Hustle and bustle in Khumbu

The BBC team have paused en route to the camp

The BBC is retracing the footsteps of the 1953 Everest expedition as they made their way up to base camp in preparation for the first successful assault on the mountain's summit. BBC correspondent Jane Hughes is keeping a diary of her journey.

Day Three: Arrival in Namche Bazar, the main sherpa town

It's when you reach Namche Bazar you really begin to feel you've arrived in the Khumbu region over which Mount Everest towers.

The town looks tiny at first, teetering on the edge of a mountainside, almost medieval, with its steep, narrow paths and wooden houses.

But this is the trading capital of the area.

Several thousand people converge on the Saturday market, many of them walking for several days to get here.

Traders from Tibet bring their wares across the border and hotel and lodge owners from miles around come to stock up.

Arduous climb

It took the 1953 Everest expedition 17 days to get here from Kathmandu.

We, having flown as far up the valley as we could, made it in three days.

Even now, 50 years after Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's ascent of Everest put this area on the map, there are no roads.

Everything and everyone coming here does so on foot.

Some of us ascend a hill just above our campsite for our first clear glimpse of Everest, shrouded in early morning mist Day one of the climb

For our team, that meant an exhausting struggle up excruciatingly steep mountainsides, all of us gasping for breath in the thin air.

When Hillary, Tenzing and their colleagues got here, they were greeted by what the group leader John Hunt described as "a small deputation - relatives of our sherpas, waiting by the path with a barrel of milky coloured chang (local beer) and a large teapot of Tibetan tea".

These days, foreign visitors are less of a novelty and the only welcome we had was from a local tea shop we staggered into, serving a tempting array of chocolate cake, donuts and apple pie.

We were well over 3,000 metres above sea level and at least one of us was feeling the effects.

Altitude was a serious concern for the 1953 expedition, as it has been for every attempt on Everest since.

At this height, climbers are advised to stop, rest and acclimatise for a couple of days before continuing any higher.

John Hunt's team paused here in preparation for the striking of their first camp, and several weeks of altitude training, a few hundred metres up the valley.

There's so much less oxygen in the air that anyone who hasn't taken time to adapt risks potentially fatal brain swelling, or fluid in the lungs.

On the summit of Everest, there's just a third as much oxygen in their air as there is at sea level.

Someone parachuting up there without acclimatising would die within an hour.

Wondrous sight

Even at base camp, where we're heading, there's only half as much oxygen as we're used to, so we're taking no chances and have paused in Namche Bazar for three days.

After a night's rest, some of us ascend a hill just above our campsite for our first clear glimpse of Everest, shrouded in early morning mist.

The sight is almost as memorable and moving for me as it was for the 53 team.

"Suddenly, there was what we had been waiting to see," writes John Hunt.

"Everest, now real in its nearness, its summit soaring above the long snow-fringed ridge, picked out by a banner of cloud."

It may have looked close to him.

For us, gazing on its formidable slopes, it still seemed a terrifying distance. The same thought was in several of our minds.

"We've got to walk there," we said.