Power.. more power

This morning, the below flyer slid under my door:


It basically said that there would be "intermittent power disruptions due to load shedding by the Nepal Electricity Authority" in one of the greatest understatements of this trip so far. I say that only because there's nothing better than being stuck in a pitch black elevator for several minutes and then experiencing five power outages a day. Since everything in this country is still paper-based, I did find it amusing though that we were informed of this load shedding via a paper announcement while I filled out a paper visa extension form while staring at a paper visa receipt that was filled out with paper upon arrival. Man, what a BPR effort could accomplish here. But then again, what should I truly expect in a developing country where UN patrol vehicles freely roam the streets?

Went to dinner tonight at a local restaurant known as Fire & Ice for pizza with Willie, Fredrico and another team leader Willie knows who also has several summits under his belt. It was amazing sitting across the table from these two guys who combined have 9 Everest summits to their credit. Here's hoping that in a few weeks the four of us will again be sitting in the same chairs with 13 summits to lay claim to.

This meal came only after I had conducted a final gear check where I had gear spread out all over my hotel room. The below picture shows with pride what it looked like:

Remember all those gripes about how much crap I was hauling across the world, especially after getting hit with excess baggage fees by one Asian carrier after another? Well, as it turns out I'm apparently packed "light", as I learned today. Francisco brought five bags (FIVE) worth of gear, and Willie even has a storage locker here in Kathmandu. Fine by me though, I'm already used to things being Spartan so no big deal truth be told. I repacked into a trekking bag (light sleeping bag, day pack, toiletries, etc) and all my mountaineering gear went into a duffel that I won't see till arriving at Base Camp.

I did need to pack one piece of squish gear though- something that I can toss around with the Sherpas and keep busy in what may erode down to the highest altitude football game in the world:

Coke is everywhere in this country- it's logo displayed proudly everywhere. A few years back I was driving down this death-defying (and in some cases I actually saw where death won) mountain road that winds down from Kathmandu to the grasslands of the Terai. About four hours outside of Kathmandu and thirty minutes after seeing any sign of civilization, you drive right through the center of this little town called "Coca Cola Village". I'm not kidding- everything is awash in the Coke logo, Coke signs, Coke bottles, and all buildings are painted in that familiar Coke red.

Speaking of red.. Maoists. Everyone has to have heard at this point of what's going on in Nepal with the Maoists and their efforts to take over the country. The first democratic elections are due to take place in just a series of days now- the countdown clock plastered on the front page of the Himalayan Times shows 14 days now and all of the European Commission Observers walking around the Yak & Yeti lobby give away how close it is. So even with all that, the Maoists are supposed to be in control of a good part of the country while the Nepali Government is technically still in control of the capital. Here's one election banner among hundreds that states otherwise, and a quick pic of Nepali campaigning= aka drive around with a loudspeaker while throwing flyers out the window and onto a street that already is in need of a serious sweeping. I think I sneezed 10 times today:

Swayambhunath Stupa & Durbar Square

I woke today and found this in my bed. What it is I don't know but I was more entertained than freaked out. Could have been worse, I know but mebbe Yak & Yeti need to do a better job in changing sheets:

By the way, please no-one steal my fingerprints & identity now.

Had some time today and decided to hit a few of the more famous city sights with the window of opportunity presenting itself. Here's hoping that we do in-fact fly on the 29th, and that I'm not going back to these stupas and monuments over.. and over.. and over.. just to go do something- anything while waiting for our trip to kick off.

First stop was Swayambhunath Stupa- downtown Kathmandu, located on a hill/ ridgeline overlooking the city far below. According to the origins of Buddha, Nepal was essentially Ground Zero for his travels and teachings. According to legend, Buddha did/ said something enlightening at that very spot or a significant event relating to the Buddhist faith occurred. A stupa was then erected in memory of this event, and Swayambhunath Stupa is no different, one of the most holy and ancient of sites in all of Nepal. Wikipedia does a pretty good job in summarizing Swayambhunath but in a nutshell this stupa looks down over the Kathmandu Valley and is linked to the creation of the valley from a primordial lake and lotus.

