: say “yak cheese!” :

A long time ago, someone gave me a great camping tip. They said to keep your heated water bottle and clothing for the next day in your sleeping bag so that when you go to sleep, you are warm from the bottle, and when you wake up in the morning, your clothes for the day are warm as well.

This works fine, unless you have been eating lentil soup for four days straight. Then your clothes are odorous as well.

We left Namche Bazaar as incense burned outside the homes and the sound of chanting and music from the monastery could be heard throughout the valley.

Who said the hard stuff was behind us? Today we descended 1000 feet and then back up 2400 feet, our final destination being the Tengboche Monastery. On the way, we saw a stupa (a monument) for Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, who was the first sherpa to climb Everest and did so with Hillary.

This day was the first day we saw Everest! Seeing Everest for the first time was like seeing the Pyramids in Giza, or Machu Picchu. It is always humbling in a way to witness something greater than yourself.

We reached the Tengboche Monastery right before 3pm, so we had some peppermint tea, walked over to the monastery, removed our boots and took our place against the wall sitting Indian-style to witness a puja ceremony. The ceremony is done in the morning and late afternoon, and consists of monks chanting, monks drinking tea, and monks drumming. It is very long, and you cannot photograph the ceremony without special permission.

After this, we turned in at our teahouse – a really nice one considering everywhere else we have been so far – called Amadablam Lodge. Amadablam means mother (ama) and daughter (dablam) and is the name of a very popular mountain to climb and whose shadow the lodge is beneath.

When you go on these treks, you pretty much are at the mercy of whatever food sanitation exists. In most cases, it is pretty non-existent, and you just have to hope that your camp cook has at least washed his hands in the last four days.

So when we found out that we would be eating at our teahouse every night, we were like, awesome! Good, clean and sanitary kitchens!

Well, not so much. At dinner tonight, a girl walked into the room, proceeded to dig into her nose with her finger, fetch a sugar bowl and some spoons in a glass cup out of a cupboard, clean out the glass cup with her fingers, and offer it to Wally. As Wally reached for it, I was like, “Dude, you don’t want to do that”, and I quickly explained why since his back was to the whole thing.

I prayed that she wouldn’t bring out our dinner.

Quotes of the day:

Bette: At least you know you’re eating organic out here.
Wally: That stick on the ground is more sanitary than that spoon!