October 5th - Market Day in Namche

It is Saturday, the 5th of October. We have now spent two nights in Namche for our acclimatization and getting to know what will be our home base in the Khumbu and of course today was market day in Namche. That was not an accident; we wanted to be there for that wonderful Saturday market in Namche Bazaar. The nice thing about market day in Namche Bazaar, it doesn’t take much out of your day. Understand that porters and yaks travel sometimes for many days to this Saturday morning market. The trading takes place in a very active and busy three to four hours- beginning about 7 in the morning and by 11 am the whole thing is shut down and people are walking back down and across the trails of the Khumbu and back down into the lower areas of Nepal with their goods or their empty baskets.

So we were at the market at 7 o’clock this morning and then we began the beautiful walk out to Thame where I am calling you from now. This is a much quieter and more commercial village than Namche Bazaar. Also the home of, you probably know, the most famous climbing Sherpa. We had lunch today at Thamo and in fact we were right by Ang Rita’s house, I saw him just for a few moments. Ang Rita was a very famous climber. (10 Summits on Everest)

Thamo is the location of the Khumbu Bijuli Company Hydro Project - the small hydro project that brings electricity to the Sherpa people and the Khumbu region. It is a model of a small hydro project, now administered by Sherpa people and tomorrow we will make a visit to the power plant itself and I will describe to you some more about this program that I have admired for years. I want you to hear more about it.