From our lodge overlooking Namche Bazaar we catch our first glimpses of the high peaks. Even though these are low by Himalayan standards they are impressive. One of our group thinks we may be nearing Everest itself, but as we rejoin the trail at the head of the valley and cross over a saddle the full splendour of the peaks ahead is revealed. Thamserku lifts his sharp peak to 6623m to our right and head we can see Lhotse emerging from the cloud far ahead. Everest or Chomolungma to the Sherpas remains coyly hidden behind the cloud to the left of Lhotse.
Today I have climbed to 3743m about 100m short of Tengboche Monastery, the climb to which is a tough 600m slog from the valley floor, where we stopped for lunch. As we ate we saw clouds forming above the valley ridges above us. By the end of the day we had climbed into those clouds. The vegetation is thinning out around us as we climb. although there are some beautiful rhododendrons in full bloom.
Once you get high up in the Solukhumbu region it's noticeable that a lot of the place names end in -che as in Namche, Tengboche, Dingboche etc. I have attempted to find out from locals and internet search what this means, and I'm still not sure. My Sherpa friend is very cagey about it and there are several meanings, and he thinks it has something to do with a monk, but he doesn't elaborate.
I've come to what might be a slightly dodgy conclusion on flimsy evidence that it is a suffix related to a place of significance, similar to suffixes like -by (farm) and -ly (woodland) in old English. It seems to be associated with places that have spiritual significance, such as Tengboche monastery or the numerous Stupa that you see everywhere.
Whatever the etymology, these places are all very remote, and yet there are many beautiful buildings with immense thick stone walls to keep out the cold. They are often decorated in bright colours. While a lot of the stone is quarried locally, everything else is ported in. We pass one porter who was literally carrying one wall of a building on his back down a steep path.
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