Day 16 - Yangle Kharka to Khongma

I was up about 6.30 at Yangle Kharka after a decent nights sleep.

Most groups were still hibernating in their tents and the dining room floor was filled with porters.

We had fried rice and tea for breakfast.

I think strongman was tasked with cooking on this morning.

This is Pei-Yin, the Aussie that we met the previous night.

She was walking the Great Himalayan Trail solo but had porters and technical guides for the section over Sherpani Col towards Everest.

There were yak poo patties stuck all over the wall of the teahouse.

I think they were being dried to be used as fuel in the fire.



The bill for the three of us for one night at Yangle Kharka was 6,500 NPR.


Breakdown as follows:

2 bottles beer      1100
3 Tongba               900
Mug Raksi             300
3 Beds (private)    1500
3 breakfast            1050
3 Dal Bhat            1350
Flask tea                 300

Total:                   6,500

I was worried about the steep climb from the Barun valley up to Dobato so I decided to take the slow train and followed Longman up the climb.

Turns out the slow train was a bit too slow for me on this occasion.


You do have to admire that he could do a trail like this wearing only flip flops.

We got to Dobato and had noodles for lunch.

This was the day before my birthday and I wanted to celebrate with a shower and warm evening in Tashigaon.

For this reason we combined two days walk into one and pushed on to Khongma.

There was quite a bit of snow on the trail once we got above Dobato.

Seems there was a big storm went through but we were above it and unaffected at base camp.

The snow did add to the scenery.


I had decided to join the fast train for the second half of the day and let longman lag behind.

As we descended from the first col after Dobato we met the largest group of porters and tourists we had seen all trip.

They were carrying some silly loads.

There were 6 Polish tourists and about 16 porters.

My knees were feeling the downhill so I took a couple of vitamin I for the first time on the trek.

The climb up to Shipton La was tough.

It was covered in snow and I was feeling pretty beat. Combining two days walk into one certainly made it a tough day of walking.

We were stopped taking pictures at the last highpoint on the trail when longman caught up with us.

He was agin demonstrating his tele-porter capabilities.


He was beat so we enjoyed winding him up and telling him we'd decided to carry on to Tashigaon.

When we arrived at Kkongma it was still warm enough to sit out and drink a few beers while enjoying the view.

Elaine can get a *little* grumpy when her blood sugars get low so I figured this was a good time to produce the peanuts I'd stashed from the plane.

Evening Dal Bhat in Khongma.

Elaine had recovered from her rice aversion and enjoyed dinner.

We had a couple of rounds of Raksi after dinner.

It was heated and served with cumin seeds in it - very tasty.

This is how our guides looked by the end of the day.

Longman was beat from the walk.

Strongman was happy after a beer (and maybe some Raksi but don't tell his wife..)

Weather: Somewhere between 1 hat and 2 hat weather. It was pleasant enough to sit out till dinner was ready but did cool quite a bit at night.

Accommodation: 3 teacups out of 3. The Sherpa lady who runs this teahouse is super friendly and the Raksi is good.