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Published: August 4th 2013
While people at home were still celebrating Canada day into the wee hours of the morning, we woke up to our 4:30 am alarms. There is good reason for this, though. Today was the day we were going to see Mount Everest!!! I'm sure that you're wondering about how we could do the trek from Kathmandu to Everest in a mere day. Well, we flew. Unfortunately it's not as cool as doing the Everest Basecamp trek... But seeing Everest from a plane is almost as cool.
A whole group of us staying at the hotel (Elysia, Mike, Nasrin, and the Ottawa guys: Erik, Katie, MJ and Pauline) got a van to the airport at 5:15 am for our 6:30 mountain flight. It cost $150 USD but it was probably the best money I've ever spent! Well worth it!!
The flight was a small plane operated by Simrik Airlines. They usually do a few mountain flights in the morning before their regular scheduled domestic flights start around 10. The plane fits about 16 people and everyone gets a window seat, which is awesome!
We were super worried that the flight wasn't going to go. Again, because of the monsoon
season, it can be difficult to see the mountains. In the morning, before the mountain flight, they usually send up a plane to check out the view. If its too cloudy, the planes won't go so you either get your money back or you can try for the next day. We wanted to make sure we had a good day before we left Nepal, so we did the flight on Tuesday which would leave us with three more chances to go if it didn't work out today. Thankfully, we had the most perfect day for this flight that we could possibly ask for!! We were in the air just as the sun was about finished rising and there were clouds, but they were low so we could see all the mountain peaks with yellow and blue skies. Just amazing!!'
The flight was only an hour long and it basically goes out to Mount Everest and comes back, just along the Himalayan mountain chain. Unfortunately, it flies over the valley and not through the mountains so then view is really on one side of the plane. With mountains reaching nearly 9,000 m into the sky, it's definitely the better choice
to avoid flying over the mountains. Elysia sat on the left side of the plane and Mike sat on the right. We had assigned seats, but we had heard that the view is better on the right and I would agree. Coming back, when the mountains are on the right side, you get much closer to the mountains so there's a better view. It's still an amazing view sitting on the left.
At some point during the flight as we were approaching Mount Everest, they let us go up and look out the cockpit. That was so cool!! Elysia, already ecstatic about getting to see a perfect view of the snow-capped mountains, got an amazing panoramic view because her turn to go up was just as the plane got the closest to Mount Everest and began to turn. It was amazing!!! The pilots don't realize just how amazing their job is. Elysia even told them that when she went up there. One of the pilots took her camera from her and took close up photos of the mountain too. They do this flight about 3 times per day, everyday. The pictures don't do justice to the amazing scenery, but
On the plane
L-R: Elysia, Nasrin, Mike, Pauline, Katie, MJwe'll let them speak for themselves.
After the flight, we headed back to the hotel for the free breakfast and then Elysia and the medical students headed off to the hospital. There's a lot of volunteers at the hospital now, people that have just started their volunteer shifts. Not too much happened in the afternoon, so Elysia went back to the hotel around 3:00pm so that Mike didn't have to sit at the hotel all day alone (well he has been busy trying to update this blog!).
In the evening we got together with the whole group, now including some of our classmates from the Mississauga campus of our med school, and went out to OR2K for dinner. It's good, but I hate going to the same place too many times and this is Nepal — so this will be the last time we'll go there on this trip. It's really hard for the guys to sit on the floor there!
One of the ways we enjoy ourselves at OR2k (I need to document this) is watching people go into the restroom. Okay, it's not as weird as it sounds. You see, there are two
washrooms at the restaurant and they are in plain view of the eating area (well, they have doors, but you can see the entrance to them). The washroom on the left has what we would call a 'normal' toilet, but its not a great one, as it is often in need of cleaning (because it is used much more than the other one). The washroom on the left has an Asian 'squatter' toilet (or, as we would colloquially call them, a 'hole'😉. Because this restaurant is frequented by travellers, most of whom are from Europe, North America or Down Under, there is a distinct preference amongst the group for 'normal' toilets. You know how you go into a bathroom and find that a toilet is not up to your standards, so you move on to the next one? Well, that's what happened all the time here, and we found it hilarious to watch the people's reactions. Inevitably, something like this would happen: 1 - Person approaches left washroom; 2 - Person notices that left washroom is messy and so moves on to the right washroom; 3 - Person sees that right washroom is a 'hole' or 'squatter' toilet; 4 -
Person emerges immediately from right washroom with a look of sheer and utter disappointment on his or her face; 5 - Person goes back into left washroom and toughs it out. The looks on the peoples faces were always hilarious and it would make us laugh everytime. It goes without saying that our group usually avoided the washroom altogether — save it for the hotel!
After dinner we went to sit on the roof of the hotel (by our room) with some of the other med student volunteers (Nasrin, Erik, and Alissa who is also from U of T) and lit some candles (and a mosquito coil) and drank some Everest beer and just looked out over the somewhat peaceful Kathmandu and all it's lights. A great day, and a peaceful evening!
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