1 April: Monastery to Nar (4100m) to Manastery to Meta

MI: poor sleep again last night. We've started rating everything out of ten (sleep quality, dhal Bhat, motion consistency). Chris is ranging from 2-6, John is an 7-9.5, Harms range is 4-9, I'm 2-6 also. Common complaints that receive zero sympathy are: hard mattress, needing to wee all the time due to Diamox, snoring (freight train Boerema), too hot, too cold, blocked nose, breathing irregularity. Thankfully tough love has meant a lack of sleep hasn't really impacted our abilities to function.

Today we took a side trek to Nar Village, about 600m above the monastery. Really steep with the first 1.5hrs of the 2hr walk accounting for then majority of the 600m. Again with a lack of food options Gobinda and Himal whipped up a treat - potato chapattis with marsala for climbing power!

Gobinda was due to leave us tomorrow but had dates wrong so left us to it after breakfast. We've arranged to have dinner at his place on our return to Pokhara on 14 April.

On the trail there are a number of ponies carrying firewood up to Nar, which we assume means there aren't many trees. We also see yaks and naks (females) hanging out on the hillside.

Nar Village is cool. Less dusty and more organised feeling than Phu. Probably helped by the fact they have power from a small hydro generator in the valley. There are 83 houses and 400 residents. The village has 4 Gompa's (temples), a few chortens and a spectacularly huge vista filled with Pisang Peak.

The walk back collect our packs from the Monastery was fun. Downhill and we got all excited with shortcuts and moving at speed. Took us only 1 hr down.

The clouds started to roll in as we collected our packs to head across the valley to Meta, back across the scary bridge and up that ugly scree slope. We decided to detour down below the Monastery on the way to Meta to visit the largest Gompa in Nepal (or maybe just the Phu valley!). Another 'do something that scares you everyday' descent.

Just as we arrive at our teahouse in Meta the snow arrives. It's around 4:30pm and minus 3 degrees, and Chris comes out with the Quote of the day: ' The snow is snowing' - altitude!

Thankfully the teahouse has the fire in the kitchen cranking, with the token local whose been drinking the local rice wine. Seems the teahouse must have a reputation for good rice wine as a few more snow covered locals also stop in for a wee dram.

Thought I would mention about our daily water and fluid management. At altitude you are meant to drink three to four litres per day. We kick off the day with a large pot of lemon tea that gives us each half a litre, and try to repeat this at lunch and dinner time. When we arrive at a place we get the water ready in the camel bags by using Johns steripen or my tablets, and some bottled water. We get the water from a hose or tap or a kitchen, anywhere we can find running water. On the trail we are managing to get through a litre every couple of hours walking. So far so good!