Our Pangboche experience was good. I we met Dorjee, who has climbed Mt. Everest 24 times and is very energetic. We discussed the challenges of climbing the Everest and other mountains in the area. I expressed my interest to climb the Everest. Given my experience on running marathon, he suggested me to run Mt. Everest marathon, which is to be held every 29th May, marking Hilari's Everest summit day.
The food service at Shree-dewa Lodge (ph no, 9841178671) did not meet (to be honest) our expectation as Kheer was more like Lito, but the little girl, the server, Maya was lovely. I jokingly told her that I have a 19 years old son and I could bring her to USA, and maybe he can get married with. She knotted that she would go. I gave her 500 rupee, off of the entire 33K bill, so she could have it for her personal use, and we headed toward Dingboche, to continue our journey to the Everest.
Our hike started with many passovers with donkeys and yaks, similar to other days. We know that every step brings us closer to the Mt. Everest. We enjoy periodic suspension bridge over the Sheti river. We need to make sure we do not encounter donkeys on the bridge. They seem to be doing pretty good to ignore us.
The Mt. Amma Dablam stands tall and it gives us a slightly different look as we hike for a few hours. Here is our group picture, where our back is illuminated by the morning reflection from it. I learned the meaning of Amma Dablam as the mother and son, with the son being on mother's lap. This information came from local sherpa.
In just about 4 or 5 hours we arrived a beautiful village, Dingboche. It looks similar to Namche Bajar but smaller in size. It seems to have many lodging and dinning options. We stayed at Tasha Dilek, which is a pretty high profile lodging place, selling at 5,000 Rs per room per night. The have hot shower, which we enjoyed, and also its restaurant is kept warm and cozy. We drank sherpa tea, ginger soup, Thupa, and the other day vegiterian dal bhat.
Kul and Mahesh are resting in their south facing room. Puru sir and I got east facing room so not so warm afternoon for us. We kept sneaking into their room for the warmth. Next day morning, our room had the best view of the sunrise. Puru sir and I sang song -- Bihana uthne bittikai Himal dekhna payiyosh, yee hat le sadhai nepal lekhna payiyos. Both of us are retired principals of Nepali Bhasa class that teaches about 100 Bay Area students. Although because of higher education and related opportunities we are in USA for a long time now, we are serving Nepali community whenever and however we can. During our trek, we talked about ways to strengthen the school both near and longer terms.
In the morning, after breakfast we did our acclimatization hike. We hiked up to about 5,000 ft and came back down to the hotel. The hotel is at 4, 212 ft, according to my Garmin. The hike strenuous but was only about 4 hours. We had unique view of Ama Dablam, had nice chat with other hikers. There is a group of older women from Bay Area we encounter almost every day. The youngest hiker in their group is on their 60s. They are slow but persistent. I say we are a bit faster, but without a consistent pace, especially me, pointed out by a fellow hiker.
It is amazing what the sun can do in terms of heating up the freezing cold morning. The water around us, such as at trenches etc. are all frozen, but as soon as we hiked up a couple of miles, we feel warm and take layers off one by one.
Here is me adding my contributions to the pile of rocks, I call them dippu. I should probably ask our tour guide if it has deeper meaning because we see them everywhere.
Tomorrow's treak is from Dingboche to Lobuche, looking forward to get closer to the destination. The main worry is the altitude sickness. So far we are doing fine. I am messing 90 to 95 percent oxygen level on my gamin, and hope to keep it that way as we have to gain about 1,500 feet, compared to Dingboche.
Nov 17, 2025
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