Nepal. Three passes. Part 2

 In the second part, I want to highlight more the budget-friendly approach to all the tracks... Because we provided our own breakfasts, lunches, and snacks, and sometimes even dinners, our daily budget for two did not exceed 10 dollars... At the same time, thanks to thoughtful packing and food choices, as well as functional and compact clothing, we carried small 28-liter backpacks... Which also contained gas, a pot with a burner, and a Hawaiian guitar...   
  Our daily routine and hiking menu...

1. 4:45 - Wake-up, while the tea brews on the burner, we eat a portion of porridge cooked the night before, and pack the lunch portion in a foil bag from Yidlo... We drink 500 ml of herbal tea with oatmeal cookies (80 g ). We start walking at 6:00.
2. 10:00 - Snack of 50 g.
3. 12:00 - Lunch with the second portion of cooked porridge.
4. 16:00 - Snack of 50 g.
5. After 17:00, we choose a lodge for the night...
6. 18:00-19:00 - Dinner at the lodge (typically spaghetti with vegetables) or in the room we brew Indian soup from Yidlo (where lodges had the highest food prices)...
7. After dinner, we drink 500 ml of herbal tea with 80 g of cookies...
8. Preparing "Pilgrim's Pack" porridge on the burner for the next day... The "Pilgrim's Pack" weighing 470 g includes - 320 g of porridge (buckwheat or corn or millet), 80 g of raisins, 40 g of dry milk, 30 g of sugar). It makes four full portions...

  Thus, the maximum weight of a full daily ration for two was: "Pilgrim's Pack" 470 g + a pack of cookies 320 g + kozinaki 200 g + two Indian soups from Yidlo 120 g = 1110 g... That is, a maximum of 555 g of food per day per person... Everything is very compact and packs well in a backpack... Of course, the pace with such a diet should also be balanced... In this format, it is impossible to eat as in marathons, for example, and food greatly affects the intensity of the distance traveled...

 Continuing the daily photo-essays... On the fourth day, we crossed the Renjo-La pass (5390 m), climbed to the top of Gokyo-Ri (5360 m), and reached the village of Dragnag... At altitude, our daily travel speed decreased to 20 kilometers... 

Interactive map...

 

  On the fifth day, we started with the ascent to the Cho-La pass (5420 m)...

   On the descent from the pass, we put crampons on our sneakers, which we used for no more than 300 meters, although we could have done without them... We took crampons in case of heavy snowfalls and ice, but we were accompanied by good weather...  

   Descent into the valley...

   On the way to the village of Gorakshep...

   Khumbu Glacier and the summit of Nuptse...

   We reached the village of Gorakshep (5164 m) at half past one in the afternoon...

  After taking one of the rooms in the lodge of the village and leaving some of our things there, we started the ascent to the top of Kala Patthar... 

   Views from Kala Patthar (5645)... Everest, Lhotse, Nuptse...

   The highest-altitude webcam in the world operates at the top of the mountain...

 

  We spent about an hour at the summit, then descended to the village for the night... Although we still had time to continue the journey, we decided to spend the night in Gorakshep at an altitude of over 5100 meters... After collecting water from a source, we spent the rest of the time in the room - cooking dinner and resting... In the highest and therefore most expensive lodges, we did not order food, cooking dinner ourselves... For this, we had four compact packets of natural soups from "Yidlo" with us...

  On the morning of the sixth day, reaching the village of Lobuche, we turned onto the trail that went through the Khumbu Glacier towards the Kongma-La pass...

  On the other side of the Khumbu Glacier...

 

   Kongma-La pass (5528 m)...

  Ama Dablam...

   We planned to stop for the night in the village of Tengboche, so that the next morning, after the puja, we could play mantras in the monastery, something we had even agreed upon with the Buddhists... But in the village, all the lodges were packed with tourists, and the last places were rented on the condition of mandatory dinner and breakfast orders... So, after visiting the monastery, we continued the descent... 

   On the sixth night, we stopped in a small village of Tashinga, in a completely non-touristy lodge... They rented us a room for 2 dollars and did not require us to order food... After having dinner in the room, we went down to the hosts to play Tibetan mantras and some of our songs...

  Seventh day...

   Descent from the village of Namche... Crossing the bridge with "obstacles"... During one of these crossings on suspension bridges, we were attacked by a horse loaded with bags on both sides... We were moving towards each other, after which it went on a rampage... Pressing against the side walls of the bridge, we passed by the horse, but its bags, attached to its back, painfully hit our ukulele, leaving a small hole in the guitar's deck...

  The most impressive were the Sherpas, who carried simply incredible loads, some of which weighed over 100 kg...  

  Dima tried to lift a basket with a load weighing about 60 kilograms...

  Eighth day... Nepali everyday life...

   The garden on a large stone impressed us perhaps the most...

   

   Children of Nepal...

 

   Mantras...

   Lungjure pass (3500 m)...

  On the eighth night, we stopped in a lodge located on the pass...

  There was only one open lodge here, whose owner was a colorful Nepali woman... She hardly understood English, but we found a common language... The Nepali woman cooked us pasta with vegetables on a clay stove, and we played her mantras... Interestingly, after the first mantra we played, she brought a plate with raw rice on which she placed 100 rupees (1 dollar), but we explained that we did not play for money...            

 Ninth day... 

 A villager with a traditional Nepali knife - a kukri...

  Passing through the villages, it was impossible not to notice the campaign posters, especially the candidates' symbols... Who should an average Nepali choose? A communist with a sickle and hammer, or a democrat with a sun... The funniest thing is that both feature a swastika - a symbol that has long been discredited in "our" world... Think about how conditioned the world we live in is... In less than a century, a symbol that is almost 10 thousand years old has turned from a symbol of movement, life, and the sun into a symbol of terror... How easy it is to manipulate our consciousness...  

   Everyone chooses their own...

  Our choice is freedom from conventions, from imposed stereotypes and values. This type of trial gives us experience in understanding ourselves and our bodies... In the modern world, we have access to an ocean of information and know a lot in words... But information obtained second-hand does not truly teach us anything, not giving us that very understanding - realization... Realization comes only from personal experience...