Photos, finally!!

Namaste!

Yes, namaste is used as both a greeting and a closing. I'm still in Kathmandu. I've done some switching of hotels but will be settling into one place for seven days starting Saturday. I'll spend this time researching India and touring places in KMD. The seven days will be at the Kathmandu Guest House, a tourist mecca. I ate lunch there today and have already met another single, female traveler. So it should be a great place to meet people and possibly someone to travel with (yes, I've ended in a preposition and I'm just fine with it : ).

Here are more photos. I've been having a terrible time downloading even a single photo. They've all been transferred to my flash card and, from there, I copy a few onto the desktop. But when I try to post, it gets hung up. Each photo takes between 5 and 10 minutes and any hitch in the connection during that time causes the download to fail : ( Technology here is a bit unreliable to say the least.

I hope Holly doesn't kill me for posting this one : ) Here she is getting on our tiny plane, bound for Lukla. She looks a little worried.

Our first view of the Himalaya (okay, 2nd...the first was on the flight from Dehli to Kathmandu). The snow-capped mountains on the horizon are the Himalaya. The brown peaks in the foreground are the "hill country".

Here's the runway in Lukla. I'm photographing from a walkway that runs above the wall that a plane would crash into if its brakes didn't work : )
I wonder what the "24" means. There's only one runway. Neal, Eve, any guesses?

See the end of the runway? Yep, it pretty much drops off a cliff. Just to the left of the runway, from this view, you'll see a building with a shiny roof. I'm pretty sure this is the lodge we stayed in on our last night, with the hot shower, flush toilet, and real bed.



Welcome to Lukla. This crowd of men is standing outside of baggage claim waiting for trek portering or guiding work. We already had a guide, Harka, who met us in Kathmandu. And our cook (Purshu Ram) had already hired our porters, who were waiting for us up the road a bit in town. The airport is named Tenzing Hillary after Sherpa/climber pair who made the first ascent of Everest.





This is the "main drag" in Lukla. From here forward, transportation is only on foot or hoof, unless you're getting helicoptered out due to severe altitude sickness (or other equally life-threatening illness). The buildings are typical Sherpa architecture; stone with brightly-painted window and door frames.







So, after that hair-raising plane ride (and I didn't even describe the hairy-scary trip to the KMD airport in the dark at 5AM), my badder was full and it was time to dig out some of that precious toilet paper. Here's one of the not-so-fancy toilets I mentioned. Yep, they're called toilets. In Nepal, bathrooms are used for bathing and may or may not contain a toilet. What's the Buddhist prayer for "please don't let these boards break"?











I guess you can't judge a toilet by how pretty it looks from the outside : ).


That's all for today. I'm glad I was finally able to get a good connection and post some photos. Maybe more tomorrow!!