The Town Built by Sir Edmund Hilary

Like clockwork, 6:00 am wake up knock with Sherpa tea and wash water.  I asked Kumar to let Ming know that my laundry wasn’t delivered last night and I was unable to finish packing.  Two minutes later, the hostess was at my door, with a stack of laundry in one hand and a toothbrush in her foaming mouth, looking very put out.  My pile of laundry included some pieces not mine.

I finished packing just as Dong Jin arrived to take my duffel.  Kumar followed closely after to check my room and lock the door.

When I arrived for breakfast with extra laundry in hand, Lily thanked me for bringing her pants.

Med Check:  “Drink more water!”

After a hearty breakfast of oatmeal, omelet on toast and a ½ toast with peanut butter, we replenished our water supplies and geared up.

Outside the lodge’s restaurant doors, Ming gave us a brief map review of today’s trek.  We headed out at 8 am.

At a rest stop, I ate the apple I’d been carrying since our boxed breakfast from Kathmandu.  It gave me a real boost for trekking.

Before we arrived at the stupa at the gateway to Khumjung, we watched two parachutes land on a very short runway/field.  I was also able to photograph a glimpse of Mount Everest in the background.

Along the way, Lily slipped on the trail, hurting (perhaps spraining?) her ankle.

10:40 AM:  Arrived at Khumjung Sherpa Land Lodge and Restaurant.  We were greeted with hot mango tea upstairs (more stairs! Ugh!)  I was assigned Room 203 – upstairs.  Lily was given a note reading:  “Leslie, Elevate & Rest  Ice on the way  XOXO”.

We hung out in the dining hall waiting for lunch.  Our cook spoils us:  Yak burgers, French fries and carrot coins.  Ted talked Frank into posing with a plate of food, holding it as he would when serving at a restaurant.  Frank’s such a good soul.  I can’t remember seeing him without a smile on his face.

Early afternoon, we visited the Sir Edmund Hillary School, which seemed to be the majority of Khumjung.  Sir Hillary died approximately two years ago, but before, he used to make annual visits to Khumjung.  According to Ming, when Sir Hillary was younger, he’d trek from Namche, but after knee trouble, Sir Hillary would helicopter in.  Ming recalled school would be out for all the children to line up to greet “Papa Hillary.”

Annie cracked open a classroom door to peek in.  Some of our group looked in, also.

We visited an art gallery where visitors could purchase artwork made by the students.  Annie pointed out a homemade doll for sale, but I needed two.  One painting that was most memorable for our group was a gruesome painting of a Yeti ripping off the head of a yak.  The Yeti had a fierce look on his face and the yak’s half torn neck was oozing blood profusely.  Songmee teased her dad that she might get that painting for a little boy they knew.  Glen side-glanced a look to her.

We were given permission to and walked into an eighth grade class in session.  Annie asked some questions.  What subject is this class?  [social citizenship]  What is social citizenship? [silence] Annie asked a boy, “What do you want to be?”  The boy stood up to say, “I want to go to University to be a doctor!” [applause from us] then Annie asked a girl, “What do you want to be?”.  The girl shyly answered she wanted to be a nurse.  [applause from us].

School let out.  Two little boys holding hands were so adorable, we photographed them.  The older boy immediately wanted to see himself in Annie’s camera.  Suddenly, she was surrounded by children chanting, “1…2…3!” followed by flipping the camera over to let them see their photo.  Annie let the older boy take photos with her camera.  Lily got in on the action and soon a child took over her camera.

When the photo frenzy died down, we trekked to a monastery at the edge of town.  Ming’s dad was at the monastery guiding a dignitary visiting Khumjung.  We met up with him at the entrance of the monastery.  This monastery was larger than Namche’s.  There seemed to be larger statues at the altar and a larger wall with more boxes of the holy manuscript.  This particular monastery holds a rare item:  the scalp of a Yeti.  It was housed in a glass case inside a steel file cabinet.  The shelf of this case had a slot on the side for donations.  If you put in a donation, one of the monks would unlock the cabinet for you to see the scalp.  My photo has the glare of glass, so my photo is not very clear.  I hadn’t time to set my camera on “behind glass” mode.  Perhaps one of my fellow trekkers will upload a clear photo.  The scalp shows a tall skull of maybe six to eight inches high with long brown hair.  It looks like it was bowl-cut from over the eyebrow line across the skull at ear level.  Too bad it wasn’t set on a wig stand for better perspective of a Yeti’s head.