The Peak of Our Trip

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Our hopes of carrying home a piece of Mt. Everest were dashed by a $6000 helicopter ride from Kathmandu to the World’s highest peak. While I had done enough due diligence before leaving home to know that there was a hotel at the base of Everest, I mistakenly forgot to determine the cost of reaching it. As I sat reading the concierge’s email two days before leaving China, I seriously considered pulling the trigger. Only after the little angel and devil on my shoulders battled it out for a few hours did I reluctantly decide the fiscal impact didn’t justify the gain at this point in our lives. Instead, we had to settle for a scenic flight along the Himalayas.

Arriving into the chaos of Kathmandu on Friday, Gina and I opted to waste little time in attempting to see Everest. The concierge with whom I’d been corresponding promptly introduced himself at check-in and inquired about our decision between the $6000 jaunt and the scenic flight. After confirming that we weren’t rock stars, heirs to a throne or otherwise independently wealthy, the concierge began making calls to confirm seats on an early morning scenic flight. Due to the unpredictable weather around the Himalayas and tendency for turbulence as the air temperature rises throughout the day, we were advised that our flight departed Kathmandu airport at 7:00AM and transportation would be provided.

Task complete, Gina and I headed to our hotel room and deposited our luggage before returning to the lobby, where the concierge promised to meet us to arrange transportation to the health clinic for our last hepatitis inoculation. Naturally, he went on his lunch break instead. As we sat in the lobby while the receptionist unsuccessfully attempted to hail him on his cell phone, Gina and I began flipping through the local newspaper to see what constituted news in Nepal. Forty minutes later, the concierge reappeared and promised that a taxi would arrive within the next half hour for our across town trip. Disgruntled, but at the mercy of inefficiency, Gina and I strolled the hotel grounds killing time until a beat up blue van appeared ten minutes later than expected.

Fresh from our fleecing at the airport, I insisted the concierge ask the driver how much the trip would cost us. After a back-and-forth in Nepali between the two, the concierge advised us the fare would be 500 rupees roundtrip. Satisfied, Gina and I climbed aboard for the short ride down the hotel’s driveway, where the driver pulled aside and climbed out as another unknown man climbed in to assume his position. Confused and unnerved, Gina and I exchanged a look of should we be doing this?

The substitute driver miraculously fought, what we would come to find out was, the routine Kathmandu traffic jam of yaks, goats, cars, children, stray dogs, burning trash, street vendors, buses, trucks and bicycles for the next hour as we crossed town to the clinic - where the German secretary ensured our welcome was less than enthusiastic. Prior to arriving in Nepal, I had the hotel’s concierge contact the clinic to verify the availability of our vaccines and again reaffirmed it in person while filling out the mandatory health questionnaires at reception. After a short wait in the lobby, the triage nurse greeted us, scrutinized our rudimentary charts and disappeared to prepare the vaccines. It wasn’t until she motioned us into her dimly lit examination room that she divulged the clinic had sold one of its last two shots of Twinrix that morning. Disappointed, but unwilling to leave empty handed, I insisted Gina take the shot. She hemmed and hawed for a few minutes, as the nurse looked on, before grudgingly accepting the jab.

On a recommendation from our nurse at Northwestern University Hospital in Chicago, we anticipated an acceptable standard of care at the Kathmandu clinic. While the missing inoculation was an inconvenience, we didn’t truly understand the loose definition of health care in the Third World until we met with a doctor to have one of Gina’s prescriptions refilled. Having read that Nepal has no set laws on prescription drugs, we shied away from approaching a local chemist and instead paid $50 to consult a Western doctor. After explaining our need, the British-trained doctor excused himself to cross-reference the American name brand drug and returned five minutes later with a packet of pills. The doctor then explained that the drugs he had were the Indian equivalent, reverse engineered in violation of American patent law, and should be the same chemical compound. Immediately detecting some hesitation in his voice, I inquired on the drug’s efficacy to which he responded, “We try to use reputable pharmacies, but I can’t guarantee the drugs.”

Needless to say, we weren’t reassured and pressed further, “How do you know those aren’t sugar or poison?”

“I don’t and would suggest you discontinue use if there are any adverse side effects,” he advised.

No shit Sherlock.

Not a vital prescription, we decided to purchase the pills at one tenth the price of the American name brand and headed back to the Le Meridien. During our one hour return trip to the hotel, Gina and I convinced ourselves the job of driving us across town had been subcontracted.

By the time we arrived back to the hotel, the sun was already starting to set. On our walk through the inner courtyard adjacent to the lobby, Gina spotted a monkey acrobatically walking along the building’s roof pitch. “MONKEY,” she shouted in elation while vigorously pointing skyward.

