Mon 6/01/2014 04:38
The tour officially ended this morning, but there is still the majority of the group still together. About five of us decided to take a flight to see Mt. Everest. I normally would not have done a flight like this, but I really wanted a reference in my mind of what the mountain looked like. You know that it is the highest point in the world, and that many people have died trying to climb it, but do you have a mental image of what it looks like? I didn’t. We took off right at sunrise in a turboprop that fit about 20 passengers. Each of us had our own window and when we got close enough to see Everest the pilot let up come up and take some photos from the cockpit. A nice touch, but to be honest I’m still not completely sure what Everest looks like. I mean I saw what the flight attendant was pointing at, and I know I saw Everest, but we stayed far enough away that there were always other mountains almost at high in the view. You know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever had someone point out something in the distance,
“See that tree out there? Look to the left of it.”
“The one with the branch sticking out?”
“No. Not that one, the one that’s further back…”
You get the idea? Oh well, it was fun anyway.
After the flight ended, two of the group had to catch a flight to Thailand, and the remaining three of us headed back to the hotel to meet up with the remaining group. The rest of the day we just walked around the city checking out temples and taking photos of nearly everything around us. We even headed about 10 km outside of Kathmandu to see a medieval city. Not a huge amount of things to take photos of but still very interesting.
Kathmandu is really nice city. It’s got kind of the dirty feel of India, but without the hustle and bustle that can really tax a person after a few hours. There is a strong western presence here as well. The shops seem to fall into about three categories, souvenirs, trekking gear, and restaurants/coffee shops all of which has bee fun to see. About the only thing that I have to say that I don’t like here is weather, or maybe not the weather, but the cold. In the day it’s been sunny and warm, but at night it is really uncomfortably cold. Coming from Dubai it has been tough on my to get used to it, and honestly I don’t think that I could ever get used to it.
