I slept poorly my second night in Kathmandu. There would be limited walking this day as we would spend it on a private bus to Besi Shar.

We watched Chhongba’s sons, Mingmar (L) and Pasang (R) on the top of our bus catch bags other sherpas and porters tossed up and said farewell to Leeli — sure wish she could join us. Our group posed for a photo taken by Pasang. That is him on the right side between Carolyn and Chhongba. I added him in later from a special photo I took of him in Besi Shar.

On the long ride to Besi Shar, we saw a Maoist rally and took a banana break. The bananas lasted many days culminating with a great porter-made banana pie. We saw the one crossroad after leaving Kathmandu, people doing wash in the river and children swimming. We arrived at our lunch buffet at 11AM just ahead of 4-5 large buses. That got us a good table and an early place in the buffet line. Beginning my trek-long interest in photographing kitchens, a young boy entertained me by tossing the mixed dish high in the air to “stir” it.

A 24-year-old kid, who looked 18, navigated our bus carrying 8 trekkers, 5 sherpas, and 6 porters along the narrow, dangerous dirt road to Besi Shar. Along the way we saw the remains of four crashes — our guess was most resulted in death — one off a bridge and upside down in a mostly-dry river, another a head-on crash, and so forth.

I got the “penthouse” — the top floor room next to the sherpas at the Mongolian Guest House. I spent the evening and early next morning photographing kids and families in Besi Shar — a town that looked like it could be in any of a number of third-world countries.

Dinner was a set meal with chicken, a very good spicy soup (it is rare to have good spicy food in Nepal), and chocolate pudding that was basically a hot chocolate drink. Outside the dining room was a chirping gecko.