Sherpa communities

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Originally uploaded by travel.jenny

After visiting the village and spending a few days in crazy Thamel, the tourist area of Kathmandu, we set out to hike toward Everest Base camp. We flew from KTM to Lukla, which is a small airstrip town. On the trail, you hike through small villages. Right now I'm reading Into Thin Air, by Jon Krackauer. He does a good job explaining the communities, but unfortunately doesn't capture the beauty of this landscape (if you've ever read his non-fiction book). This is a photo of someone's house I hiked past. Sherpa is an ethnic group. Porter is the job of carrying things up everest. So as you hike, you go through these communities,w hich are profoundly affected by tourism. In Namche Bazaar (a very popular stop that has hospital services), you can see people digging at rocks to create more guest houses and others carrying up baskets of San Miguel beer and boards of plywood on their backs. But I'm not going to say it's good or bad- this is what it is. The valley is beautiful though-- this was one of the most scenic hikes I've ever been on.