EBC: Kathmandu and Lukla

This is page 2 of my EBC trek report. Navigate through overview page.

A rickshaw driver in Kathmandu. I was surprised to see rickshaws even in Delhi...

Lots and lots of masks for sale. Too bad I did not buy any.

Kurkuri Knives

The little boots looked really cute

A glass chess board in the Pilgrims book shop & restaurant. Was experimenting with photos while having Momos.

Rudraksh beads

I am blessed. "His Holiness" proceeded to ask me for money for posing for the picture!

The water is quite dirty! Yet people wash/bath/sprinkle it on their head!

Instead of going inside the temple, I wandered around photographing the wares in the shops

Swayambunath

View of Kathmandu city

Spinning prayer wheels. You can see this in the IMAX Everest movie.

Prayer wheels are ubiquitous in Nepal

More experiments in photography to arrive at correct exposure to capture all elements

Sunset

Lots of clubs in Kathmandu have bands playing live music - Jazz, Rock, Blues etc. The music was amazing.

Lukla

The flight to Luka is a tiny 14 seater one and takes around 30 minutes to reach it destination. The landing strip in Luka is even smaller - it was made in 1960s under supervision of Sir Edmund Hillary and is 351 meters long.

The runway is on a slope and the flights use the slope to decelerate during landing and accelerate during takeoff. On one end is a sheer drop to the river below and the other end has the imposing face of the mountain, so the flights/pilots have very little leeway.

The security in Kathmandu & Lukla airport is almost non-existent, we had to wait for officials to arrive - there was no one to prevent us from walking through in the meantime.

There is only a small widow of around 3 hours (7 AM to 10 AM) when the flights can take off and land in Lukla, so all airlines (lots of them - Agni, Yeti, Sita etc) operate multiple flights during this period.

About to take off to Lukla from Kathmandu. 14 seater plane.

A very open flying policy ... during flight we say the pilot take a piece of cloth and wipe the windscreen, can you believe that!

Flight landing at Lukla. Just beyond the landing strip is a 600m drop to the river.

After landing, the flight takes a sharp right to avoid ploughing into the mountain!

Lukla town

View from the flight

Undulating mountains as far as the eye can see ...