Tenboche and Monastery



View from the inner courtyard looking towards the main entrance

Male lion protecting the entrance of the monastary

Inside the temple

Although we were told by our guide that the monks will not be performing a ceremony in the morning, we decide to visit the monastery early in the morning (we were up early anyways...) There are other people waiting so we wait with them. After half an hour the monks start arriving. There are only four of them in the monastery so this isn't a big event, but it's still interesting. All visitors are invited to sit quietly on carpets off to the side as they start their prayers. It actually is one monk who sounds like he is reading scriptures in a sing-song, monotone, repetitious way. The other monks join in with odd words or phrases here and there. It was mesmerizing. After about 30 minutes we had to leave to keep on schedule with our sherpa. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed during the prayer time.

We have another sunny day of trekking to the village of Penboche.

We pass some huge landslides on this day. Like every other day, there are trees, farmland, suspension bridges, manis, stupas and of course mountains.

We brought a Nepalese language book with us but it turns out that the Sherpas speak their own form of language so the book is useless for us.

At lunch we end up at the same restaurant as Nick and Sara. After they left a young boy, maybe 4 or 5 comes out of the restaurant carrying a plate of fried noodles, egg and vegetables. He walks over to our table so I pull out a chair for him and he sits with us to eat his meal. After he is done he does into the house and a small blue ball and indicates that he wants to throe it to us . We play a game of catch and kick the ball around for a bit. When he misses the ball he tens to draw a heart shape in the dust around his feet and them spits in his hands. Cute

As we trek closer to Mount Everest we move past the treeline. The terrain is more barren and desolate. The wind starts to get colder and we notice that our water bottles are constantly cold—no need for refrigeration up here. About an hour before arriving in Penboche, it starts to rains and then changes to snow as we arrive.

We see helicopters at least every day and today is no exception. When we arrive in town we find out that the helicopter landed in town to pick up a porter who was suffering from altitude sickness.