5 September, 2013 – Lukla Flight By Helicopter

Today was interesting.  We woke up around 4:45 to catch the first flight out of Kathmandu to Lukla (the most dangerous airport in the world – Rumor has it).  We knew there was a chance we wouldn’t fly due to poor weather conditions, so we waited in the airport for about 5 hours before deciding to take a helicopter instead.  But as we were about to pay for the helicopter, another group of tourist said they cancelled all helicopter flights as well, but our guide told us we were flying.  The tourist went crazy, they said they haven’t been able to fly out for 3 days and now we were kicking them out of their helicopter.  They started yelling at the poor Nepalese guy who had no clue as to what was happening, then our guide started rushing us to follow one of the helicopter employees, then the other tourist started following us (still screaming and asking us questions like how much did you pay? where are you going? Why are you taking our helicopter?).  It was a cluster F*%K!

Bad weather in Lukla

Hiking trail

The 6 of us jumped in the back of a pick-up truck (Me, Eleni, Tom, our guide Chiri, and 2 random Singaporean dudes – who we’ve now hiked with all day and are very nice guys).  But since the airport in Lukla was closed, we had to land about a 2 hr hike further away from our destination.  We started hiking around 3 pm and arrived at 8 pm.  We had to hike the last hour in darkness with our headlamps on.  It was a little scary, but also peaceful.  One of the Singaporean dudes took a tumble and banged both of his knees.  Our guide had to bandage him up.  Oh, I forgot to describe the helicopter ride. It was spectacular. The country side was incredibly green, a lot of forests mixed with farms along the mountains.  Our pilot took us through incredible valleys and we got to see several waterfalls and rivers.  Tons of small houses everywhere with no roads connecting them, only trails for people to walk on.

Our group on the way to Phakding

The hike today was tough.  We didn’t get a great lunch at the airport, we’ve all had trouble sleeping, and we didn’t get any long breaks.  We just went 5 straight hours.  Tomorrow should be easier…hopefully!