Today we made our final excursion from Namche to Thamo, a small town to the west of Namche. The good news about our hike is that we had a net elevation gain of zero feet. Thank god! Our guide today was Chindi, as Nima decided to stay back to visit with his mother-in-law. Chindi’s daughter, Tashi, came along, and Mingma, the porter, joined us as well. The walk led us along a relatively level trail through the forest skirting the hills separating Namche and Thamo.
The two-hour walk to Thamo was put to good use when I asked Tashi to teach me some Napali words. I learned a lot, but I’m afraid I was a dim-witted language student, or perhaps Tashi was a hard-nosed, uber-particular teacher! Shouts of “No, no! Not sar, TSAR! Not punch, BAUNCH!” rang through the peaceful hills for over the course of the language lesson.
The highlight of our visit to Thamo was climbing up to the Buddhist monastery. Home to approximately 35 Tibetan nuns, the monastery was recently constructed. The nuns are now busy painting the very intricate, colorful décor of the interior.
Until the monastery is finished (in a few years, most likely), the nuns continue their meditations in the tiny building that has served as their monastery for years. We were invited into the ten-by-twenty foot room for tea with a couple of the nuns. I was touched by this kindness, especially when the younger nun found a tin of popcorn and crackers to share with us. “Shee, shee!”
Our walk home was long, and I ended up crashing for a two-hour nap once we reached Namche. Although today’s hike was not all that difficult, my body is exhausted from the constant exertion of the past few weeks. When I finally woke, we all enjoyed our last evening in Namche huddled around the woodstove, laughing and eating until it was time for bed.
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