Everest Base Camp Trek: Sherpa Villages & Tengboche Monastery

4.99

(146 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

The first thing that hit me after we landed in Lukla was the smell — cold, sharp, almost metallic air, mixed with something earthy from the little shops lining the path. Our guide, Pemba, just grinned at my face (probably looked like I’d never seen a mountain before). We set off past kids in bright jackets chasing each other around yaks. The path wound up through pine forests and then suddenly Namche Bazaar just appeared below us, all stacked colors and prayer flags flapping like they were trying to outdo each other. I remember my boots crunching over gravel, and how quiet it got every time we rounded a bend away from the chatter.

I didn’t expect to feel so small walking under those peaks — you see photos of Everest but being there is different. At Tengboche Monastery, monks chanted somewhere inside while we stood outside catching our breath (literally and emotionally). Pemba showed us how to spin the prayer wheels; I tried to say “thank you” in Nepali and he laughed — probably deserved it. Lunches were always simple — dal bhat or noodles — but after hours of trekking they tasted better than anything fancy back home. One afternoon it started snowing as we reached a tea house; everything went quiet except for our boots thudding on wooden floors.

The day we made it to Everest Base Camp itself is a blur of windburned cheeks and high-fives with strangers who felt like old friends by then. There’s this weird silence up there — not total silence, but a kind of hush that sits between people when they’re all looking at something bigger than themselves. On the way back down, we stopped at a hill covered in little memorials for climbers who didn’t return. That stuck with me more than I thought it would.

Even now I catch myself thinking about the way light slid over Ama Dablam in the early morning or how cold my hands got trying to take photos near Kalapathar (worth it though). If you’re thinking about doing an Everest Base Camp trek from Lukla, just know it’s less about conquering mountains and more about letting them change you a bit. I’m still not sure if my legs have forgiven me yet.