As I sit down to write about the last few days, words seem to be failing me. It hasn’t quite sunk in yet. The last few weeks have been crazy overwhelming and still are, in my mind.
Act I
Scene 1
My chicken heart quivered and my lion dreams roared. I booked the tickets to Kathmandu. Only after I spent some money, my stubborn love for laziness freed me. I got up in the mornings and flexed my pulpy muscles. This time to the Everest basecamp! I better be fit!
Scene 2
‘Well’, laughed the devil.
Act II
Scene 1
6 weeks to go now.
I came back from the office with a slight itch in the throat. Big deal - I shrugged my shoulders. Next morning, I woke up with a burning fever twisting my body to all sorts of shapes. I succumbed to extreme viral fever!
You can’t afford sick leave when you have a long leave plan ahead. Or vice versa, I suppose! You can neither do any physical training when your body seems to tremble at every step. Yep, it was that bad! Two courses of antibiotics followed by a course of vitamins seemed to drive away the virus but left me with neither any energy nor any confidence.
Scene 2
4 weeks to go now.
One bright morning, the news declared that Nepal was seeing a huge political turmoil with GenZ burning buildings and making violent protests against corruption of the then existing government. Kathmandu was the centre of this protest.
My flight was to Kathmandu! Well, that was the only thing booked till then. I suppose I can cancel the tickets anytime!
Scene 3
2 weeks to go now.
Durga Puja celebrations started and my office work piqued to a new height. By this time, the virus had almost left my humble abode barring the jelly legs, the runny nose and the occasional coughs. I started a bit of prep again with a constant worry and a whine.
Scene 4
1 week to go now.
The North Face of Everest on the Tibet side saw an extreme blizzard. Almost 1000 people were trapped!
Unbelievable! In general, the weather worldwide has been very off this year. The Himalayas have been experiencing a lot more rain than usual. And this news hitting us just a week before our due travel date added to more worry.
Act III
Scene 1
Whatever happens, happens! Just keep breathing...one nostril at a time!
Scene 2
An overnight flight from Kolkata to Delhi and then an early morning flight from Delhi to Kathmandu landed safely in the capital of Nepal. The city looked calm, the sky looked blue, my nose was still runny but hey! We were in Kathmandu after all!
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| Outside Kolkata Airport |
Scene 3
All was not rosy yet though! We needed to make arrangements for further travels. With everything being very uncertain till date, nothing much was planned.
Airport Hussle :
Things were a bit chaotic. We wasted a lot of time getting drawn into conversations with local agents bargaining for air tickets. Finally, we went to the airport counters (which was a maze in itself!) and got us tickets from Ramechhap to Lukla. The general verdict was that flights from Ramechhap were more certain than the ones directly from Kathmandu at this time of the year. This meant we had to hire a car. After enquiring in the car park, we booked a car and then went to find money exchange counters. The counters inside the airport provide less conversion rates whilst the ones outside provide slightly better rates. In fact, the ones further inside the city give an exact conversion rate of 1.6 times to INR. I don’t quite know why such inconsistency exists inside a single city but anyhow!
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| Tamakoshi River.. on the way to Ramechhap |
We saw a car stuck in this road and our driver tried to get help for him from the nearby villages. This delayed our drive further. And after a long 7 hours we reached Ramecchap in the evening.
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| Towards Ramechhap... |
The world’s most dangerous flight (to Lukla) the next day... after which the leg work starts!
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