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We slept in and got woken by Devendra knocking on the door at 6.40. Another hearty breakfast of porridge while our clothes dried in the glorious morning sunshine. With the clear skies we could now see gleaming white snow peaks towering over us in all directions.

It was a lovely start to the day with a good, wide path gently ascending through pine trees and orchards. All three of us could walk side-by-side so we got a Nepali lesson from Devendra who was in a chatty mood. We learnt to describe the red and green apples which surrounded us and this conveniently lent itself to asking for green or red chillies (something along the lines of malai orio/ratu corsani dinuhos).

Inevitably, the path got narrower and steeper but we seem to be quite good going uphill as we overtook quite a lot of the people who left earlier than us - probably because we are travelling light and are still a bit nervous about the consequent lack of warm clothing. Certainly from the size of some others' packs, they have brought either a library of books, hair curlers or perhaps more sensibly lots of warm clothes and four season sleeping bags.

We reached the lunch stop early at 10.30am again having had some amazing views on the way. The scenery had changed again to much wider (glacial?) valleys. We really were now walking along the base of the Annapurna mountains. Lunch was a very pleasant long break, laying out on the sunny deck, drying clothes and relaxing. Drew tried the garlic soup rumoured to help coping with altitude (one of our fellow trekkers was a medical student and explained that this probably works the same way as Diamox by making your stomach more acidic, which prompts your body to hyperventilate very slightly and thus increases the oxygen level in your blood); it was very tasty too.

It was slightly hard to get going again with full bellies in the midday sun, but the afternoon walk to Lower Pisang was only about an hour and fairly gentle. Having dropped our bags in the very picturesque guest house (unfortunately at the top of a long, steep staircase) we went to have a look at Upper Pisang on the other side of the river. This involved a further 100m climb up more stairs surrounded by purple buds of cannabis and fields of corn. There were fantastic views over to Annapurna II looking very big and impressive with a huge glacier clearly visible. There was a beautiful monastery at the top with intricate paintings and carving.

On the way down we stopped with the others at a nice guest house with a balcony overlooking the valley for some tea; most pleasant. The friendly owner had obviously spent a lot of time in the kitchen with the smoke from the wood fire and had a growling voice which sounded like something from Star Wars.

We ordered more dal bhat for dinner and tsampa porridge for breakfast. Tsampa is made from roasted barley which is grown in the hills according to Devendra whereas oats are not grown locally and have to be portered in. We ate tsampa in Melamchigaon, but Sherpa people tend to eat it in the form of little balls which can be dipped in chilli sauce - used to make porridge it's a bit like Ready Brek.

Dal Bhat for dinner; 7 out of 10 - one curry, potato and cauliflower, unbelievably hot, small red chillies; prawn crackers rather bizarrely and nice pickled radishes. Huge seconds and thirds.

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