After an unbelievable plane trip from Kathmandu (it is weird being in a plane and having to look up - at mountains) we had a fairly easy trek day one (3 hours) to Phakding. Today was a very different story at the end of the day both of us were happy to get to our tea house it was an early start from about 2600m for steady walk until lunch with some freaky suspension bridges then in the afternoon we climbed about 800m to Namche Bazar (3445m) - we were happy to only feel sore as this is generally where altitude sickness starts to kick in... we have a great group of very supportive people lead by "Prem" our Sherpa guide who is a classic. We have taken loads of pictures however I won't have enough time before dinner to download (dial-up to Kathmandu) today - I will try tomorrow as I don't think we will have many other opportunities to use the net. 

The weather has been hot during the day but very chilly at night (obviously) - we are looking forward to an acclimatisation day tomorrow which means a 4 hour trek up and back a nearby peak for our first look at Everest? - so we hope for clear skies. Food and drink has been great, we are both going vegetarian as there is no real way of keeping meat chilled in many spots - overall though we are very smelly, a bit tired but very excited about the the next couple of days, not least because we have worked out that our base camp day should be 10/10/10 - that has to be good luck!!