After an excellent and rewarding yesterday we were now some what relaxed and enjoying the comfort of more oxygen in the air. It really is a very different experience, while uphill even a climb of 50-60m wears you, but when you are loosing altitude its very different especially once you have reached 5545m. There is a small climb near dughla after we get down from the hotel to the 5-7 feet log bridge, but I remember almost running that climb. Similalry when we get out of Pheriche there is a small climb after the steel bridge but that also felt pretty easy and non-tiring, thats because lots of oxygen.

The hotel that we had booked in Pheriche is owned by the same guy with whom we stayed in Dingboche. Rich man two hotels on the route. Pheriche morning was cold but now we were used to that. The ZHEP Adventures Pune team (12) left Pheriche today morning and they were heading towards Lobuche. They also had similar style of strating the day with Shiv - GhoshaNa and a small prayer. I knew 2 fellas from the team who used to practice at Sinhgad along with me. The team looked ok and the no one was sick. The view of the Pheriche valley in the morning was excellent, the devine blue color painted the skies and even the mountains seemed to get the blue tinge. It was a crystal clear morning and visibilty was excellent. We did have some flurries yesterday evening but it did not damage the weather. One different thing about Pheriche it is a big settlement on the trail and has many hotels, saw a lot of pastures and may be they do a lot of farming here. It has a small wind mill that keeps the hospital powered.

After a good breakfast of peanut butter on toast + tea follwed by our prayer we started towards the village of Pangboche where we decide to halt for tea. The walk in the early hours of the morning was pleasant,also it was not all that cold. There is different feeling altogether when you are going down. Obviously because you are loosing altitude you are feeling very much comfortable than the folks walking uphill, you can see the difference on there faces. Even a small uphill is taken up in the stride. We planned to reach Namche Bazaar today so we had a early start at around 730A and I met Dr. Vishwanath and Sudhit just near Pangboche at around 930A. People were just cruising along and we skipped our halt at Pangboche and decided to stop at Tengboche directly. I met the faster group of Vikram, Arun, Parag, Nana Kaka and others at Deboche where I had to do some surgery on my blistered foot which had strated to pain me and because I was limping down hill I had my right quadriceps all streesed out and it had also started pain. Nothing was bad till here but I knew Namchee is pretty far from here. I also knew I had to get down to Phunki Tenga from Tengboche which is a big big down hill. I started towards Tengboche after a cup of lemon tea.

From Deboche it took around an hour may be less to reach Tengboche monastery where we decide to regroup take a tour in the monastery and have lunch. I remember we reached here before 11AM because the ervice had not started and we had to request one of the monks to open the mani gates. The buddha statue is golden and the place seemed mysterious. All gompas and monateries are always mysterious to me, even the buddhist caves in the shayadris appear mysterious may be thery are :) The monastery is well maintained, clean and nice place to visit. The views of Thamserku and Ama Dablam are really nice. I was sweating a lot and so feeling a bit drenched out. We decided have lunch at a small hotel facing the valley towards Namche. I remember we ordered some lemon tea, eat guL poLi, we still had almost 4-5 poLi's left per head. I did not eat much but drank a lot. Always remember even if you are getting downhill you still ae in high altitude region so keep drinking water till you pee straw colored.

In the next muddy hour we reached Phunki Tenga (3260m), from here the strenous,trechearous climb of kunjuma starts. Till I got down I had already started sneezing, I felt my lungs were filled with the Tengboche dirt,I had a feeling I may fall sick. Arun and Milind were leading the pack and they had a big lead on all of us. I put my self in the slow uphill gear and kept pulling my self up. Its almost 6 hours since we left Pheriche. Switching backs we all reached Kunjugma (3620m, almost 400m climb) around 3:30PM, I was totally drenched and was sweating like some rain forest trek. I drank 2-3 cups of lemon tea and a lot of water. Due to the wind I had started feeliong cold and was already shivering. Namche is another 2 hours from here and mostly levelled trail. My blisters were burning and my right quadricep was almost not working. I literally dragged myself to our Namche namstee hotel in the next 2 hours. When I reached I was feeling sick my nose had started running and I was in a pretty bad shape, luckily the throat was not yet infected. I drank hot water and tea and felt much better. May be the dust and dirt on the way had made degraded my situation. There were plans of making another 10 hour day to Lukla which I was not at all interested in. I was DEAD tired. I need a rest day and I need it badly.

It takes 3-4 days to get down to Lukla from Kala Pathhar some fit guys can do it in 3 days but I would suggest 4 days is optimum and comfortable. Whatever we did was also strenous and tiring, I think the ideal down hill would be Kala Patthar - Pheriche (8-10hrs), Pheriche to kunjungma(6-8hrs), Kunjugma - Phakding (6-7hrs) and 4th day would be a short one from Phakding to Lukla(3-4hrs). This will distribute to load evenly. We had to take a day off in Namche and the next day we did Namche- Lukla. So we did 3, 10 hour days in the 4 downhill days that we had planned, instead we can have 4, 6-8 hour down hill days with much more comfort. Actually downhill is a myth it does involve 200-400m climbs even while getting down which makes it strenous. You may have plenty of oxygen as compred to Kala Patthar but your strength is definitely sinking.