Over the
rivers and through the woods, pizza and beer and momos and moonshine…thus ended
my month in the Himalayas.
6 days
earlier. Blaze and I walked through the
Lukla arch and finished out trek. We hugged. It had been 13 exciting days since
we walked through the other way. We found the Danish guy (we called him “The
Danish Guy” for two weeks until we learned that his father named him Joe Sony after
the boxers – “Fuck my father”), drank beer, played pool, ate dal bhat and went
to bed, ready to get on a standby flight the next morning. I woke up sick and
we didn’t fly out despite decent weather though the Danish Guy, who got stoned
and slept in somehow got on the last flight. We were disappointed and the next
night we spent playing pool, pathetically, alone, in the same bar. But we’d get
out the next day.
We had
arrived 3 days before my scheduled flight, so the plan was to get waitlisted
and fly out after everyone else. The Lukla airport is considered among the most
dangerous airports in the world, owing to the 12% grade of the runway and
notoriously bad weather. Tara Air was run from the back of an envelope without
concern for customer service. Blaze had rescheduled his flight for two days
before mine and although I had planned the itinerary, I didn’t think I really
needed to change my flight. Bad call. I would go to their office at 2:30 and
they would write my name down and say come back at four for more information.
At four, if they hadn’t locked up early, they would say Come tomorrow at 8:15.
Come at 9:15. Come at 10. It never mattered. I tried for 5 days to get on a
plane but only 2 days worth of planes got. The day of my actual ticket, my
fourth morning, I couldn’t see the runway 50 feet from my window.
After our
pathetic night, Blaze got on his scheduled flight and caught his connecting
flight the next day to Kuala Lampur. While he was staying in a 4-star hotel
with a pool on the roof, I was the only guy in my large guest house despite its
proximity to the airport and the influx of trekkers. Somebody knew something I
didn’t…
The next
four days followed the same pattern – bad news and rude airline workers, aimless
wandering to coffee shops, veggie burgers, internet, cards, watching movies and
trying to keep a smile on our face so we didn’t start crying from boredom and
helplessness. We would sit around until 6:30 when I went back to eat and go to
bed.
In India
I realized the importance of keeping myself in good positions of leverage so
people would rip me off less. We didn’t have it. Our options were: 1. Wait an
indefinite period of time for a new flight with no accurate weather report and
more people competing for my seat with each passing foggy day. Additionally,
the Everest climbing season was wrapping up and Lukla was about to be inundated
with climbers coming from base camp. 2. Pay $500 more for a helicopter ride to
Kathmandu. Helicopters are also weather dependent, of course, though better
than planes. However, two people had recently died on Everest and several more
died in an avalanche on Kanchenjunga so helicopters were scarce. 3. Trek 3-6 days
to Jiri, take a bus for 7 hours on paved road. 4. Trek 2-3 days to Phaplu, take
a jeep for 13-23 hours on unpaved roads.
On day 6
in Lukla myself and guys from Victoria and Portugal were prepared to take the
fourth option. Last minute we learned that we could walk 45 minutes, pay $400
to fly to Jiri and take the bus. Now, $400 may seem like a lot of money for a
45 minute flight but when it’s that or staring down another week in Lukla it was
a relatively easy decision, especially knowing we were flying in this: a 24
seat Russian cargo chopper. We were about to eat our last veggie burgers
waiting for the fog to clear when a kid from the tour company ran in and told
us to go so we ate our burgers walking down the street.
This
massive machine was parked on field in a serene village below Lukla and the fog
bank. The flight was fine. We flew over rivers and valleys and uncountable
terraced fields, covering 6 days in less than an hour. The bus covered the type
same landscape, just slower. The drive was up and down on a single-lane paved
road, often through rain and white out fog, slamming on the brakes around wet
corners to negotiate the road with dump trucks. Leeches snuck onto the bus on
the American tour groups’ shoes, we stopped twice for a man to vomit on the side
of the road. It was nerve-racking. But we made it. And after Lukla, everything
in Kathmandu is magical.
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| Monks playing giant horns. I could play that! |
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| Looking through the village at our escape |
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| Across potato fields |
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| Mi-8amt |
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| Hahaha! |
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| Bags packed in the aisles to eye level. They told us to stop taking pictures so we figured this was illegal. The guy in charge looked especially happy when we landed, like he was nervous we wouldn't... |
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