Saturday, March 1, 2008

From the lowest point on earth to the highest!

So this morning I treated myself to quite a unique little adventure…I took a “mountain” flight here in Nepal up over the Himalayas.
For the past week the weather here in Kathmandu has been beautiful (of course it’s beautiful when I am trapped inside typing away at a proposal 15 hours a day!), so I was hoping to wake up this morning, at 5:45am mind you, to a nice, bright day. What I got instead was a lot of fog settling on top of Kathmandu valley. So I arrive at the airport at 6:30am for my 7:30am flight…I finally got on the plane at 10am! Breaking through the fog layer is absolutely amazing, the Himalayas just appear and go for as far as you can see.
I do have to say though, I was a little disappointed with this flight - it does not actually go into the Himalayas, we were probably about 100 miles from the mountains. And the crowning jewel – Mount Everest – is really far away! I guess if I had thought about it enough I would have realized we weren’t going to just fly up and into the mountain range, my expectations were too high! I also got the short end of the stick with my seat assignment - right over the propeller! So for the entire flight my view was partly blocked. Poor me.
Regardless, it was pretty cool. And now I can say that in one trip I have been to the lowest point on earth and the highest!
After my flight I went to Bodhnath Stupa, the largest Buddhist temple in Nepal. I was here last year as well and really loved it. It didn’t fail me this year either!
Tomorrow I head out west to Nepalganj, along the border with India. Phanindra (IRD Nepal Country Manager) and I are going to try to collect some data on the Internally Displaced Populations.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Propellers or not, how mesmerizing the views must have been. Wow, you've rekindled my desire to head to that part of the world!