Ahh . . .Junbesi sundar gownle ho (Junbesi is a beautiful town) – the most picturesque we have come to yet. We have choice of lodges, good food, even a bakery, and the oldest monastery in the region. We now see the first of the snowcapped Himalayan peaks looming above us – Numbur.
We descended from Lamjura Pasa at 12,000 feet, through Trogdubuk and Serlo into the serene village of Junbesi. The stone walls and homes along the way are the most impressive I have seen. One dry-set wall of stone stretched for miles along the outer edge of the trail, like a stone serpent. On its other side, the valley dropped precipitously one thousand vertical feet into green fields of millet and the Sun Khosi. It would be a dream to build a trail like that.
Tomorrow if weather parts, we may catch our first view of Sagamartha – Mount Everest. We will cross Khurtang and the Shingsere Danda, also reaching the great monastery of Trakshindu perched high on the mountain pass Trakshindu La.
Outside is a lodge once owned by the late Babu Chiri Sherpa – the famed Sherpa who climbed Everest ten times, spent twenty-one hours on the summit, and holds the speed ascent record from basecamp, summiting in sixteen hours. He died on the mountain two years ago. Tragic, I suppose. But the Sherpas revere him, and Tibetans accept death as part of cyclic existence. I can’t imagine Babu Chiri Sherpa would choose any other place than Sagamartha to pass on.
 |
| Winding walls and fields of millet |
