Mount Everest Base Camp Trek

Day 5: Tuesday 14 February 2012 — Phakding to Namche Bazaar

5.30 am. Early rise and a good breakfast after a great night's sleep with no illness, hoorah! I ate all of my breakfast, an omelette and toast with honey and a coffee, lovely. I swear nothing tasted as good.

In the morning before you go to breakfast you have to pack your expedition kit bag (unless your name is Joanne then you have to rush around and pack in the morning and always be late for breakfast) and your day rucksack leaving your kit bag outside your bedroom to be picked up by the Sherpas. This is then loaded onto the yaks. The yaks are wonderful creatures with so much power and yet they are mild-mannered beasts and are without doubt the best off-roading 4x4s in the world and they don't need tyres.

The trek today was some of the best walking I have ever done crossing the valley and river three times on high suspension bridges. We slowly climbed up off the valley floor through the pine forest and the last of the large suspension bridges which is one hundred and nine metres long and is as high again above the river. On a cloudless day you get your first look at Everest's peak on this bridge way way up the valley, but the cloud kept its secrets for a while longer and to be honest, I was glad.

The walk was some six hours in total with a gruelling five-hundred-metre climb at the end before reaching the capital of the Sherpa people, the village of Namche Bazaar. A couple of weeks before we arrived, there had been a violent storm in which the aftermath was plain to see for all of us. Many trees had been upended or simply snapped in half and although the staff of the national parks had been busy trying to clear all the routes we had to do a bit of off-roading to get by. It was our yaks I felt sorry for, but they just took it in their stride.

Tea on arrival as every lodge does, lemon tea seems to be the favourite to deal with the ever-drying throat (due to the extremely cold and dry air) although there are many other teas like masala tea, ginger, and cinnamon to name but a few and all available with honey. After a brew we all do a bit of kit shopping as it is so cheap here in Namche Bazaar and haggling is the norm. I manage to buy a few hats for the boys back home oh and some more bog roll… very important. It fell dark quite soon and very cold… to the lodge I heard my inner self cry, anyway it was almost dinner time.

On the menu tonight for me was: veggie pakora (similar to pakora) then veggie fried rice with chocolate pudding to follow and yes all washed down with tea, lemon tea to be precise. We have a meeting every night after dinner just to go through the following day's trek. After selecting the following morning's breakfast, which is bizarre after just eating dinner, time is pushing on to bedtime. Bedtime came at the right time because quite a few were feeling the effect of AMS (acute mountain sickness) for the first time, slightly woozy, lightheaded, but nothing serious, though I will speak about this again further on. I have a full-on cold by now and feel I should apologise to all on our trip for the constant coughing at night and retching during the day, sorry. I hope everyone can sleep tonight, oh er porridge with honey and black coffee for breakfast… sweet dreams.