I didn't go looking for enlightenment. That's important to say upfront, because so many stories about the Himalayas dress themselves in the language of spiritual quest, of seekers and answers and ancient wisdom. I went looking for silence — and found something much louder waiting in the peaks above Namche Bazaar.
It started, as most good travel decisions do, with a vague feeling of restlessness and a one-way flight booked on a Tuesday evening. Three weeks, no fixed itinerary, a permit for the Everest base camp trail, and a pair of boots that had already walked half of Portugal.
Dawn breaking over Namche Bazaar, 3,440m above sea level. Replace this with your own photo.
The Altitude Does Things to You
The first lesson the mountains give you is humility — not the inspirational-poster kind, but the deeply physical kind. Above 3,000 metres, your body becomes a stranger. Simple tasks take twice the effort. Sleep is thin and strange. Headaches arrive without warning and depart on their own schedule.
I spent two acclimatisation days in Namche feeling sorry for myself, watching yaks plod past tea house windows, eating dal bhat I barely tasted. Then something shifted. The body adjusts, or perhaps the mind stops fighting what it cannot change.
"The mountains do not care about your plans. This is not a metaphor. It is a practical fact that will reorganise your entire relationship with time."
Walking as a Way of Thinking
There is a particular quality to thought when the only task is walking. No notifications, no decisions to make, no one to be except a body moving through elevation and altitude and thinning air. Ideas arrive differently — not fully-formed, but as fragments, as questions. I found myself thinking about things I hadn't thought about in years.
The trail itself is a lesson in pacing. Porters overtook me daily — carrying extraordinary loads with a steadiness that humbled me completely. Some were older than my father. One told me he had done this trail forty-seven times. He was not boasting; he was simply answering a question.
The trail to Tengboche monastery, 5am. The cold is absolute. The light makes up for it.
A note on tea houses
Stay in them. Talk to the people in them. They are run almost entirely by women from the Sherpa community, who cook extraordinary food at altitude with limited supplies and very little recognition. The soups are better than they have any right to be. Order them every time.
What I Brought Back
No enlightenment. No guru wisdom. A stubborn cough that lasted three weeks after I returned, and a reflex to slow down in situations that previously made me rush. That's it. That's the whole souvenir.
And perhaps that's the point. Travel that changes you doesn't announce itself. It just quietly rearranges the furniture of how you move through days. The mountains were very loud about silence, and I've been thinking about that ever since.