Finally, the rhino, checkmated, bolts, dashing through the jungle in a noisy retreat. It is the end of the game, and will make another great fireside story.
LUKLA
To Shangri-La and Back
Spring 1998
Squeezed into the little Dehavilland Twin Otter droning towards the high, craggy Himalayas, I am reminded of Lost Horizon. James Hilton’s 1930s novel starts with a group of people kidnapped in India and flown to Shangri-La.
“All afternoon the plane had soared through the thin mists of the upper atmosphere, far too high to give clear sight of what lay beneath,” Hilton wrote. “Sometimes, at longish intervals, the veil was torn for a moment, to display the jagged outline of a peak, or the glint of some unknown stream. Far away, at the very limit of distance, lay range upon range of snow-peaks, festooned with glaciers, and floating, in appearance, upon vast levels of cloud.”
Today’s flight from Kathmandu to Lukla, staging point for Everest climbing expeditions, has that same, somehow dated sense of adventure, of approaching a remote and near unattainable place. Viewing the craggy white rampart of the world’s highest mountains from the small, basic aircraft, I am as awestruck as the book’s kidnapped passengers. “The plane, on that stupendous stage, was droning over an abyss in the face of a sheer white wall that seemed part of the sky itself until the sun caught it…”
After a bumpy, but stunningly scenic, 40-minute flight, it appears we are heading straight into the mountainside, with no air strip visible from the passengers’ windows, and no chance of turning back. Suddenly, the STOL (short take-off and land) plane touches down on a dirt airstrip the size of a football field that tips sharply upward, rising almost 200 feet. This is white-knuckle flying.
When the doors swing open, we step into a truly awesome setting, a little niche or terrace in the mountainside surrounded by stunning, rugged peaks. Here at 2,804 meters, the air is clear, fresh and cool. A Russian Sikorsky helicopter that looks like a veteran of the Afghan war is parked on the gravel apron, and dozens of hard-core mountaineers are gathered around the airfield. It reminds me of when I lived in Vanimo, Papua New Guinea, working as a malaria control officer, and the entire town gathered to meet the weekly plane.
There is a great sense of purpose here, of action and energy as climbers prepare for their high-altitude, high-adrenaline expeditions, unloading their packs, boots, ice axes and camping equipment from the plane while others board.
Lukla, a scattering of stone buildings topped by fluttering prayer flags, has a wild, remote end-of-the-world feel. Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest with his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay, had this strip built, but on his historic climb, he walked all the way from Kathmandu. A mountain guide says it is several days’ walk to the nearest road, and I don’t want to be stranded here, so I check in the ramshackle Lumbini Airways office to make sure I can get back today.
The Sagarmantha (Nepali for Everest) Resort, where I stop for tea, is a rough, but pleasant lodge with furniture made of sula, a local wood similar to pine, and bare wood floors. About 30 such lodges operate in Lukla, a surprising number for a village of only about 1,200 people - Sherpa, Tamang and Rais, as well as some Tibetans.
Crossing the field and squeezing through the barbed wire fence built to keep the yaks out, I walk down the only street. In this one-industry town, men are packing yaks, porters are hefting huge woven baskets and numerous intense and earnest climbers are setting off on treks up to the mountains. The guest book at the park information office shows that most visitors stay for a few weeks up to several months. I meekly fill in “three hours” under “length of stay.”
In a few minutes I walk to the end of the busy town, stopping where a stupa topped with prayer flags snapping in the brisk mountain breeze marks the start of the trail. From afar comes the rhythmic ringing of yak bells, the whistles of the herder.
Back at the field, I settle in to wait for the flight. An hour after the scheduled arrival, the blue sky is still empty, and I recall the anxiety of sitting on my patrol box in remote Papua New Guinea airstrips waiting for my chartered plane. Finally, the siren sounds to announce the aircraft is approaching, and I see a tiny white speck against the dark green of the mountain. The turboprop aircraft, built to land on remote spots in northern Canada, comes down at a steep angle, kicks up dust as it hits the runway, roars up the steep slope and taxis to a stop.
Taking off is a real rush, as the plane revs up and bumps down the short dirt strip, lifting off just as it appears we will drop off the edge of the mountain. This is adrenaline enough a sport for me.
Back in Kathmandu, it seems positively tropical.
The Peace Correspondent Page 27