I believe I can fly..

15th May 2006. The first day of the week - Monday. The majority of the year, this day begins with a dull drag - a day that ends the two day weekend break, and brings one back to the mundane routine. "I always wanted to quit on a Monday morning" is one of the most remembered sentences quoted in the advertisement of the car Tata DICOR. Well, we weren't quitting per se this Monday, but we were leaving the country for the most important mission in our lives till date.


Flight Carrier: Royal Nepal Airlines. Flight code: RA 202. Source: BOM. Destinatation: KTM. Time: 1655 IST. We're leaving for Mumbai from Pune in the morning, to get to the airport well in time and complete the formalities.

Being an official expedition (albeit the team size is as small as 3), we have airport pick up and drop from Kathmandu airport. Things like this make life a bit more easier. We have a comfortable 3 day stay in Kathmandu, during which we need to complete some documentation and formalities for the expedition, we need to rent/buy a considerable amount of expedition gear. Kathmandu being a trekking/mountaineering hub, it is undoubtedly the best place to get a variety of expedition gear, of the best international brands like 'The North Face', 'Gore-Tex' and the likes.

We would actually be having an official expedition briefing, and our itinerary would be discussed and finalised in Kathmandu itself, after discussing with the trekking agency our acclimatisation schedule. Ultimately, things can get shuffled while we are on the expedition as well, based on how well or not we adjust to the acclimatisation schedule.

I've been asked by many what would be our itinerary, so let me quote down the basic outline here. We fly from Mumbai (0m ASL) to Kathmandu (1300m ASL) on Monday, May 15. We intend to stay in Kathmandu till May 18. On May 19th, we would take a steep switchback drive to Nyalam (3750m ASL) in Tibet. We intend to stay another day (May 20th) in Nyalam for acclimatisation, since the earlier day we would have gained a whopping 1400m. On May 21st, we drive to Tingri (4300m ASL), and we spend May 22nd at Tingri itself, again to get acclimatised. May 23rd onwards, we would be trekking to Everest Base Camp (5220m ASL), which would take somewhere between 5 to 6 days. From EBC (5220m ASL), we move up to ABC (6400m ASL), our final destination, and get back to EBC over a period of 3 to 4 days. That ends the 'trekking' part of our expedition, 3 days short of the final conclusion of our expedition.

Thereafter, we drive from EBC to Nyalam in one day, and the next day we drive down from Nyalam back to Kathmandu, where we would be staying an extra day to complete the expedition conclusion formalities. 5th June 2006 would be a Monday we would not really be looking forward to, if you know what I mean, given the fact that we would be flying back to Mumbai on that day.

With just a few hours left, to my readers I'd say "hang on with baited breath!", just as we are. I hope we will get a chance to post an update from Kathmandu before we depart, but I cannot assure you of that. So this might well end up being the final post before I return..

Till then folk,
Good wishes and see you soon!

Aniket "Nike" Anikhindi