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Through Namche Bazaar

Kath Turner and Rob Howard / 22.11.2007

All bar a few of the competitors who were already in Khumbu took the dramatic flight from Kathmandu to the Lukla airstrip, which perches thousands of feet above the Dudh Kosi river. What a flight it was in the little 16 seater Yeti Airlines planes, flying over the steep terraced valleys and tiny villages. Racers used to trek most of this route before the race and only fly out of Lukla – this was definitely the easy way to do it! It has the advantage of allowing us more trekking time at higher altitude too, but we all felt the sudden altitude shift when we stepped off the plane at Lukla.

Some of the more nervous were glad to get the flight over with as the landing strip has a sheer drop one end ... and a sheer cliff the other! It’s definitely a ‘Short Take-off and Landing’ strip, but any qualms were more than compensated for by stepping out into the fresh Himalayan air and meeting up with our Sherpa guides and porters, who quickly organized our baggage as we set off for the first camp at Phakding. This village of large, stone-built lodges is down in the valley floor so it was an easy day to reach our first camp – downhill almost all the way!

The next day was different, a big 800m climb up to Namche Bazaar, which is at 3446m and definitely in altitude sickness territory. We had all day to get there and the thrill of the first, distant, views of the summit of Everest, but there was some laboured breathing on the way I can tell you!

Namche is the centre for the tourism and expedition business here and seemed like a cosmopolitan town compared to the villages we’d passed through on the way. We stayed two nights here in big lodges to get acclimatized and for most this will be their first experience of altitude. So those not suffering the effects of Kathmandu belly may by now be suffering the effects of mild altitude sickness: headache and nausea. Some poor souls have both. Fortunately many are fit enough to sample the products from the famous Namche bakery – pizza and apple pie. (Not exactly traditional but enjoyable all the same!)

We were now split into our 3 groups (red, white and yellow), each with its own leader and Nepalese staff. This is simply administrative as there are so many of us, but before long things inevitably became competitive, as demonstrated at last night's quiz at the Khumbu Lodge!

Every racer has his or her own assigned doctor (and the docs have been packing up very scary loads of huge quantities of medicine and equipment) and not surprisingly health is a preoccupation for everyone. Dave Buckler the chief medic seemed happy though, commenting, "Everybody is being exceptionally sensible and taking advice." Dr ‘Teapot’ Michelle added, "Despite the several victims of Kathmandu belly and mild altitude sickness, we are very optimistic."

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