The Top of the World

We had no plans for our week in Kathmandu, but that all changed when an ambitious young man, Pramod, accosted us at the airport, drove us to our hotel, and convinced us to sign up for a series of activities. The Monkey Temple (see Jacquie's blog) was the first. This morning it was the Himalayas.

Pramod sent us a car at 5:30AM and we went back to the airport. It did not occur to us to bring our passports, since this was a local one-hour flight, but they accepted our claim to know our passport numbers, which we wrote down on their form, and off we went.

Well, not right away. We were all boarded, 19 of us for the 19 window seats of the turbo-prop. After a long preflight check and a gathering of a committee on the tarmac next to us (safety meeting!) they decided not to let the plane go due to an engine problem. We reloaded into our bus and waited another half hour while they found and prepared another plane.

I was in seat 1A, and on the first plane this seat had a slightly awkwardly placed window. Seat 2A had no window and thus no passenger. On the new plane, 1A had a small window but 2A had a normal one, so I moved back. I was the only true beneficiary of the change.

We finally took off about an hour late. Jacquie tried to call Pramod to let our waiting driver know about the delay but could only leave a text.

We were up next to the mountains in very little time, and the port-side passengers enjoyed the view for the first half of the trip. Great bonus - each if us got a chance to get a view from the cockpit! We were just making the mid-flight turnaround when it was my turn to go up front, so I got a fantastic look at Everest. You don't have to lose fingers and toes to see the Hillary Step up (fairly) close. The return trip was notably closer to the peaks, so I moved across the plane next to Jacquie for a review of all the same scenery.

Gauri Shanker, 7134m (23405ft)

Melungtse, 7161m (23560ft)

  
 

Not sure, but pretty!

Cho-oyu 8210m (26906ft)

The big one, Sagarmatha (Everest), 8848m (29028ft) and Lhotse 8516m (27940ft)

                                                                Everest panorama

Angkor Wat and the Taj Mahal were the two bucket list items on this vacation, and I was going to settle for being able to see any of these magnificent mountains. But to see Everest up close like this more than makes up for the foggy shroud around the Taj. What luck!