大象传媒

Namche Bazaar

• Ben
• 27 Mar 07, 01:52 PM

We’ve now been in Namche Bazaar for a couple of days. We’ve been doing a bit of filming, getting some shots of the incredible scenery. We’ve also been hacking (hiking?) up and down various hillsides in an effort to acclimatise to the altitude.

In between, we’ve had a chance to wander around Namche. It’s a Sherpa trading village, and the last place before Base Camp where we can stock up on vitals such as sun cream and, in Rob’s case, a cowboy hat to protect against the sun.

Every now and then we come across a Stupa, which is a Buddhist shrine. You have to go round these clockwise, which unfortunately in some cases means going quite a long way round.

Yesterday, through the middle of this, a line of about 20 porters came up the hill. In pairs they were carrying huge metal boxes on poles. Inside was Xtreme Everest’s consignment of liquid nitrogen, which will be used to freeze blood samples on Everest. It is too dangerous to fly it into Lukla, so it was carried on foot from a place called Jiri, seven day’s walk away.

Today, we did some time-lapse filming of the surroundings. Both days so far, cloud has rolled in and engulfed the village at about 4pm. We set up a camera to try to capture it. In the event, this meant standing outside in the middle of a cloud trying to persuade local children not to pull faces into the lens.

Incidentally, I saw a sign on the wall of a police hut the other day, which read: “Lost the time, cannot be resigned.” I’ve no idea what it means, but it sounds good so it has now become our production motto.