Phakding

1/5/98,circa 8700 feet/2600 metres

This was a so-called easy day’s walking...
Trekker

Despite all the alarums and excursions: the 2 hour wait at Kathmandu airport for the 7 o’clock flight to Lukla, the 45 minute flight, the hour or so sorting ourselves out, it was only mid-morning when we set off on our walk.

This was a so-called easy day’s walking, because it was short and because the net effect was to lose about 500-600 feet in height. We’re now at Phakding (about 8700 feet) where we will sleep. But of course the first lesson of Himalayan trekking is that you never just go down 500 feet, you go up and then down, up and then down. So we probably gained about 1000 feet and lost about 1500 feet.

I met and negotiated by myself my first suspension bridge, not a particularly long or high one, but one with plenty of rock and roll to it. I bumped into something midway across, thankfully it was a human not a yak (they don’t stop for anyone or anything).

After we had rested, Colin and I went out for a walk. We came across a really scary bridge where the handholds were missing for the first three sections. (There was a new metal one being built just beside it, but it wasn’t finished yet.)

None of the Nepali locals batted an eye, nor was Colin fazed by it, but I was petrified and thought about it all night.

I kept telling myself that if 5 year olds and 90 year olds could do it, then so could I. And why should I need handholds anyway? I can normally walk in a straight line. But the thought of falling into a rushing torrent concentrates the mind, as they say.

Old and new suspnsion bridges side by side

The Old Bridge at Phakding is on the Left

So there are two big challenges for tomorrow: getting across this bridge and then successfully negotiating the steep walk up to Namche Bazaar. The latter, because it occurs so early on in the trek, is the ‘biggie’, as Billy Connolly would say.

As we came back through Phakding, we saw this family building a house together (so far it mainly consisted of a huge heap of stones). We sat and watched for ages; the whole family were involved, they all carried something (the children had little hods strapped to their backs: two stones for the boy, one stone for the younger girl) or they shaped something (like cutting the stones into blocks, or pointing them with nothing more than chisels). More to the point, they looked really happy, especially when the ‘mum’ brought the tea and it was down tools.

Forward to: Facing up to the Phakding Bridge | Home | Contents