Day 5 [Everest Base Camp] Tengboche to Dingboche

If you haven’t read on our Day 4 adventure, here’s the link: Day 4 [Everest Base Camp] – Namche Bazaar to Tengboche

It was 6.30am in the morning. I can hear Deepak knocking on the door.

“Mike, are you feeling better?”

Yes, I feel much better now. I didn’t lie. That was the truth. Despite waking up a few times last night, I felt energetic this morning. The fatigue I had the day before is gone. And I actually felt, hungry. The morning was still cold from the snow fall last night and we did our usual routine of packing up and heading down for breakfast.

I knew I was fine when the omelette that was served in front of me was gone in a matter of seconds. I had my appetite back and my body temperature was back to normal. Most importantly, my determination to reach Everest Base Camp was back. Not making the same mistake, I made sure I purified the water early enough so that it could be consumed when I am thirsty during the early part of the trek.

“After breakfast, we will head to the Tengboche Monastery for their morning prayers. Be quick. It’s going to start soon.”

Tengboche Monastery (or Thyangboche Monastery), also known as Dawa Choling Gompa is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery of the Sherpa community. Situated at 3,867 metres (12,687 ft), the monastery is the largest gompa in the Khumbu region of Nepal. It was built in 1916 by Lama Gulu with strong links to its mother monastery known as the Rongbuk Monastery in Tibet. In 1934, it was destroyed by an earthquake and was subsequently rebuilt. In 1989, it was destroyed for a second time by a fire and then rebuilt with the help of volunteers and international assistance. Every year, monks from all around Nepal would come by this monastery for their annual prayers.

We made it in time right before the prayer started. Sitting on the cold marble floor, I shut my eyes and enjoyed the mesmerizing chanting of the monks for almost 15 minutes. The soft ring of the bell signals the end of the prayers and we made our way out of the monastery after a small donation and started our journey for the day.

We first descended the lush green forest for about an hour before making our way up again to the village of Pangboche (3,985m a.s.l) where we had our lunch. The route to Dingboche would take 5 hours as per our guide’s explanation and would mostly be on flat grounds, which, he didn’t lie.

Heading to Dingboche was a real pleasure after what we endured last night. The flat ground was relatively easy to trek altogether. The view of Mt.Ama Dablam comes fully in sight during the duration of the trek. As we progressed on, the tall trees start to disappear and there are only patches of shrubs left on the trek.

“There is less oxygen at this altitude, so there are no tall trees. Only shrubs,” our trusty guides explains. “Walk slowly. Don’t push yourself. Let your body get used to this oxygen content”

We arrived at the village of Dingboche at around 3pm that afternoon. It was a good day of trekking for us and my body feels stronger as I kept going. Fever is gone and diarrhea is lessening. Checking in to Good Luck Hotel (no pun intended), we were privileged with rooms that actually had an indoor toilet (where they other teams had to endure basic rooms with no toilet). However, there is no flushing system in the toilet so you will have to fill up the pail in the toilet from the water that you get from outside of the room. Yes, that’s how basic it gets up there.

Well, that’s for day 5! Again, I did not get that many pictures but here’s some that I manage to take:

Day 5 is done and the next post will be on Day 6: Acclimatization day at Dingboche!