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Also:
Fowl
Play in the Jingle
In which our hero stalks the elusive mother of
all chickens in Nepal
Nepal: Beyond the Mountain
(Audio, Photo Gallery)
Why this Himalayan kingdom is more that Mt. Everest.
Nine
Tiny Reinyak
AUDIO
STORY (MP3)
MT. EVEREST VIDEO MONTAGE
(WINDOWS MEDIA 9, BROADBAND
Got up this morning at 5:30, brushed my teeth, packed a
small bag and headed to the airport. It was foggy so my flight was delayed. I
went to a little restaurant above the check-in area and ordered a plate of scrambled
eggs, which were quite good. It was bone-chilling cold so I put my hands in my
jacket pockets.
Announcement after announcement echoed through the hall...no flights were leaving. After two hours I went to the airline desk to ask how long the delay would be. Nobody was there, but the door behind the desk was open so I stuck my head inside. Two men occupied a small office, one at a desk and another huddled next to a kerosene space heater reading a book. Its title was in Russian. The man at the desk invited me in and introduced me to the reader.
"This is Sergei", he said, "your pilot. He's from Kyrgyzstan."
"Maybe in vun hour, said Sergei, "ve take off." "Vut
kind of computer you haff, Macintosh or PC?"
"PC", I answered.
I asked him if he was on the internet.
"E-Mail, not veb,"
he said. "I liff at Russian Embassy...connection too slow."
Our aircraft was a retired Russian Army helicopter owned by a company in Kazakhstan
(next to Kyrgyzstan between Karistan and Congoleum). Dianne (my assistant) and
I jammed ourselves onto two face-to-face benches packing our fellow passengers
-- a mixture of dark, fissure-faced Mongoloid-types and scruffy mountaineers --
further into the tail. Dividing the cabin and the benches was a wall of crates
of produce and other foodstuff, a box of Cadbury chocolate bars, backpacks and
duffel bags. The emergency exit sign was in Russian and Hindi. The flight attendant
passed around a ball of cotton (for earplugs) and a plate of chewy caramels.
The chopper rattled and rose above the valley, above the fog, above the exhaust
of Indian Tata busses with portraits of Narsingha, a ghastly, Hindu frightface
painted on their transmission differentials and "Honk Please" emblazoned
on their rear panels. Earlier this week I saw a Tata stopped in the middle of
a main thoroughfare with its driver sitting on the road in front of it. The engine
block was next to him and all cylinders were removed. Traffic skirted around as
the man performed his ring-job.
We rose above the snow level and settled
down in a village where the rest of the passengers de-choppered. It was just Dianne,
the crew and I from then on.
Higher we flew. I found that I had to untwist
my body to get bigger gulps of air, which was thinning rapidly. Below stood villages,
seemingly uninhabited, covered with snow. We flew past a Buddhist monastery sitting
high on a ridge.
Our flight attendant opened up a window and pointed
down. "Base camp", he shouted above the clatter.
Sergei said that this was as high as
a helicopter could go. I chased from window to window, gasping for air, trying
not to miss a view. The flight attendant grabbed my shoulder and pointed outside.
"Everest!" he shouted.
It
was higher than our helicopter-safe altitude but the air was crystalline and it
looked close enough to touch. A delicate trail of snow puffed off its summit.
I switched on my camcorder and screamed into the microphone:
"Happy
Holidays from the top of the world."
...and best wishes for a happy
and prosperous New Year.
Russ
Johnson
Kathmandu, Nepal -- December 20, 1997
