncake Festival! Best of all, it was not that cold because there was no wind. I felt like a burglar walking down the corridor, making sure the door does not make much noise when I opened it.

Look at the view at 7am! The skies were clear! Glorious white mountains looming over us.

Day 7 in Nepal. Day 6 of our trek. I paint my nail next to a dried yak dung. I snapped a photo against a dried yak dung. Even my sister finds the yak dung so comfortable she unconsciously leans herself on it.

Check out how our padlock, room key and key chain looks like. Super heavy wooden key chain. The temperature in the dining room was 10 degrees. Not too cold yet.

We were suppose to acclimatise today but since we were in good health, we decided to head to Lobuche (4930m). The walk to the stupa took us 20 minutes. Every step requires a lot of inhalation of air. Our walk continues on a flat land. It is an easy walk when we walked back, because suddenly we have too much of oxygen. Right now, the air is getting colder and dry, and I was breathing hard as I slowly take each step.

The landscape of the route changes from green path to brown earth to white, grey and silver rocks and stones. Steps became uneven. If you are not careful, you may stumble upon the loose rocks. The river that flows was from the Khumbu Glacier that is slowly melting away.

A pitstop at Thukla Teahouse where we rest for 30 minutes before we make our way up. We walked up Thukla Pass which is an ascending route after the teahouse that took us 1 hour. Every 15 minutes, we stop to drink water. Our mouths were covered with our buff. Each step was like lead to my legs. Seriously, if you look at the photo or look from afar, you will think it is so easy. Until you tread the path. You are walking up to a higher altitude and the oxygen is thinning. But don't worry when you walked down the pass on your way back because it is easier. It took me 20 minutes, and I was literally jumping off the rocks. 

From the top, Thukla Teahouse looks so small. At the top of Thukla Pass is a memorial area for mountaineers that lost their lives in expeditions to Everest. It was very windy when we reached the top. By here, my energy battery was at a critical low level. I was stuffing myself with a bar of chocolate to sustain me to our destination. Hindsight, this was how my gastric started. It never came across my mind that I will have gastric from this trek. I was only worried about one illness - Altitude Mountain Sickness. 

I asked why is Scott Fischer famous because the guide speaks of him and is described in a lot of trekking itinerary. He was a famous climber and has his own company that caters to Mount Everest expedition. I watched a movie of him in "Into Thin Air" in Namche Bazaar on the way back. I am not sure if the movie correctly portray his story but in the movie, his arrogance caused him his life.

It was a flat path to Lobuche. 30 minutes later, we see the view of Lobuche (4930m). It was 1.30pm. By here, it was just us and the sherpas. Our guide has left us to look for our co-trekker who has walked with an independent trekker that he befriended. It ticked me off that our guide left us and told us to walk with the sherpas. The rule of thumb is that the guide stays behind the last person. Also, if he was going to be worried, he should not have let our co-trekker to walk off. A guide should be aware that a team should walk together.

In the lodge, it showed that it was 15 degrees outside. Still very bearable because there is no wind. For lunch, we had noodles. And noodles too for dinner. I could feel the discomfort in my stomach. There was no headache, and I was burping a lot. It did not come across my mind yet that these are signs of a gastric.

And here is a YouTube video (Day 6 : From Dingboche to Lobuche) that my sister did. You can click on the link to go to the YouTube video just in case the video loads too slow in this post.