glad I don't need to go to hospital here

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Onward and upward today as we set out for Khumjung, the trek didn’t seem quite as arduous today, maybe after the steepness of Namche I was just getting used to it, I know that this is the first day that my legs didn’t ache at night. Lunch seemed an age away as it came quite close to the end of the days trekking. We lunched at Kunde, where one of the few hospitals is situated, and after lunch we were able to visit the hospital. The hospital is a small single storey building with ten beds, very basic and entirely run on donations. It made me feel very grateful not only for our modern well equipped hospitals, but also for the fact that if I am ill or have an accident I can be taken to hospital in an ambulance, not a luxury afforded to the people who need to use Kunde hospital. After the hospital visit we made our way to Khumjung where we were to stay that night. En route we visited Khumjung Gombe, a Buddhist monastery which houses what many locals believe to be a Yeti’s skull. The monastery was very colourful, crowded with prayer wheels and other adornments of Buddhism, and the skull which is only on show for a few minutes at a time was enclosed in a glass case. When we arrived at the tea house we were pleasantly surprised to find a large stove, alight and throwing out an extremely welcome amount of heat. At this tea house we were also offered the chance of a shower, this being in reality the chance to stand in a freezing cold cubicle and throw hot water from a large bucket over your head with the aid of a jug. I took up this offer for the first and last time on this trek, as I froze between soakings, couldn’t wait to get my clothes back on and then spent the next two hours or so trying to warm up again, so I vowed never again. It really was a waste of time anyway as quite surprisingly there was very little body odour, and the only problem for me was that I spent nearly 24 hours a day with a fleece lined woollen hat on my head which made my hair smell disgusting. In hindsight I should have ‘aired’ my head during the warmer hours of the day, and in the evenings when the stoves kept me warm, then my hair may not have got so greasy, yuk. It was totally necessary to wear hats at night as you had to cover every part of your body to keep warm, sometimes with several layers, and it was to be many nights before I could lie in my sleeping bag and not see my breath due to the extreme cold. We are now at 3780 metres and more snow fell during the night.