I personally am speaking English with the other American who is here with me. My other friends and teammates are from the Sherpa culture of Nepal. They speak both Nepali and Sherpa languages. I can also hear Indian people nearby speaking Hindi. I can also hear German being spoken by one or two others that I haven’t met.
The American dollar is always valued here. However, in the country of Nepal, the unit of money is officially the rupee.
There are no bottles of water for sale up here. In order to get water we have to walk away from our campsite to find clean snow, sometimes in ice-cold and windy weather. We then climb into our tents for warmth and melt the snow on noisy cook stoves. It takes a lot of work and time to get a full bottle of water. So, I guess you could say that a bottle of water is very expensive!
Our last meal before leaving for the upper mountain was a barbequed chicken dinner, mashed potatoes and some canned carrots. Delicious!