The monkey immediately disappeared and Gina began to pout. After some reassurance that we’d surely see more during our stay in Nepal and that we didn’t need to stalk the one on the roof, I finally got Gina moving toward the room. Less than five seconds inside, she had her face pressed to the glass of the door, scanning for more primates. Concentrating on a blog entry, I would have surely missed Gina’s “Holy Shit!” had it not been for the piercing nature of her shrill.

“What?” I inquired half-heartedly, while making my way to the door.

Finally catching a glimpse of what Gina was watching, I stood dumbfounded as no less than twenty monkeys ran back and forth across the courtyard, some carrying juvenile offspring on their backs. The clever creatures appeared to have stolen a box of cookies from a guest’s balcony and were fighting one another for the pleasure of ripping it open. Eager to snap some photos of the animal antics, Gina decided it was a wise idea to open the balcony door and step outside. Thankfully, there wasn’t a repeat of the Japanese deer incident.

Too giddy about the prospect of seeing Mt. Everest to retire early, we struggled to pull ourselves from the sheets at 5AM the next morning. Half expecting a bona fide tourist bus, half expecting a beat up jalopy, we were surprised to see two well-dressed men pull up in a Land Rover to shuttle us to the airport. After some small talk with the chauffeurs, our attention turned to the early morning Kathmandu street scene. Evidently, most residents wake early as the street was already bustling with activity. I marveled at the man whose job I gathered was shoveling other people’s trash from the streets into a horse-drawn carriage. And I thought my job sucked. Then out of the corner of my eye, I caught another man slaughtering a goat by stabbing it in the neck - thankfully, Gina didn’t see. It dawned on me that the simple things that are usually hidden from mass consumption in American society smack you center in the face in Nepal.

The drive lasted no longer than thirty minutes and terminated in the airport’s commuter terminal parking lot. One of the two men in the front of the Land Rover instructed us to wait by the vehicle while he retrieved our tickets. We stood and watched as he walked across the parking lot and approached another man who initially rebuffed him. Puzzled by the dynamic, I pointed out the shadiness of the situation to Gina. A few minutes passed before we decided to approach the man and inquire about our tickets. “What’s wrong?” I probed.

“Nothing. One minute,” the chauffer retorted while exchanging hurried sentences of Nepali with the other man.

About this time, a group of tourists disembarked a nearby bus and began parading past, each retrieving a boarding pass from the indifferent representative. “This is bullshit,” I mumbled to Gina, who had lost her patience by this point.

“You should have just booked it with the airline direct,” she snapped, turning her frustration toward me.

Suddenly the representative acquiesced and motioned for me and Gina to follow him into the terminal. “Give me 180 rupees,” the man nonchalantly ordered.

“What for?” I asked passively, not wanting to undermine our chances of getting on the flight.

“Airport tax,” he grinned.

Untrusting, Gina decided to stake a flag, “Don’t give him any money!”

“He said it was a departure tax. If we don’t pay it, we’re not going on the flight,” I answered, not wanting to start a fight.

“Then why did he just put the money into his pocket?” Gina snapped back sardonically.

“I have no idea. I just want to see Everest and this guy has our tickets,” I replied with finality, again not wanting the situation to snowball into a disagreement.

I handed over the money, assuming that I was being exploited, and watched as the representative approached the Buddha Air counter to retrieve our boarding passes. “Enjoy your flight,” he wryly instructed us.

Tensions high, Gina and I avoided conversation until boarding time neared. We excitedly watched the 6:30AM scenic flight departure and felt the friction between us ease. As the clock slowly ticked closer to 7:00AM, an announcement over the PA system advised that, “Buddha Air regrets to announce the delay of flight 201, 202, 301 to the mountain until 7:30AM. Any inconvenience to the traveler is highly regrettable.”

One delay turned into three before an announcement cast the final blow, “Buddha Air regrets to announce the cancellation of all flights to the mountain due to weather. Any inconvenience to the traveler is highly regrettable.”

Gina and I exchanged a look of it figures before making our way back to Buddha Air ticket counter, where we recognized the parking lot representative who had taken our 180 rupees. Astonishingly, the man pulled the wad of cash from his pocket and handed it back to me without incident. While the cancellation was heartbreaking, Gina and I figured we’d make another attempt sometime during the next three days.

Two days later, we repeated the ordeal with success. As the 17-seat twin-propeller plane climbed out of Kathmandu Valley, the grandeur of the Himalayas rose from the horizon. The sheer magnitude of the mountain range is awe inspiring. To our surprise, the stewardess called each passenger to the cockpit, one-by-one, to snap photos out of the polarized wind screen. Luckily, my turn coincided with our turnaround point - Mt. Everest.

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Photos

Unbelievable...
Mt. Everest in all of its grandeur!

Smoking The Hookah
Cough, Cough, Cough