written by tom / 17.11.2016 05:09

Everest base camp trek: Day 3, Kinja to Lamjura La: Worst teahouse ever

Full of rice, noodles and potatoes (your choice), we hit the road.

What a perfect night – Low elevation made it warm and pleasant. Did not feel like waking, but we had to move. We knew, that we need to climb around 2000m vertically today. We were mentally prepared!

Full of rice, noodles and potatoes (your choice), we hit the road. No joke, in two minutes we started climbing steep stairs, that never seemed to end! But at least I felt full of enthusiasm and power today, so we rushed through the steps in no time. The weather was nice and gave us some good views of the valley when we ascended.

At some point, it got really cloudy and our climb continued inside the clouds – by lunch time, we did not see nothing, just white mist and relaxing sound of water pouring down the high falls. We had launch at Sete (2500m), which is usually trekkers stop for the third night. We had our usual launch (selection between noodles, rice and potatoes – not big of a choice).

Again, time was early and we just continued to push upwards. As we gained elevation, the landscape changed to something mystical. Like in a  fairy tale – Huge moss covered trees, standing between the mist. Absolute silence, not even a bird.

Although the scenery was epic, our body began to wear down. Getting ourselves and our 15kg backpacks vertically up for 2000m is nothing but simple task. At some point, a place looking like a scene from movie, we met another backpacker, who was coming down. But by his words he was hauling a lot heavier backpack then us (well, respect). „So how far we still have to go until up?“ „Few more hours.“ Definately the hardest day so far!

Teahouse kitchen

I am not picky about where to sleep, but this was the worst accommodation ever!

In the end, it started to drizzle a bit. We got to our teahouse again late, around 4pm. There are only two teahouses on top of the pass (about 3600m) and one of them was closed (nicer looking one). So we had no choice but to call it a day again.

I am not picky about where to sleep, but this was the worst accommodation ever! Owner did not spoke any English, which I could understand, but due to communication errors they overcharged us. We asked „boiled water, lets make cheaper“, she said „yes, yes, yes, yes, yes“, but in the morning still the original, expensive price was charged. The room was miserable and food very oily and tasteless – so far the food had been very good, so it was sad to have more expensive but crappier food (it gets more expensive, the further and higher you get). I also would expect respectful attitude towards your guests, but this lady was just so dam arrogant. I feel a bit sorry to the daughters, who seemed really friendly and nice, but have little or no voice in the household.

Remeber when I talked about the Latvian guy, whos name we saw in the book yesterday? He stopped in the same place. What a coincidence – Two guys, from neighbouring small countries in one teahouse. I cant deny, I was a bit jealous, when he laid out his plan – Trekking and climbing Himalays for three months (Island peak, Everest Base Camp…). But I console myself with the idea, that I can always go back there, to do some real climbing 🙂

It is so damn cold at this elevation, so this was the worst night so far for us – For same reason I felt like crap, sweat a lot and couldn’t sleep well.

Stats for the day:

70% cloudy and 10% rainy
8 hours of walking
About 9km of map distance
25km equivalent flat distance *
1970m of ascents
not much of descents
Epic forests and first very high altitude of the trek

Total stats

25 hours of walking
About 35km of map distance
72km equivalent flat distance *
3090m of ascents
1505m of descents

* Using Naismith’s rule, I calulated the actual distance of the trak, taking into consideration the elevation gain.