It was another exciting day, the second day of our Everest base camp trek. Despite the downpour all night the previous night, we were hoping that the weather would be clear in Lukla and we would be able to land. We were at the airport by 530 am. Our flight was announced at 615 am and we were thrilled. With all the rain, we were worried if the flight would take off at all! The boarding was complete in 5 minutes and the flight took off in the next 2 minutes; with just 17 seats, the flight was ready to take off much before you settle down in your seat. There is no overhead storage and passengers can view the control panels in the cockpit from their seats. If you are on the seat right next to the cockpit, the pilots point out some key peaks as well. The plane ascends to about 10000 feet on the flight route. One can see several snow capped peaks on the left raising above the clouds. It’s a surreal view, beautiful cumulus clouds and snow capped peaks reflecting the sun’s rays, it finally dawned on us that we were indeed on the Everest Base Camp trek.
In about 35 odd minutes, you realize why it’s one of the most dangerous airports in the world; the plane goes between mountain peaks and right into valleys. And suddenly, there is a short runway strip, just 460 meters in length, one tenth of a typical runway length. If a pilot mis judges the landing (or takeoff), it is a fall of about 9000 feet down the cliff. The flight lands and we are thrilled; we finally landed in Lukla. Victory on the first leg!
We spend a couple of hours in Lukla walking around the place, just to get used to the higher altitude of 2860 meters. Lukla, in the Khumbu region of Nepal, is an important base for trekkers in the Himalayan region of Nepal. Interestingly, Lukla means land of many goats, but we hardly saw any. The market area had several shops selling gear for trekkers. Interestingly, we found a Lukla version of Starbucks as well!!
We had some tea and started out to Phakding, which was our halt for the night. The altitude at Phakding was 2586 meters; we were following the golden rule of climbing, climb high and sleep low. At the police check post in Lukla, we had to show our permits. The trek to Phakding was about 7.5 kilometers and was going to take us about 3 to 4 hours. It was a comfortable trek with several ascents and descents. We passed beautiful waterfalls, densely forested areas and vast grasslands.
We crossed our first suspension bridge in about an hour since we started off from Lukla. The suspension bridges are interesting, they sway as one walks on it but are very sturdy and made of steel. Most of them are festooned with prayer flags and we knew we would cross several of them as we walked along the Dudh Kosi river.
There were several stupas with prayer wheels and mani walls on the way. It is important to cross these stupas and prayer walls from the left; its a custom observed by the local Nepalese as is considered auspicious to do so.
We stopped at a place called Ghat, in the Solukhumbu region for lunch. Lunch consisted of Garlic soup and Dal Bhat (rice with lentil stew), which is the staple food in the region. Garlic soup helps keep the body warm and cope with the altitude.
After a sumptuous lunch, we started our trek and reached Phakding at about 3 pm, we had to deal with rain on the way but it was not all that heavy. We reached our first tea house, a place called Beer Garden, we were impressed with a clean room and an attached bathroom. It had started raining heavily by now and was getting cold too. We could see trekkers huddled in the dining area. The dinner again consisted of garlic soup and Dal Bhat. We were told it was a good idea to avoid meat as it had to be transported from Kathmandu and often it took several days for transportation. It was an early dinner and early to bed. It was windy outside and raining heavily; the glass windows were rattling in the wind and the single tungsten filament bulb kept flickering. We used our sleeping bags on the bed to keep ourselves warm. The next day was going to be a tough day of trekking, almost 7 to 8 hours of walking up and down the mountains, would take us to Namche Bazaar.
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