DAY 4 Namche Bazaar(3420m) to Phortse Tenga(3680m) It was difficult to leave the bustle, the attractions, the good food and the hotels of Namche. From here on it would be back to small plywood thin hostel rooms and food that rarely involved more than three ingredients. We walked out of town and past a pile of mud bricks on the side of the street, I realised it was actually big piles of collected yak poo. They will get burnt in the fireplace of someone's home...

DAY 3 Namche Bazaar (3420m) to Everest View Hotel (3880m) to Khumjung (3800m) and back to Namche Today was an acclimatisation day. Its easy to gain altitude too quickly on the Gokyo trek and suffer from AMS (Acute Mountain sickness), so we will walk on a side trip and return to Namche to sleep at the same altitude, which helps your body to adjust. Today, we plan to visit the Everest view Hotel and a couple of Sherpa villages. We climb up to 3800m and stop...

DAY 2 Phakding (2652m) to Namche Bazaar(3420m) Firstly the reason a boiled egg is more expensive than a room is because of the distance that egg has travelled. It would have started life in a chicken farm and been carried into this region, the egg will be carried on mules or some poor porters back. Astronomical transport costs. Today is a day of climbing with a 1000m ascent to tackle. It was a beautiful trail that followed the Dudh Kosi river. Along the ri...

After our Jomsom trek we rested for a day in Pokhara and went rowing around the lake. The next day we took the bus back to Kathmandu and spent a couple of un-eventful days doing laundry, getting permits for the park and buying all the things we wished we had taken to Jomsom, mars bars etc. The Jomsom trek was a nine day warm-up, practice, training session to face the big one, an eleven day walk to see the big boys; Everest; Cho Oyu; Gyachung; Kang; Lhotse; Makal...

DAY 9 Muktinath (3710m) to Jomsom (2760m) To reach Jomsom we retrace our footsteps, this time facing into the wind. Our buffs protect our heads and make a good nose and mouth dust guard. Sunglasses over the eyes and we become anonymous. A buff has been so handy on this trek, it mops up sweat and can dry quickly, works as a scarf, hat when its cold, a dust guard and a water filter. We walk into the strong wind and arrive after four hours in Jomsom. We confirm our ...