Thame to Lunde
Woke this morning feeling better after a good night's sleep!
Beautiful sunny morning. Left the aptly named Sunshine Lodge at 8 am to continue our journey up the Bhote Koshi Nadi valley.
There are definite changes to the landscape as you climb over 4,000 metres to sub-alpine vegetation. Beautiful flowers and stunted junipers in abundance.
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| Little Miss Sunshine at the Sunshine Lodge |
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| The thriving metropolis of Thame |
At Marlung, we stopped for morning tea and to catch our breath , already at 4210 m. We chatted with the owner of the tea house who proudly told us that his father had climbed Mt Everest 10 times with photographic evidence adorning the walls. Jack also bought a pack of playing cards here.
It was only an hour from here to our destination, Lunde (4368 metres) - just as the clouds were closing in and just in time for lunch!
Jack spent the afternoon playing cards with Lakpa and Ram.
Meat being in short supply and good quality not guaranteed, it was recommended that we choose vegetarian options for lunch and dinner.
We decided on the local specialty dish for dinner - dahl bhatt. This is usually presented on one big platter with a serve of dahl soup (normally made from black lentils), curried vegetables and rice. It is traditionally eaten with your hands, but we chose not to.
I ate about half of the dinner served, my appetite still hadn't returned to ravenous proportions at this stage! I found myself apologising to the guest house owners as I could only manage half serves for the next 3-4 days and they felt slightly offended that their cooking wasn't to my liking.
It was very quiet at Lunde, with only one other Swiss couple staying at the same lodge.
There is no electricity supply north of Thame, solar energy being the sole source. All of the lodges had panels on their roofs as well as portable panels strategically place around their properties, to maximise the path of the sun during daylight hours. The power is usually turned off during the day to conserve resources. Cooking is done with gas, but when supplies are low, wood is used. The communal dining areas are heated by a pot-belly stove, lit daily at around 5pm.
The bedrooms have no heating and usually only a single low-voltage light bulb, head torches and warm sleeping bags a necessity!
Sweet dreams!
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| A novel way to boil the kettle! |
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| Ram waiting patiently for his dinner! |
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