Moving on from there, I hit Durbar Square, an area loaded with Hindu temples that date back to the 1400s. This area maintains a flurry of activity and you have to look both ways when walking through the square or you'll get creamed by the cars, motorcycles and bicycles that come flying through the square with reckless abandon.

One temple known as Maju Dega was built in the late 17th Century and is known for its central location and size that dominates the local skyline. You can ascend ~30 stone steps to arrive on a porch of sorts up top. From there, you have a commanding view of the entire Square and find that you don't really get pestered all that much, either. Except by this cool boy trying to sell cotton candy.


On one end of the square is Kumair-ghar- a 3-story building lavishly ordained with fine wood carvings and famous for the housing of the Kumari- or living goddess that was built in 1757. The 4-1-1 on the Kumari is that every few years a girl is chosen to be the human incarnation of the goddess Taleju. Every few years, the Kumari is replaced with another girl- mainly when she grows too old (as in, hits puberty). Former Kumari go on to lead normal lives, get married, finish school, etc. But for those several years when she is a living goddess, things are pretty good for her. Guardian priestesses, building all to yourself, adoring fans, tourists with cameras acting like Paparazzi.. I'm sure the list goes on and on from there.


Today all these sites are lovingly maintained by local Nepalis and even more lovingly maintained by tourist dollars that are broken down into fees based on your home nation being either a member of SAARC (South Asian something something- a.k.a. are you Indian, Sri Lankan, or Nepali?) or from another land? Since I blend in so well here too, my attempts to make them believe that I'm a SAARC'er are brushed off with laughs and a bill 3x higher. Same thing happens to me at movie theaters back home too when I tell 'em I need the Senior Citizen Discount. Hmm.

Team update

Got together with the team last night for dinner and lay out our plan, which involves a degree of uncertainty surrounding the permits and aggressive strategy to get ahead of the mobs.

Uncertainty because rumors continue to persist in the Nepal climbing permit category, although our trip leader Willie Benegas is so well known and has summited so many times that we actually received a phone call yesterday from the person in the Nepali Government who does the issuing. He's supposed to follow up on that today and learn more, although the word on the street is that we will be able to proceed in some fashion.

Aggressive strategy because the Nepali Government is now being innundated with permit requests from teams that initially were going to go via China, received the Heisman thanks to the Torch Relay, and are now scrambling to try and go via Nepal. One team (Altitude Junkies) magically appeared yesterday even though I know their initial plan was to route via Tibet. All of these teams are running a huge crap shoot because of Base Camp & route capacity among the chances that Nepal may just not issue them a permit after all. Our team is well ahead in the queue for permits given our original plan and Willie's contacts. "I know a guy..."

All things moving ahead, we wll still be flying to Lukla on the 29th and place ourselves a few days ahead of the other teams getting up to Everest Base. From what I hear no-one has yet started laying fixed lines through the Khumbu Icefall so we agreed that if it comes down to it, our team will begin to do that in order to get as high as possible before the blackout window of 1-10 May hits. Standard mix of pickets & ice anchors.

Gear check goes today along with any last minute gear purchases in Thamel District of Kathmandu, an area where you can pick up just about anything (like, oh, say, the two bottles of sun block that security in Bangkok snagged from you at the metal detector) and is loaded heavy with mountaineering stores. I walked right by North Face and Mountain Hardware stores too- looked to be brand new too.

Although... from what I learned last night at dinner from Willie and another teammate (Joe) who has been to base camp twice and made it up to Camp I about 3 years ago? The trail to Base Camp in storied and mythical places like Namche Bazaar are loaded with stores where you can pick up oodles of gear. Seriously! So much for that that image I had in my head of a bunch of Sherpas with their yaks in tow meandering through two or three buildings and an occasional temple nestled among remote wind swept plains. Huh. In some ways I was surprised to hear that sort of thing and in others I can't wait for this trip to get going more than I did before.

29 March Target Date

Team is on-deck now, the other 3 arrived about 30 minutes ago. 29 March departure for Lukla has been green lighted by the Nepali Government so thats the day we leave from Kathmandu. Permit pickup goes tomorrow.

