Day 4 Namche to Khumjung - Neil goes down, Singing Lessons, and Horrible, Horrible Gas

Day 4 dawned with a relatively short walk ahead of us followed by a day and a half of rest. We geared up over a breakfast of eggs, our third gas-inducing breakfast in a row, and I learnt that Neil Sharland had actually pulled up pretty ill, and was struggling with a lack of appetite and general lethargy. News from the other camp was that Russell, Glen, and Blade had been the first to get amongst the runs on tour (geddit?), however Jamo trumped them all with his explosiveness off both the front and back foot.

We convened at the bottom of the stairs for the first Tenzing-Hillary challenge of the tour. A 'Porter Race' was taking place between Mike Preston and Dave Kirtley. It was pretty big of these guys to step up too this challenge as it wasn't in the initial plans and not everybody agreed with it. The night before we had been confronted with an issue from Mark Jordan that he wasn't getting any footage for the first news report. Tensions flared as there appeared to be a misalignment between what Mark's editor was looking for from the trip and what was actually happening. Picturing footage of people 'trekking at Everest', it seemed they were expecting us to drop like flies with altitude sickness to the backdrop of jagged snow-covered mountains. The first few days provided nothing but a bunch of relatively fit guys walking up tree-covered paths, and Mark was getting worried that he didn't have a story. Unfortunately this wasn't put forward in the best of manners nor at the best of times, eliciting what I thought was an over-reaction from the Tenzing guys to a guy who, when it boils down to it, was just trying to do his job (whether you agree - and I don't - with the questionable motives or not).

As a result, the 2 lads stepped bravely into the breach to race up a set of stairs (hard enough on it's own) with full Porters packs strapped to their heads, in order to satisfy the needs of the news channel we'd signed a contract with. Like clichéd Westerners on tours, we'd marvelled at the amount of weight the Porters were able to carry up the hill, many of them carrying huge loads of circa 30kg stacked into baskets that were strapped around their foreheads. I asked Dharma how long they could expect to do this for, expecting a response of 5 or 10 years before their bodies give way. 'For life' was the matter-of-fact response. The result of the race is still one that's up for debate. Mike was the clear leader before a stray elbow from Dave Kirtley knocked Mike's strap off. Mike crossed the line first but without his pack. Hillary claimed this made it ineligible. Counter-claim was made of misconduct, and I slipped off to buy a water bottle before the arguing bored me to death.

During the purchase of the water bottle, I got chatting to the lady tending the store. After mentioning we were off the Khumjung, she told me that she used to go to school there. 'What, you walked there every day?' - 'Yes. I go every schoolday for 10 years. At first it take over 2 hours. At the end 1 and a half' - This of course was the distance one-way. We had a good chat about the school and the fact that Sir Edmund Hillary built it and that we were visiting the school next day to teach the kids cricket and to donate some cricket equipment. She thought that was fantastic and thanked me for helping out the local community.

Energised and full of anticipation as to what lay ahead with the schools visit, I rejoined the bickering crowd to find both teams cheering mindlessly, with Wes pouring over video footage of the finish and declaring, unsurprisingly, that Mike was the winner. As we prepared to head off, it was announced that Kirt was to be given the first special award of the trip. Having unzipped his trouser-legs and left them at our lunchstop the previous day, Kirt was awarded a cowbell to wear for his stupidity, which he then left at the next stop. For this, he then had to strap the giant cowbell to his rucksack for the day, and the Dick of the Day award was born.

We set-off in groups that were mixed up between the 2 teams for the first time. Unfortunately I wound up behind Kirt and the gentle clanging of the bell sent me nuts within minutes. How anybody finds wind-charms nice to listen to is beyond my comprehension. It's just unmetred clanging of metal that's about as relaxing as a car-mechanics. Walking up, straight-up, a hill, I realised this climb was going to be much harder than I gave it credit for. 500 metres straight up in the space of about 90 minutes. This took an early toll with Mark Jordan getting his story as we suffered our first mountain casualty. To everybody's surprise, Neil Sharland - one of the fittest guys on the trip - had his vision blur over and Isla, one of the medics, couldn't find his radial pulse. He was laid down on a stretcher, a drip inserted, and it was decided he should stay back in Namche for another night. This process was, predictably, played out on ITV news that night. The sight of Neil's fresh-face in pain followed by his torso being exposed on the 6pm news led to a spate of calls to the switchboard to check on his health, as housewives across London wished him well.

Following this break I started struggling back up the hill, before one of the porters gave me some pretty simple walking advice - take small strides and keep your steps as straight as possible - and this assisted a great deal. Before long Kiwi and I were annoying anybody in-between us by shouting out Simpsons Trivia Questions and I was pretty pleased as to how I was faring compared to the rest of the group.

Once at morning tea we were treated to our first views of Everest, although by the time I got around too it, the small part of the summit that could be seen was virtually obscured by cloud. What followed was a gentle, uneventful, descent. So uneventful that Haydn and I didn't realise that we'd been lost, as we found our way to the teahouse before realising that we'd come a completely different way to everybody else. Lunch followed - at which point I decided to stop keeping a food count as we got given essentially the same thing for every single meal - before a bakery trip and some cricket in the town square with the locals. During the knockabout, I marked out the length of a pitch (22 yards) and ran a mock two. The run itself was fine but once I stopped I felt a bit dizzy and it took time to catch my breath.

Over dinner it was announced that Neil was recovering and should be back with us the following day. It was then also announced that a decision had been made to only take 12 people to the school the next day. My heart immediately sank. It was then mentioned that it would be weighted towards Tenzing and people who were out playing with the kids. My hopes raised. They were then dashed as the final name was read out. I was already feeling pretty ordinary with a stomach issue and general tiredness and this announcement compounded it and sent me into my shell. I became fairly ponderous as my guts churned and I contemplated how gutted I actually was to miss out on such an opportunity. At this stage George stood up and said he'd just about got to everybody bar 1 or 2 people and put their photo up on the website. One of those people was me and it further exacerbated the persecution complex that I'd got myself into.

A mixture of that disappointment and not feeling 100% health-wise meant I stood back for alot of the rehearsals for the following evenings Karaoke contest. To be fair it was probably beneficial, as is generally the case with 15 alpha males, everybody wanted to be in control, resulting in a lot of talking and instructing and very little listening. I still managed to suggest a team shout-a-long to Living on a Prayer as one of our songs, and an off-the-cuff remark to Blinky and Mike to perform a pre-contest Haka turned into Mike giving us a quick rendition. This made us all genuinely scared and soon the idea caught on and this was to be our 3rd 'song' for the evening.

Throughout the rehearsals, Wes noted that I wasn't myself, and also that my stomach was producing far too much wind (and that of which stunk like really bad meat or really good cheese). Hilariously, I then had to explain to ALL FOUR doctors - who were in a room at once - that my farting was so bad and so frequent that I had to see a doctor. Breck diagnosed early-stage diarrhoea and suggested I had some medication on hand.