Pushing upwards...and upwards...and...

One of our many stops

What a view of our hotel

We stopped at another tea house for lunch that day – once we made it to the top of the hill. We were more than ready for the chance to sit for a while and rest! The food at the tea houses was pretty much the same everywhere we went; dahl baht, a local dish composed of rice with a thin green lentil dahl, pakoda, a vegetable fritter type dish and momos, a dumpling (similar to Japanese gyozas) filled with veggies or meats. Other foods represented numerous other countries, some curries, some burgers, some pasta dishes. We tried just about all of the local dishes over the course of our week there – most were pretty tasty and all were quite filling.

 Now...you must click on the picture of 'view of our hotel'. The blue roofed buildings on the lower part of the picture happens to be the lodge we stayed at last night. Methinks we've come up in the world - quite a ways up!

A few of the goats intent on eating

Most of the tea houses along the way had indoor as well as outdoor seating, though with the outdoors comes all of the livestock that might live in the particular location. This one had goats and dogs. I believe the dogs were supposed to keep the goats away from the actual seating area, a job that they didn’t seem to do well – they were too busy turning on the doleful eye bit, letting everyone know that they hadn’t eaten a thing for at least the last 2 years and were in danger of starving to death at any moment. The goats, meanwhile, thought that anything at all was fair game to eat and the younger children were tasked with the job of shooing them away from the backpacks and diners. There was also the requisite table with necklaces, bracelets, hats and other trinkets for the trekkers to buy – the call always being “it is free to look”. Until the last day, I avoided doing any looking – I didn’t want to carry anything extra at all!