Our morning started at 5am for our early morning flight over the Himalayas. There is eight in our group and our tour leaders name is Anoop. Anoop met us off the ship in Cochin and helped us through Cochin, Mumbai and Kathmandu airports. He organised boarding passes and always made sure that we were in the right place at the right time for imigration and customs. He was a life saver.
Our flight to the Himalayas was due to leave at 8am and was right on time. As we boarded the plane there was an air of excitement. This was really happening!
We were all given window seats (thank you Regent!) that gave us an excellent view of Kathmandu from the air. With a population of almost 1.4 million you can well imagine how vast the city is. We flew over valleys where most of the crops were grown to support the city and gradually we saw fewer and fewer villages from the air.
In no time at all we could see the soaring snow capped mountains of the Himalayas to our left. We still hadn’t sighted Mt Everest but the air hostess came and tapped me on the shoulder (I was in the first seat behind the cockpit) and asked if I wanted to enter the cockpit to see Mt. Everest. Of course! As I stood in the cockpit the captain pointed in front and there it was. Mt Everest, rising 8,848 metres above sea level. It was awesome and took my breath away. As I made my way back to my seat to allow the rest of the passengers the same view I started thinking about Sir Edmund Hillary and his Nepalese sherpa making that journey to the top in 1953. What an amazing feat that was. Of course many have conquered Everest since then but Hillary was the one that I learnt about when I was in primary school and was always in awe of.
The plane made a U-turn so that everyone on the right hand side could view the Himalayas and we were all given a glass of champagne to celebrate what we had just witnessed. One of the most incredible moments of my life.
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