Tengboche

Duncan is very ill. He has been helicoptered out. We congratulate our leader on his care and concern - untreated altitude sickness can be fatal. We feel, what do we feel? Sorry for Duncan, glad it's not us.

We visit the monastery, briefly. Everyone has to take their shoes off, and when we get inside it smells awfully like sweaty feet - all the hikers having walked on the same carpet we are treading on. The monks need some Febreze...

Some of the others are still feeling crook, as they put it, being Australians, to varying degrees, and some are starting to feel better. Will, Lloyd and I are at the front today mostly. I feel pretty good, overall, but I've been having strange dreams.

We walked a long time today. I begin to forget that I'm walking. My brain is starting to think of the future - what do I want to do? The answers are simple. Walk, pray, work. My head is clearing. I'm remembering what it is like to be ME, just me. What I can do. At the moment, I can do this. Tomorrow? Who knows. I'm not frightened. I trained so hard and tried to imagine what it would be like to do the trek, but this is so far beyond my wildest dreams.

I am not alone, somehow, but I don't know how to explain it. Someone keeps talking to me in the night, last night whoever it is told me to put my fleece pants back on again, woke me up to tell me. So I did.

The way up to Tengboche is steep. Steep and hot. But not nearly as busy as the road to Namche.

I am lying in my tent. I can smell the kitchen staff cooking dinner, frying potatoes. The yaks in the next field are ringing their bells. I can hear Vishnu, I think, talking softly in Nepali, over by the lodge we are camping next to. The river, down in the gorge, is moving past. It starts to get dark. The mountains are shrouded in cloud. I hope for a good view tomorrow.

In the last half hour of the trek, downhill from the monastery to Deboche where we are camped, I was walking with Razkumar and Nawan, and we had gotten ahead of everyone else. They were walking fast and talking in Nepali, and I just kept up. It felt good that they were ignoring me. I don't want to be treated like a tourist...