My knees are stiff , my hips protest and my elbows hurt. Oh my back doesn’t really want to know about me anymore either. I’ve been walking for almost eight hours, thousand meters down then four hundred up again at the end of the day all over a distance of about twenty kilometres. I’m in Cheplung where the main trail between Namche and Lukla splits and heads towards Jiri. The weather has been good today with plenty of sunshine but also a lot of wind blowing sand and dried donkey shit every where. Today is also the day of the High Season tourist rush I counted over five hundred trekkers heading for Namche and at least as many donkeys to bring in supplies. In amongst all that there are Yaks, Nepali and the odd independent trekker like me fighting his or her way down to get the hell out. Personally I detest the donkey trains they defecate everywhere and make the trail smell like a public toilet. They act like moving road blocks and at one stage I had to wait for twenty minutes while beast after beast crossed a suspension bridge. They make for a cute picture but if they all disappeared tomorrow that would be just fine with me.