City comforts Nepalese villagers adapt to mountaineering boom

TENGBOCHE, Nepal -- Sting's "Brand New Day" plays in the background as some customers check their e-mail and others choose from a menu offering the likes of pasta, potato chips, Coke, canned beer and apple pie.

This busy restaurant is on the trail leading up to the base camp for the teams that try to climb Mount Everest.

Fifty years after New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay first conquered the world's highest peak, the path to the majestic mountain is a highway of trekkers, mountaineers and yak caravans.

Thousands have followed the footsteps of the first successful pair, reaching the base camp at 17,600 feet above sea level, although only about 1,200 have gone all the way to the 29,035-foot top.

The hardy Sherpa villagers who live in the Khumbu region around Everest have adapted swiftly to the boom in mountaineering.

These days, climbers are accompanied by many comforts of city life -- good food, alcohol, Internet connections and satellite telephone communications.

Shops are stocked with fruit juice, batteries, postcards, film and cigarette lighters. Restaurants with pool tables serve up an international array of dishes from small kitchens with firewood stoves. Small hotels, often with plywood partitions for rooms, dot the area.

Sherpa-owned restaurants serve Nepal's popular Rara brand noodles that have replaced traditional homemade varieties and traditional Tibetan "momos" with tuna filling instead of mutton or vegetables.

San Miguel beer, Coca-Cola, Pringles potato chips and an Internet cafe have even made their way to the Everest base camp itself.

In an area where educated people were rare until a few decades ago, English is now commonly spoken among the Sherpas, who also have learned an assortment of phrases from other languages.

"Welcome to my little shop," one Sherpa's painted sign proclaims.

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On the Net:

Official celebration site: http://www.mteverestgolden50.com

News about Everest from climbers: http://www.mounteverest.net