Puiya Phakding
Distance: 11mi/18km* (probable mileages +10% underestimated)
Total trip: ~364 km
Guesthouse Elevation: 8,545 feet/2,605 m
Today we finally reached Lukla, our first big city with modern services. Yeah! This will be a more efficient and shorter entry. Since I finally got a cell signal to post the blog and catch up on my correspondence. I prioritized getting as many posts up as possible.
As Lukla has an airport, many hikes start from there. The trails turned into highways. Nice and wide with more traffic.
Most annoying was the sharp increase in the number of mule trains carrying goods. The smell of the mules’ urine was powerful and they returned to the trail as soon as they passed. Buck-30 learned that they were charging straight ahead as one of them pushed him with its large charge and easily knocked him off balance. The strategy that seems to work and that I learned from porters is to hold your hiking pole in front of the mule’s face as it approaches you and turns away from you.
We arrived in Lukla around 9:30am. The airport is known for its incredibly short runway that slopes down a cliff, primarily for those taking off. There was a fairly constant air flow of small planes and helicopters. There were also a ton of school kids walking around as we approached.
The most exciting part of going to Lukla was getting fed! We ate at Everest Burger. We sat there for three hours. Each of us ate a burger and a personal pizza. More importantly, there was Baskin Robbins ice cream nearby. I crave chocolate milkshakes on the trails and I drink a ton of chocolate milk when I’m at home. It had been way too long, so I ordered one. However, they used a powder and did not make the milkshakes with ice. I got behind the counter and explained to them how to make the milkshake I wanted. We used four scoops of ice cream, milk and lots of Hershey’s syrup. It was perfect! However, I didn’t pay attention (or care) to how much it might cost. I thought it couldn’t be that bad…it was $14! Oops ! Well, I would say it was worth it!
We also received a resupply that our agent Urja (from Alliance Adventure) had transported to a local lodge. We are very happy with our choice to supplement with food from home, as there will be times over the next couple of weeks when we will need our own food. We could definitely have sent our ice axes and crampons to Lukla as well, but we had a feeling we might have needed them in the first three weeks. No, not necessary at all. We wore them for no reason! So we stocked up on food for 5 days and left around noon to continue our hike towards Namche.
We didn’t realize we were going to time it the way we did, but there’s no need to go through Lukla if you don’t have a reason to go. Ideally, I think it would have been better to send documents to Namche, but we don’t know if this is possible as it would require a porter. Our agent was able to easily take our bag of food to a local hotel in Lukla, so it worked out.
Once again we had rain this afternoon. It was raining harder than we had though. There was a permit checkpoint just as we were leaving Lukla and that was the one we had to pay for. We are so skeptical, and it seemed so casual, that we questioned it at first, but it was legitimate.
Being arrested for purchasing a license. Notice the watchdog 😉
We just walked a few more hours to Phakding for the night. We stopped there because that’s where Griggs was! Remember that he left us two weeks ago because of a mysterious illness that took away all his energy. He recovered and did a short hike in this area after spending a few days in Kathmandu. He unfortunately missed about 225 km of the hike.
Fun to see how the porters cover up in the rain and put their umbrellas on top and their hiking poles to support them when they take breaks.
For those of you who like details, Griggs will in no way claim this is a complete hike if he walks the rest of the way with us through Nepal. He wants to go back to finish the section he missed. This won’t be his last visit to Nepal, and he certainly has these miles on his bucket list in the future. To continue his bad luck, two days ago he had a horrible case of Giardia. He was supposed to meet us in Namche, but had to stop in Phakding because he was suffering from diarrhea and vomiting. He gets better after taking Tinidazole. Sorry I got distracted and didn’t get a welcome photo of Griggs. I had one by far while eating in the dining room.
From Puiya to Phakding there were constant services and guest houses like in the photo above.
We stayed at Buddha Lounge and were lucky to be the only ones there. There were a lot of people there last night. Tomorrow we will take a morning hike to the larger town of Namche where we will take 24 hours to rest and recharge.