We're finally gaining some altitude - about 3000m - and the mornings are starting to get cold. The porters, wanting to save money, have bivvied out in a nearby cave and must now be suffering.

Road menders on the trail Photo (c) Tom Padgham 1998

The trail is easy and beautiful as it weaves up the valley, often crossing the roaring Rolwaling Chuu on dramatic cable bridges. The valley sides run steeply from the river straight up to the peaks at the sides up to 4000m above. We walk through picturesque autumnal woodland, and by the time we have stopped for lunch it is agreeably warm and sunny.

As always, there are gaps and landslides in the trail. At one point, we are struggling along a steep, overgrown part when voices above call to us. A 'road gang' is building a new bit of trail higher up. There are about twenty men with simple picks and a collection plate.

Around each corner awaits some awesome sight, be it distant towering himal, dramatic waterfalls, vast gritstone slabs or Tom's legs. We arrive in the sherpa town of Beding in the early afternoon. It is a jumbled cluster of brighly-painted houses running right from the river bank up the valley sides.

On the way in, the path runs across the courtyard of the village temple, where a sort of parish council meeting is in progress. It seems that a new water supply has been installed somewhere in the town, greatly reducing the distance several locals have to walk for water. However, one house owner has decided that it's too far from his house and too close to his neighbour and rival. To remedy this situation, he had severed the pipe and started the argument we are now witnessing. The debate grows heated, and soon descends into stone-throwing.

The Sherpa village of Beding Photo (c) Tom Padghem 1998

Kami finds us some accommodation, and we pitch the tents on some freshly ploughed potato fields, a favorite yak hangout. These gigantic shaggy creatures with long sharp horns look intimidating but turn out to be timid and harmless, although they keep stepping on the tent pegs.