For our last meal, the tour operators, VJV had arranged a special dinner at a restaurant called Rum Doodle. This is a favourite haunt for trekkers and apparently is full of memorabilia and atmosphere. Except it has recently relocated because its lease ran out (rather than earthquake problems) and because we had a really early start for our flight home, at Krishna's suggestion, we went for dinner at 6pm.
Result - completely empty restaurant and no atmosphere whatsoever.
Anyway we knew that dinner was supposed to be "in the company of an Everest Summiteer or Sherpa" but what we didn't except was such a fantastic and memorable time.
Our Sherpa was Lakpa Rangdu Sherpa (people from the Nepalese Sherpa caste are often named after the day of the week; Lakpa =Wednesday, Rangdu is the family name and Sherpa the caste name).
He is 49 years old and looks at least 10-15 years younger and has "summitted" (the technical expression for reaching the top) 11 times, the last being in May of this year. I can't remember exactly how many times he has attempted it but I know in 2015 the earthquake stopped him summiting and in 2014 there was a serious avalanche which killed 17 sherpas, so that makes it at least 13 times and I believe he only started in 2003.
He was an amazing guy, pretty good English and a wonderful communicator. Still had 10 fingers (I counted) and 10 toes!
Unfortunately I hadn't bothered to take my camera as I'd expected it all to be a bit naff, I really wish I had now, although Krishna did take some pictures on his phone and has promised to email them to us. He never did send any pictures through, so this is one from the internet of our Everest champion (courtesy of Grayson Schaffer).
Super way to round off the holiday.