October 22, 2019, Phakding to Monjo
Staying at the Snowland teahouse in Phakding was a real treat, which we wouldn’t come to realize until our return at the end of our trip. That’s because we had a Western washroom in our room! A Western toilet that flushed and a sink! In our room! I hunch those that travel to Nepal and trek in the Everest region talk about toilets and showers quite a bit 😆 because the higher you climb, the more interesting and at times challenging they become. For example in Thukla, to find a Western toilet, I had to leave my room, walk down a hall, go down a very steep, steep set of stairs, go outside, walk a ways, go in a ground level door to a tiny room with a very filthy toilet bowl (no seat), a huge bucket of partially frozen or completely frozen water (depending on time of day – real fun at night!) as toilets don’t flush this high up so you have to dump water in the toilet, and of course no light or toilet paper. Showers lower down were often outside, with the water heated through solar power which meant you weren’t going to have a hot shower. Higher up, well let’s just say wet wipes became everyone’s go to bath.
With Lukla sitting at 2,845 m, trekking to Phakding involved the overall loss of just over 200 m in elevation. I say overall because in between the two locations there are some ups and downs, and often times there are some significant ups and downs 😉. In Canada, trail descriptions typically include elevation losses in addition to elevation gains so a hiker has a better sense of what effort it will really take to complete the hike. Not so in Nepal 😧. For example, going from Lukla to Phakding involved a 140 m elevation loss and a 360 m elevation gain. Pretty minor between these two locations but the trek from Namche Bazaar to Tengeboche had a huge elevation loss to a valley floor and then a huge climb well in excess of 400 metres at the end.
This day we were supposed to hike all the way to Namche Bazaar, which means we would climb just under 1000 m and lose just over 100 m (resulting in 1100 m climb). However, I was quite weak from the day before, and was sick again as soon as we reached Monjo, the village where we stopped for lunch. So a decision was made to stay in Monjo overnight and trek to Namche Bazaar the following day.
I will say that I loved Monjo – the Namaste tea house, and the owner of the tea house. She looked at me, saw that I was not well and took me “under her wing” like a mother, advising me not to shower, go to bed, drink hot water, etc. When trekking back to Lukla we made sure to stay here instead of Namche Bazaar. The owner was thrilled to see us and extremely surprised that I made it to Everest Base Camp.
The other important thing to note is the spelling of Monjo. I have seen Monjo, Monju, Munju and Munjo. I have opted to use Monjo as this was the spelling used by the locals and was on the map given to us by the local outfitter.
