In Africa there are long discussions, mostly in bars after a few beers, about the different drugs to reduce the chance of malaria. In bars in Nepal the discussion soon gets round to altitude sickness and how to avoid it. Some of the party have taken the precaution of taking a drug called Diamox. This supposedly improves the oxygen levels in the blood but it makes you wee more often. As we are all at the wrong end of middle age anything that makes you wee more often is not great at night, especially as the facilities are a little primitive. Our guide, who has been running these trips for 35 years, says the best way to prevent altitude sickness, apart of course from ascending slowly, is to have lots of garlic! He did not recommend taking diamox unless you get ill. So for dinner last night we were all given a compulsory starter of garlic soup. It was quite strong and as we have all had the treatment we do not notice each others breath but today other walkers on the trail may find our party a bit smelly to say the least. Apparently we will get another helping tonight.

It does seem to have worked, we have climbed 3000ft today (we actually climbed 3,400ft as there were a few downhill bits and, touch wood we all seem ok, we are well over 10,000 feet and can climb stairs without getting to puffed.

The walk today was supposedly as hard as they are going to get so we are felling a bit more confident, this may of course be false. The scenery was spectacular, the path was busy but not too bad, this is supposedly low season, the biggest traffic on the path are mule trains. There are 15,000 people living around Namche Bazaar and everything they need comes on the back of a mule, donkey or porter as there are no roads. The only quick transport is helicopter, they buzz back and forth all day. It is very touristy and has the highest Irish bar in the world, we might visit it on the way down.

The accommodation is getting more primitive, yesterday each room had a toilet and warm, not hot shower. Today we have a very hot shower but it there is only one for the whole lodge which is quite big and one toilet shared by about six rooms. Apparently it gets worse later on the trip.

As you can see it does have WiFi, someone nearby has a wireless network labeled "virus", what a great way to keep people off your network, I might change mine when I get home.

During one of our many rests today Cleggie rummaged in his rucksack and found a bar of Kendle Mint cake, the energy bar made famous by Hillary and Tenzing, with a best before date of 1998. We will eat it when we get to base camp.

Tomorrow is a rest day, we are going for a walk up a hill where apparently we will get a good view but will return to Namche Bazaar so we are sleeping at the same altitude two nights running which helps aclimatisation