Cities upon a hill, part one

Namche Bazaar, elevation around 12,000', in the Himalaya.  According to wikiped, it had a (permanent?) population of 1,647 as of 2001.  And at any given time in the season, I wouldn't be surprised if there were about that many tourists as well.  Or more.

Namche is the gateway to the upper Khumbu, the reward atop the first major climb and the most comfortable place to take a few acclimatization days.  Pretty much all of those buildings are large, relatively (relatively) posh lodges.  The rest are bars (AC/DC on a loop!), bakeries (ubiquitous!  a Nepalese predilection?  pandering to tourists? regardless, sources of amazing deliciousness, especially considering the difficulties of cooking at altitude), and random amenities (banks, gear shops, bookstores, roughly a bajillion gift shops, etc.).  We spent two days here; playing asshole & hearts over baked goods and learning to play Settlers of Catan in het Nederlands.  

The tail end of the monsoon was still beating us with near-constant rain, but every now and again the clouds would lift a little bit and give us some of our first mountain views.  This was taken on our short little acclimatization hike, from near the Syanboche Airport (used for evacs, supply runs, and the very, very rich) on the hill behind the village.