Hey Henny

Made it to Kathmandu in one piece after a fairly uneventful 3 hour flight from Bangkok, slowly descending down into the valley under cloudless skies that allowed great views of the Himalaya. I don't know what the forecasts look like over the next several weeks but you could tell even from as far out as we were that the tops of the peaks were being buffeted- snow plumes must have spread for a good mile beyond the particular mountain it was blowing off of. But once we hit the terminal, the reindeer games kicked into high gear. On my first visit to Nepal in 2000, I was on Royal Nepal Airline in a 757 where most of the passengers must have been Nepali. So when we landed, getting through immigration was absolutely no big deal and the arrangement you can lock on once in KTM to pick up a Visa on-site seemed like it was much easier than it had been to deal with all the hassle of going to the embassy in DC. Yeah. Smart move I think as a 777's worth of tourists coming straight from Bangkok pile off of the plane and straight onto the "No Visa" line. As the 10 miscellaneous lines with "Visa" above them whip forward, about half of the planes passengers slowly creep toward what I learned is possibly the world's last holdout paper-based immigration processing systems. After an hour and a half goes by, this is what the two different lines look like even though I'm still nowhere near the front:

Finally, I reach the counter. Even after all that I still have no idea what took this long given that four people are working the processing of passengers. The first guy takes your money and then hand writes a receipt for you- taking the two pieces of carbon copy paper to reinsert them every time he has to write out a new receipt. What happens to the two other copies is beyond me but my guess is that they sit in a box somewhere until someone else throws them out. The second guy just looks at you and does something behind the counter before pointing you to a third guy that finally hands you your passport back. After staring at him for a minute, he gives me a look like "what do you want?" and then gestures unemotionally that I'm done, can go now. Sha? Stupid tourists. Our process is so simple and clear, what's to be confused about? The visa is haphazardly slapped in my passport and is so basic it looks like it was designed by a 14 year old.

Shockingly, the carousel continues to rotate and "poof" there's my mountain of bags which also translates into the "You need help sir" guys looking for a buck. I shoo them away until I find that my cart front wheel doesn't work and then I'm hosed. Two bucks for some guy to push my bags 200 or so feet to a minivan (mini being the operative word) that'll take me to the Hotel Yak & Yeti, where I will be staying.

After talking with some of the advance members of the team, I learned that some permits have been issued.. some have not. So in essence, we are still on hold with no clear picture of what'll be happening. I did notice that the checkout date is the 29th on the hotel sheet though. But I don't know what that truly means. Here's the latest word I was able to glean today from a website that is pretty on top of this whole debacle but I'm guessing that as teams start to roll in one at a time things will begin to resolve themselves in short order:

http://www.mounteverest.net/news.php?id=17151

The rest of my team arrives on the 26th and we'll meet for the first time in the afternoon. From what I saw on the manifest of flight arrivals, there will be four climbers and 14 Base Camp Trekkers on our trip. Among the trekkers are about 10 couples/ husband & wives/ etc. I think it's already clear that I'm a superstitious climber so I hope someone points out that for the good of the rest of us, there needs to be.. not should be, but needs to be No Nookie- especially while these couples are at Base. That's bad, very very bad. I'll be the bearer of that news if need be in between tossing the football I brought to toss around with the Sherpas.

So for the rest of the afternoon I hung out and caught up with a good friend of mine who lives in Kathmandu named Henny. This guys is so great. I met him in 2000 when I first visited and he was my tour guide. We have kept in touch ever since and he's a true success story here in this big city. Originally he started out with a global tour network, but then around 2002 he and his wife Lakshmi decided that they wanted more. She's highly skilled as a reservations agent and what better a pair could that make for a travel/tourism company? They set off on their own and today A Global Flight Tours runs a brisk business with visitors from Australia, Russia and Europe mainly. He does have friends like me who hail from the States also and when dad arrives in Kathmandu toward the end of May we'll be driving him all over this area.

We spent some time drinking local beer (Everest Beer complete w/ a pic of Tenzing Norgay on the front, superimposed behind the beer name on the front label), talking about family and friends, and ironing out dad's schedule for when he arrives. It truly was a great way to return to this city.