On Friday evening the place we are staying was cold and a bit damp. We had a nice dinner wearing our fleeces and wooly hats and then walked into town to find somewhere warm and cosy. We found a bar / coffee shop but like everywhere else it had no heating so we had hot chocolate! In bed soon after 8pm, what and exciting life we lead.

This morning we were up at 7am to welcome the medical team who flew in at 7.15 and we all sat down to a substantial breakfast, porridge, hot mango juice (sounds horrid but is very good) and a cheese sandwich with a fried egg on top plus lots of coffee. We then started the walk, very slowly as our guides are concerned that the new arrivals have not had time to acclimatise so after 40 minutes we stopped for lemon tea which was very strong, hot, lemon juice with a hint of tea. It really woke us up. Another hours walking and we stopped for a leisurely lunch, I had an omelette on Tibetan toast which was a strange, thick but light crispy nan bread, it was delicious. We are now at out hotel having tea and biscuits looking at the menu and deciding what to eat tonight. Following advice on the web I brought lots of high energy bars, mini mars bars and chocolate, it looks like I might be bringing it all home again as well as putting on several stone in weight!

The walk was hard on the feet but otherwise gentle and the scenery is lovely, the biggest problem is getting out of the way of the mule trains as they rush back from delivering their loads up the valley. There is one big town and plenty of hamlets further up the valley and everything they need which they can't source locally comes along this path and is carried by yak (actually yak cow crosses), mules or sherpas.

Tomorrow promises to be tough, we climb 3000ft and we are told it will take eight hours, mind you if we eat as much as we did today that is hardly surprising. We then have another rest / acclimatisation day before getting into the serious cold.