It’s one of those odd things – but even though I fly a
plane, I’m still spooked by heights. So
when Wendy, (my Ottawa friend and trekking partner) and I saw the bridge off in
the distance, I thought the Tibetan prayer flags were actually pieces of the bridge
flying off into the air. Our guide, Rajendra, said, “We’ll be crossing the Dudh
Kosi river on that one. It’s one of highest bridges in the Everest region (or
Sagarmatha as the Nepalese call it)).” I remember thinking, I’d crawl across.
But that was before I knew that the bridge was full of holes
stuffed with rocks by Yak herders, before I realized that the lumbering Yaks
left their traces on the bridge, that the bridge swung in the air and that you
could see the ground through the holes that weren’t stuffed. It was six months
before Bob bought the 1958 Cessna 172 and nine months before I freaked out in
the cockpit somewhere over the Prairies. But that is a much later story.
By the time Wendy and I had reached the bridge, we’d seen
the Golden Buddha in Thailand, visited ancient cities within Kathmandu and
landed in Lukla, a tiny village east of
Kathmandu, onto one of the scariest runways in the world. Maybe you have landed
on some odd ones. But this one is the be all end all because you land at the
edge of a steep cliff and taxi uphill to stop dead in front of barbed wire and
a concrete building. You can imagine where my heart was at the end of that
flight. I was already wondering what the take off would be like. But that also
is another story.
Next post “The
climb to Namche Bazaar” (I’ll post maps for
the Mexico trip and for the Everest trek as soon as I can figure out the
software.)
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