As seems to be the general trend, we can’t just ever start out our day with a flat stretch of land. It always has to be either a steep uphill or a steep downhill.

Today was the former - about an hour and a half of it. Luckily the fact that we’ve been doing this kind of trekking for a week now meant that it was decently manageable for us. We passed through a couple quiet towns on the way and generally had the trail to ourselves.

That is until we met up with the main trail coming out of Lukla. With the joining of the two paths we now had to deal with loads of people who had flown in via Lukla (cheaters). It was so weird to be sharing the trail with that many people. We saw huge groups with brand new boots and backpacks and unsoiled clothing while I had my socks and underwear attached to the outside of my pack. They were inevitably much slower than us and we blew past most of them (feeling just a little bit proud of ourselves in the process).

The traditional route for ‘Day 1’ for people just starting out is Lukla to Phakding, and as we were starting our day about 1.5-2 hours south of Lukla we figured this could be a good place to end our day as well. But 7 days of trekking and relatively easy terrain was on our side and we arrived in Phaking around 11am.

This place was completely foreign to us. They had bars/pubs, WIFI everywhere, and they accepted VISA/Mastercard. We didn’t particularly like it - trekking the way we had for the past week turned us into trekking snobs a bit I think. Whoops.

We took a little break here in Phakding while deciding where to go next. After having gotten used to 8 hour days we weren’t really willing to stop hiking at 11am if we didn’t have to. We decided to continue on to the town of Monjo which was about 3 hours away. By continuing on it would also mean that our hike to Namche Bazaar the next day would be cut down to 3 hours (it’s a decent 600m climb from Monjo to Namche).

Unfortunately stopping for lunch has become my nemesis because while I felt great in the morning I started feeling like crap as soon as we got started again. My joints had started to tighten up while sitting so it took some time to shake the kinks back out. I also started developing a bit of a headache which made the exertion caused by going uphill just a blast. It wasn’t altitude related because I’d been up much higher over the past week than I currently was at - I think maybe due to the relatively easy nature of the trek for most of the day I hadn’t had enough water. Go me.

When we finally got to Monjo about 2.5 hours later, passed through our first TIMS check point since Kinja, and found a nice looking guest house that eventually agreed to give us our room for free, I was finally able to take my first “shower” in over a week. And by shower I mean I stuck my head under an icy cold faucet in a slightly sketchy bathroom while standing there butt naked quite literally freezing my ass off. I washed my body with the same fridgid water and quickly dressed myself in every layer I had. This is what happens when a shower costs about $4 and you’re on a budget.

Besides, we needed most of our money for food. Being constantly hungry has become a common feeling for me these days. I’m not quite sure how many calories you burn a day hiking the way we have been, but today I had chapatti with two fried eggs, a granola bar, a cup of hot lemon, 1/2 a plate of fried vegetable noodles (split with Josefine for a snack), a MARS bar, 2 cups of hot mango juice, half a bag of peanuts, a bowl of garlic soup, and fried potatoes with cheese.

However I guarantee you I will wake up tomorrow morning absolutely ravenous to the point where sometimes I have to have a snack before I even make it down to breakfast.

At this guest house we were joined by a very large tour group (the first time we’d been in a place with more than a handful of trekkers) who were loud and obnoxious, but it’s just something we’re going to have to get used to from now on. We were also joined by Benny and Haim - Ben had hiked off on his own and was nowhere to be found. From here on out Benny and Haim would be our awesome trekking compadres!

Spoilers for next time: the shortest day of hiking, WIFI, and pizza!

For all my posts on the Everest Base Camp trek visit here!