Rest Days at Pangboche (15 - 16 Oct 2006)

7am in the morning, the temperature in the restaurant is very low, 2 degree Celsius. I am freezing. Hai Poh brought his sleeping bag up to cover his legs. He decided to stay in the lodge to write his articles. Teck Long, Sui Jing, Dee and I decided to explore the places around Pangboche.

There is a small river not far away from the tea-house. We followed the trail beside the river to go upper Pangboche. There are mani stones along with the prayer flags at the hill. The colorful prayer flags are blowing in the wind, spreading the blessings to all human beings.

We went up higher, overlooking the Pangboche village. Then only we found out that Pangboche is a big village. There are a lot of houses which located a bit far away from the main trail. The day was pleasant and relaxing. We visited the monastery, stroll in the village, and then slowly retrace our steps to the lodge.

Teck Long and Hai Poh tried to call up Everest Hotel to look for Kok Yuen. However, the line cannot get through. They had tried it for few times, but not successful. Then, we decided to send a porter to Namche Bazaar to look for him. We pretty sure that he will be at Namche Bazaar to wait for us. Anyway, we knew that we were wrong on the following day.

The next day morning, we woke up very late. Our mission today is looking for the primary school at Pangboche. These 2 days, we saw a lot of school kids went down from the hill but we did not see any school yesterday. So, we went uphill followed different trail. Still we couldn’t see any building on the hill except the mani stones.

A young lady carried a sling bag and books in her hand walked towards Sui Jing and me. She asked us the time. It was 10.40am and she told us that she has class at 11.00pm. We beckoned Dee and Teck Long, followed that young lady to school. We went uphill. We can only see that we are heading to a small green hut.(Later, we found out that this green hut is the toilet in the school.) But once we climbed up that hill and reached that green hut, the school can be clearly seen.

This primary school consists of an old building and 2 new buildings. They have 4 classes - standard 1, standard 2& 3, standard 4 and standard 5. We met the headmaster and found out that there are 4 teachers in this school. The staff office is very simple, with only 3-4 tables in the room.

Students are very cute and playful. At first, they don’t like us to take their photos. But when we let them view the photos taken on the digicam, they were excited and kept on asking us to take their photos. They also sing and dance for us.
Mission accomplished. ;)

Before lunch, we went to the river to wash the hair. The water was as cold as ice. It really took us a lot of courage to rinse our hair with water. We shouted for coldness, at the same time, put the shampoo and wash the hair. Then, we ran back to the tea-house. I felt so refresh after the hair wash.

Foung Yee, Peng Meng and Kok Ming arrived at Pangboche around 1.30pm. They had made it to Kalapattar 2 days ago. Our flight from Lukla to Kathmandu had been successfully rescheduled to 23rd Oct. This means we could continue our trek to west part of Khumbu Region. However, we got the news that Kok Yuen had went to Gokyo alone. The porter that we sent to Namche Bazaar had returned and confirmed the news. We had a lot of questions in our mind. We don’t know what is happening and why he’s trekking alone. Where is the porter going? Why he’s not following Kok Yuen? Anyway, this also means that Kok Yuen had recovered. So, we are not too worried as we know that he could take care of himself.