Culture in the Clouds in Namche

Day 4: Namche Bazaar (Acclimatization Day) – 3,600m/ 11,800 feet
Today is an acclimatization day where we will walk to the Sherpa Museum at 3,600m/ 11,811 ft. From here you will have stunning views of Mount Everest and the surrounding mountains. The key is to rest, relax and acclimatize at this height and will make all the difference as we go to high and extreme altitude. The afternoon will be at leisure in Namche Bazaar, resting, eating, and enjoying the sites! Remember that it is still important to continue to drink 4-5 liters of water every day on the trail. Today, the walk up to the Sherpa Museum is only approximately 30 minutes.

Today I learnt about “High Altitude Flatus Expulsion” or HAFE – so today is the day that you also are going to learn about it.  You are MOST welcome.  This knowledge bomb was, of course, in response to my Google question this morning – “do you fart more at high altitude?”  And here’s what Google came back with:

Yes, you do fart more at high altitudes – a phenomenon known as High-Altitude Flatus Expulsion (HAFE). As atmospheric pressure decreases with altitude, gas in your digestive tract expands, causing increased abdominal pressure, bloating, and more frequent, often larger, gas expulsions. 

Key details:

• • Physics Mechanism (Boyle’s Law): According to Boyle’s Law, as external air pressure decreases, the volume of gas inside your body expands. This is particularly noticeable above 11,000 feet.
  • Common Scenarios: This effect is commonly experienced on airplanes, which are pressurized to about 6,000-8,000 feet, and while hiking or skiing at high elevations.
  • Other Factors:
     Aside from physics, high altitudes can cause you to swallow more air (aerophagia) due to deeper breathing, which contributes to more gas
    .

So it IS a real thing so y’all can now hold your judgement from now on.  It’s not me, its Boyle’s Law.  And who am I to defy the laws of physics?  Anyway, I’m now dosed up on ciprofloxacin and loperamide, so I’m really hoping that helps knock this annoying little gastric issue on the head before I have to leave the cozy sanctuary of the Namche Hotel, with its free, plentiful TP and ensuite bathroom.

OH – before I tell you about the rest of my day today – I want to take a moment and just reflect on my first hot shower since Kathmandu yesterday.  It. Was. EVERYTHING.  So so good.  Skin scaldingly hot AND the hotel provides towels too so I didn’t have to dry myself off with my backpacking towel – which is super lightweight but almost completely useless.  You would think a towel would have to be at least nominally absorbent to be able to look itself in the mirror and call itself that – but this one seems to work by just kinda moving the water on your body into a thinner layer of dampness, rather than removing it from your wet skin.  AND to add insult to injury, it then also seems to take a disproportionate amount of time to dry such that you are invariably then trying to stuff a damp rectangle of fabric into a little stuff sack the size of a small plum.  Anyway, it was a real treat last night not to have to deal with that nonsense, to luxuriate in a hot shower and be able to go for dinner confident in my personal aroma.

So today was billed as an acclimatization day – things are gonna start to get a lot more strenuous in the next few days, so its a good opportunity for your body to adjust to the altitude and stresses before subjecting it to even more strain.   I actually slept really well last night – the bed is super comfy and I felt confident enough in the cleanliness of the hotel to get underneath the duvet, between the sheets.   No sleeping bag required!  We met for breakfast at 7.30am after which our plan was to head up the hill to the Sherpa museum.  You can see the view of the mountains that we could see during breakfast – alas, this was pretty much as good as it got today, as the clouds closed in and by the afternoon, there was a steady (cold!) rain and bugger all view.  The museum made for an interesting stop, though, as it had lots of interesting info about the region and Sherpa culture and lifestyle.  There was a statue of Tenzing Norgay Sherpa outside as well as another small statue containing two rocks, one from Everest, the other from the Dead Sea in Israel, representing the highest and lowest points on the Earth.

After the Sherpa museum, we made a stop at another museum called the Sherpa Culture Museum, housed in a traditional Sherpa house and with extensive displays and photographs about all aspects of Sherpa life. https://sherpa-culture.com.np/ Unfortunately cameras and phones were not allowed inside, so I wasn’t able to take any photos – and the amount of information presented was so overwhelming my poor 53yr old brain wasn’t able to retain much!  I do remember that Lukla airport was initially established by Sir Edmund Hillary on land that was purchased for about $500 and with a construction cost of $2000.  Even back in the 60s, that really doesn’t seem like enough money to build an airport with! (in case I didn’t mention it before, its considered one of the world’s most challenging airports due to the very short (527m) and steeply inclined runway). MUM DON’T CLICK THIS LINK   The other thing I remember is thinking just how hard life is, if you are a rural Sherpa, subsisting on land farmed entirely by hand.  Zero mechanical assistance.  Powered entirely by human sweat and yaks.  It takes a LOT of effort to grow a potato here.

After the museum, I had about an hour before lunch, so I explored the town a bit more.  It is still really quiet with quite a few shops closed and the streets fairly deserted.  Again, this is partly because its early in the season as well as people still returning from heading out of town to their home villages to vote in the election.  The most traffic had 4 legs, hooves and shaggy coats!  I bought a couple more t-shirts and also a really cool oil picture of Everest and the surrounding peaks, painted by a local artist.   It felt good to support the local economy and the canvas rolled up easily into a small sturdy tube, so it should survive the journey home (assuming I do, of course!).

Lunch was excellent – I had grilled chicken with actual vegetables (and some fries -yey!) and I actually had an appetite for the first time in days.  I am taking full advantage of the fact that meat is safe to eat here and stocking up on my protein intake, before its time to revert back to the depressing egg-veg-noodle that will be my life after Namche.  Continuing my personal mission of surveying as many spas abroad as possible, I had booked an ayervedic massage at 2.30pm.  It was situated right next to the hotel – and was priced a little more enthusiastically than the one in Kathmandu – almost Western prices at $80 for an hour.  I was a bit worried about the ambient temperature of the room given how its as cold AF here, but was assured that the room was heated and that there was an electric blanket too.  Both of which turned out to be true – but did give rise to a fairly unique thermal experience where I was simultaneously hot and cold.  A Schrodinger’s massage.   Lying face down (with an excellently sized donut hole, btw – definitely in my top 5), the whole of my front was nice and toasty thanks to the electric blanket (I was, of course, also covered by a blanket) and the side of my body next to the space heater had some bonus heat.   My left side – not so much.  Pretty darn chilly, even though covered with the blanket.  But the massage itself was good – as you might expect, she spent quite a bit of time focused on my legs and feet, easing out those tight calf muscles and with a pressure that was just on the right side of ow.  She discovered some particularly tender spots on the little pads of my toes (on the wrong side of OW!) but other than that, it was a very pleasant way to while away an hour.   I enjoyed listening to the sound of the yaks hooves clattering on the street outside (so many of them!) – until I looked out of the window as I was getting dressed – straight out onto the tin roofs of the surrounding buildings and realized I’d simply been hearing the rain.  Ah well.

The rest of the day has been spent chilling and blogging and listening to the new Harry Styles album.  The internet is a bit ropey at the moment with not enough juice to upload more pics, so I will add those later.   It’s now almost time for dinner, so I’m signing off for the day.  Hopefully the pharmacopeia that I’ve consumed today will do its job and help with my…err… jobs such that I’m back to 100% before we leave Namche the day after tomorrow.  Fingers and sphincters crossed!