The Traveling Islander

Day 9 – what a long day! We got up at 4:30 again to head to the airport to take our helicopter flight. We had been told it was leaving at 6:45 but once we got there it was clear that wasn’t happening. They weighed us and our bags then checked us in. Then we were told to wait in the gate. At 7 the crew came to get us to take us to the helicopter. We were taken onto the apron but then told due to traffic that we wouldn’t take off for another 45 minutes. The helicopter was quite small and four of us were squeezed in the back. As we climbed to altitude it vibrated a lot. Mum and the guide didn’t like the helicopter much as you can see from the photo. Finally after about an hour we arrived at Lukla airport! Our guide was there to meet us of the helicopter and he took us up to a tea house to organise our packs and give us some breakfast. After purchasing some water we stepped out onto the trail for the first time. We had to hike 7 km today mostly descending. It was a nice introduction to the trail as we didn’t have to climb endlessly. The trail was busy with porters, guides, tourists and animals. Mules and yaks constantly passed us. We had to be particularly careful of mules apparently they have been known to try and push people over the edge down the mountain. We passed through several small towns with stupas and monasteries. We had great weather and in fact we were a little overdressed. Mum did well, she didn’t like the stairs but overall we made great time hiking to Phakding in just over 3 hours arriving in the late afternoon. We checked into our tea house. It’s really quite lovely. No heating in the rooms as expected but with the fire going to canteen is nice as cosy. We are pretty tired after such a long day so I’ll write more tomorrow 😊