Maximum Altitude: 3,550m

Breakfast was boiled eggs and toast for me which hit the spot nicely. One thing they don't do well anywhere up here is to serve the food on warm plates which means the food goes cold very quickly, although if I've learned one thing on this trip, it's to order toast with whatever I am having for breakfast which I can then use as an insulating layer!

Afterwards I went outside and bartered with one of the locals and bought a Kukri knife and a few keyrings with various mountains on for the boys and was given a free keyring for my bartering trouble. Result!

The walk to Namche was quicker than I expected at around two hours but we did pass about a million trekkers, porters and various load carriers (two-legged and four). Suddenly we spotted the Tenzing monument and we were there. We walked down to the town to a meeting point and off we went. The Sherpas kindly looked after our rucsacs which was a nice touch. I needed to buy a badge so that was top priority. I'd seen some 'Three Peaks and Three Passes' badges the first time, but didn't want to tempt fate by buying one before I'd actually done the trek. After that I wandered down to the 8848 bar suspecting I might find some of the team there - correct! I had coffee and cake which was out of this world, then went off for a walk round, purchasing a Yak and Owl model as gifts, then made my way down to the large Stupa to watch some old people doing the rounds. I did have a little chat with one guy who was incredibly friendly and chatty before heading back to the meeting point for 11:00am.

Our next stop was Monjo for lunch, the same place we stopped on the way up. They do a mean veg rice and chips and we sat in the sun dining, although it was quite blustery so a little too cool for some. From there it was a good two hour walk to Phakding, so hardly the 'pleasant stroll' advertised in the itinerary. We finally arrived at the same Lodge we used on the way up around 4pm which by my reckoning was a seven hour trek on very undulating, but mostly downhill walking.

The rooms as before, were pretty bare with not even a quilt so one more night in the sleeping bag. I had a good all-over wash then headed down for dinner which in my case, was Spring Roll and Chips with a celebratory Bounty Bar and Sprite for Dessert.

We also paid over the tips to Mike, who was collecting on our behalf. Pretty much everyone gave around $55 comprising $30 in Rupees for the Porters and the rest in Dollars for the main Sherpas. It is done that way as the Porters have more trouble changing Dollars as they rarely go to Kathmandu where the best rates are. That suited me just fine as I then had some Rupees left over for tomorrow and the weekend and plenty of Dollars as backup. Tonight we stayed up really late until 9pm! Totally unheard of on this trip. Well, it is only an easy stroll back to Lukla tomorrow.