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Lukla

We had reached Lukla a day earlier than planned, i.e. on May 30th. That afternoon we visited Tashi at the gompa in Lukla where he was busy preparing for an upcoming festival.

The gompa in Lukla

With Tashi Sherpa at the monastery

Masks for the upcoming festival in the gompa's store room

Junior monks making display items out of dough

Kathmandu, we have a problem

There is an interesting system (or lack thereof) for actually getting on a flight out of Lukla. Of course, you must have a reservation but that's just for starters. There is a complex system of patronage between lodge owners and the airline staff which determines which flight in the day you actually get scheduled on. When the weather is reliable, this is not so important but when it isn't, it's much more likely that you will get out if you're scheduled on an early morning flight.

On the 31st, we were scheduled for the 11th flight of the day but only 4 flights actually made it. Of course, our original reservation was for the 1st so this did not throw us off too much. Now, there's absolutely nothing to do in Lukla so we were very much looking forward to getting out on the 1st, which was our original schedule. For reasons unknown, we were placed on the 12th flight for that day despite having a reservation for 9 AM. We spent the entire day at the airport watching flights come and go but by the time the 11th flight for the day departed, we feared the worst. The 12th flight never showed up and we were stuck for at least another day. All around were folks who had spent several days in Lukla and we were now joining their ranks. Strangely, the airline staff makes no attempt to get stranded passengers out. If anything, they place them on later flights in the day making your chances of actually getting out get worse with each passing day.

On the 2nd, there were absolutely no flights in (and hence out of) Lukla. Helicopters were, however, flying. Since the walk from Lukla to the nearest road takes three days and our flight out was on the 5th, we were starting to panic. It's fair to say that the 2nd of June was quite stressful - the cell phone networks were dreadful and so we were at the mercy of the lodge owner to come up with an alternate arrangement. Eventually, he was able to charter a helicopter for us from Kathmandu but only after I had paid a princely sum to a random airport employee... Welcome to the third world!

To cut a long story short, as the helicopter neared Lukla, the weather packed up with a vengeance. The ground staffer suggested that the helicopter could land at Chaurikharkha, about 30 min back down the trail where the weather was better. With bags and all we began a frantic rush to the helipad, back down the EBC trail! Out of nowhere, Pemba reappeared and was quickly pressed into service. Finally at about 5.30 PM, the helicopter showed up, but of course, the weather in Lukla had cleared up by this point so it went there for fuel. It then landed in Chaurikharka and picked us up and off we went to Kathmandu.

Of course, the helicopter ride was thrilling. It was a huge relief to be getting out. We couldn't wait to get back to the apartment in Kathmandu, take three showers in a row, and eat some 'home-cooked' food. Fortunately, there were no more hiccups and we were back in the very comfortable Retreat Serviced Apartments by late evening.

Around Kathmandu

We had nearly three days to decompress in Kathmandu. Given that some of us were nursing colds and a cough, we were somewhat reluctant to step out into the rather polluted streets. We did however visit Swayambhunath Temple, Bhaktapur and Pashupathinath Temple.

A couple of photographs to close out this post and our trip.