Lukla to Namche Bazaar - one day. It’s a busy corridor, with many people flying into Lukla and then dispersing to various places, including Namche.  Many people treat it like a day hike, hiking in one day and then back to Lukla the next.  This has created somewhat of a problem.  People are flying into Lukla now that there is an airport and avoiding the long trek from Jiri, especially those who are short on time or feel their age will compromise the trip.  Unfortunately this does not give the body time to acclimate to the extreme elevations encountered.  People are succumbing to pulmonary and cerebral edema in increasing numbers.  This in turn puts increasing pressure on the health services of the country who already have a hard time taking care of their own.

           Namche is a crowded place.  Crowded with foreigners, which of course, includes me.  Namche must have been quite a place thirty years ago.  It sits in a half bowl with the town terraced steeply up one side.  It has been a trading center for a millennium.  But the face of Sherpa life is rapidly changing.  Trading is no longer much of a factor, except for trading what tourists are seeking.  There is much to buy:  masks, jewelry, knives, bells, prayer wheels; etc., but, I have no spare change.  Outside of this remnant of ancestral trading, it’s all trekking.

           The place where we are staying could be called modern high country Nepalese.  It’s clean, large and could be a Lodge on any mountain in the States.  Electricity provides light for me.  My bed is a thick foam mattress.  It’s a business.  I am just another faceless tourist.