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Mt.Everest. I will get to see something of it

We boarded the bus to the airport from Lhasa heading back to Kathmandu, Nepal. The airport is about 65km away, on the nearest piece of flat-ish, dry-ish, land they could find. After a very expensive breakfast of dodgy boiled eggs, bad, wholy bread, and tea leaves with a bit of water with them, we got on the plane and started to head back south across the Tibetan platue. Although there was a layer of cloud under the plane we could see the tops of some of the taller mountains sticking out above the clouds. Unfortunately we were sat on the wrong side of the plane to be able to see the top of Mt. Everest and only caught a glimpse of it through the window, through lots of arms heads and cameras from everybody else trying to see the peak. We decided to book a mountain flight to go and see the Himalayas before Mum and Mark flew back home.

The next day after getting back to the hotel in Kathmandu we jumped on board a bus that took us out to Nuwakot, to the village that I taught at earlier in the year. It was still just as humid if not more, but may be the temperature had droppped a bit. Everything had grown up a lot in 2 and a half months, building projects had been completed, walls had collapsed becasue of the rains, but everything still looked the same. The children still remembered me, and so did some of the other villagers. It was a quick visit, but we got to see all of the sights, and a few new ones as well. The bus left  at 9:30am a couple of days later and we headed back to Katmandu.

Early the next morning, 4am, we woke up to catch a taxi for our Everest flight. Even though it said to be there at least 1 and ahalf hours before the flight, the gates didn't open until 1hour before, we could have had at least another half hour extra in bed. Unfortunately the was to much cloud cover and they had to cancel. Mum and Mark got refunds, as they were flying out that evening and I changed my flight for the next day, frustrating, but thats the monsoon and travel for you. Better luck next time.

 We headed for the airport with Mum and Marks bags slitely heavier, no, alot heavier than when they came with all of the things that I had accumulated over the last 7 and a half months that I didn't need anymore, warm clothes and souvenirs, and they headed off on there way back home.

The next morning I got up a bit later, and caught a taxi for the Everest flight. The cloud seemed to be lower and the  checkin man seemed more confident that the flight would go ahead. It did. We all boarded the very small plane and took off through the clouds and started flying along the edge of the Himalaya, passing some 7000 and 8000m plus mountains until we came accross Mt. Everest. From the distance that we were awau from the mountains you could still tell which was the tallest as it was a lot taller that the rest. It all seemed a bit surreal, and over very quickly. We were heading back to the airport and landed, like the Tera-cotter Warriors of Xi'an in China, it will take a while to settle in I think.

 So tomorrow I am heading off to the Annapurnas for a 16day trekk. The last night with Pizzas and soft ensuite beds for a while at least.

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