Happy Re-unions

We haven't given you a glimpse inside a tea house yet, so now's the time.


As our rooms were literally just a small box with 2 beds, and nothing else, the communal area you see in our picture was where we spent most of our time. Have you spotted us on the left?

As you can see, the living area was quite colourful and cosy - at least it was cosy when the stove was lit. We had our meals at these chest like tables and were quite comfortable sitting on mattresses. The family will typically sleep on these benches at night and their bedding and possessions are stored in the ceiling high cupboards.

The clever ones amongst our readers may spot that we're about to get events out of sequence as we've just showed you a picture with some of our fellow trekkers, before they'd actually arrived at the tea house in our tale.

Please excuse this. Back to the story, a lovely lunch was served up in this lounge area, as we waited for the rest of the group to arrive. Hardly had we finished and sat back outside in the sun, when we spotted the zopkis approaching with the rest of the group's luggage.


Our friends weren't far behind. It was lovely to see everyone again and also to find out there were a couple of interesting local visits to make that afternoon.

We'll tell you where we went next time.

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

A Bear Approved Tea House

The tea house at Khumjung was one of our favourites, possibly because Khumjung was a such a lovely village in a fantastic location. We were glad that we reached the tea house at lunch time so we would have time to enjoy ourselves there.


Here we are outside the tea house. It had a lovely sunny terrace outside the front where we could sit and soak up the sun as we waited for our lunch to be prepared and for the rest of our trekking group to arrive from another direction.

Two other Scandanavian trekkers who were also staying there provided some entertainment when they decided to try out the outdoor shower with a view.


As there was no running water in the tea house, our hostess had to heat up some water then carry it out to the shower. Even though she was no spring chicken she nimbly shimmied up the wall with a heavy load of hot water and filled the container on the shower roof which provided the hot water to the shower.

While it looked fun we didn't have a go as we'd showered the day before and you can't shower too often on trek in Nepal: firstly as it is relatively expensive (a shower costs more than a room for 2 people) and, more importantly, it requires a lot of precious wood to be burned to heat the water.

It was probably more fun as a spectator sport anyway.

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

To Post or Not to Post?

Having plenty of time to sit and relax in the sun was quite conducive to postcard writing. 24 hours earlier we had been wondering when we were going to have time to write them, now we had the perfect opportunity.

And so we got writing. We stopped when our paws started to ache and we'd run out of original things to stay. We then asked each other if either of us had spotted a postbox anywhere. We didn't think we had, so we set off on a post box search.

Yorkie not only found a post box, he found the post office, although it was shut at the time. It was tucked away on it's own up a back street and wasn't exactly the most modern building in town - clearly it wasn't catering for the tourists.


Yorkie climbed up the box to see if there were any signs of it having been used recently. It had rather an air of dereliction about it, but there again, a box with an opening is all that is required: a post box doesn't need to be a hi-tec gleaming receptacle to be functional.

And so we faced the dilemma of, to post or not to post. Not only was there the question of whether the cards would eventually make it home, but also whether it would be quicker to take them back to Kathmandu to post, even though we weren't returning for another 6 days.

What would you have done? As for us, we're sorry to say we were influenced by looks (we normally try not to be) and we took the cards back to Kathmandu to post. In retrospect we should have posted half in Namche and half in Kathmandu and then conducted a poll of arrival times.

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

Meet the Zopkis

Once inside we found that the tea house provided everything we needed, but nothing extra - this was fine by us. Our room simply had 2 beds and was separated from the next room by a fairly insubstantial partition wall, so we had to be careful not to make too much noise. We had to wash in our rooms with a big metal 'dog bowl' of water brought to us by our wonderful trekking crew - once it got dark it was too cold for anything more than a quick freshen up anyway. The only heating was in the dining area across the road, so we all gathered there to relax, drink tea house tea, and have a fine hot meal before retiring for an early night.


The next morning our pack animals, the zopkis, (pronounced dropkey) arrived to carry our red trek kit bags. Each one carried 3 bags which wasn't too heavy a load, as we had been encouraged to pack light, and leave as much kit as we could in the Kathmandu hotel store. We were also warned to pack everything in waterproof bags in case the zopkis peed on them. We didn't see them doing this, but we did once see them trampling on some of the bags! The zopkis were yak/cow cross breeds and they were the perfect pack animals for us, as, unlike yaks, they can survive at altitudes under 3,000 metres. They were very characterful, but we were warned not to get too close as they had some rather fearsome horns.

We continued along the river for all of the morning's walk. It might sound like flat walking, but it wasn't: there were lots of undulations. Before we had gone far, we discovered where the electricity, we had enjoyed in the tea house, came from.


As we sat under the sign in the shade - the sun got very hot, very quickly - a little boy spotted us and came up to tell us all about the hydro electric scheme. We had already witnessed the power of all that foaming white water, so it was great to think that it was helping to bring power to the region, so reducing the number of trees cut down for firewood.

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

Our First Tea House

As we were walking down in the valley bottom beside the river, the land was very fertile. There were a few flowers - and a very pretty sight they were too - but given the remoteness of the area, and the fact that the nearest road was a week's walk away, most of the land was given over to vegetable growing.

You can see from our picture how well the vegetables were growing. What a backdrop for your vegetable garden! We knew gardening bear, Tommy, would be envious when he saw our pictures.


We learned from our guide that we would be eating lots of vegetables over the next week, and probably no meat. For most wild bears this might be a problem, but not for us. We are domesticated bears and we love vegetables. As you know, Tommy, grows lots for us in the garden and we all devour them gusto.

Before we were ready for our first leg of the trek to end, we came to the entrance of the village where we would be staying.


As we looked at the loads that some of the porters ahead of us were carrying, we knew we wouldn't have enjoyed our afternoon anything like as much, had we been carrying heavy loads.

The village was called Phakding and it was only a couple of minutes walk further to the first of many tea houses, where we would be stopping each night. We weren't sure what to expect, but as we waited outside first impressions seemed quite good.


See what we mean? And we knew we should at least be able to get a good cup of tea!

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx