We left the hotel bright and early at 6:20 in order to catch our flight at 7:45. Thomas and Lakpah got us to the airport in time for our flight, but it turned out the flight was delayed till 9:20. That’s ok. We hung around for a bit before taking a short flight in a 20 passenger plane over some high valleys and mountain crests. It was a beautiful little flight. The descent was intense. We followed a mountain ridge and them made a complete u-turn, dive bombing in order to land on a tiny dirt strip on the side of a mountain. Fun!
Phaplu is a small village of about 700 people. Before they built a closer landing strip, Phaplu used to be the landing strip to climb Mount Everest. That’s a long trek before you even reach base camp. We went up to Hotel del Sherpa for some tea, and then met with Buddha, who showed us around the local hospital. It was actually a very nice, clean facility. It was nice to see, and to find that people use the cheap, if not free, medical service. Then we had a quick lunch before heading out on our trek.
Our trek today was only about 2-3 hours. It was a pretty easy day through a beautiful valley where we ended up in Beni, in an open valley to camp by the river. It’s a nice peaceful area. There are a lot of people who pass by, and everyone is smiling and appreciative of a, “namaste”. We watched children having an organized play time during school, where they played games that were unlike our childhood games, and difficult to figure out. We watched a pack of mules walk by our campsite and cross a narrow wooden shaky bridge over a river. It’s a nice start to our trek.