Going, Going…..Almost Gone!
Date: 07/04/2009
Noel and Lynne Hanna have arrived safely in Kathmandu and thankfully their luggage did too.
Noel said, “We had no flight delays, which helped enormously - the only drawback was the sting of our excess luggage charge by BMI in Belfast at £500!
“It is great to be back in Kathmandu again and we have noticed big changes in the city since our last visit in 2005, with many more hotels and restaurants opened. The people are very friendly and many speak English so communicating is not a problem.
“It is quite a shock to the system to have the weather so warm – it’s currently about 28 degrees.
“We’ve spent a few days in Kathmandu and we’ve met our expedition leader – Alex Abramov and the rest of the team. Alex is Russian and he was responsible for organising our visas and permits from the Nepalese Tourist Board. On the mountain his role is to co-ordinate all 10 climbers on our team, the doctor and sherpas during the expedition.
“Our doctor is a native from Uzbekistan and he is a very accomplished climber so we have complete confidence in the team. It’s quite a multi-cultural group with one climber from France, America, Canada, Isle of Man, plus ourselves from Northern Ireland and the rest of the team are Russian. Lynne is the only woman on the team and she is as keen as ever to start the climb.”
Lynne added, “Unfortunately the one thing that you can’t control is the weather and while we write this we are still in Kathmandu. We were due to fly out last Saturday to Lukla where we would begin our Everest climb. However, the weather was so bad that despite the plane taking off and nearly reaching our destination, the pilot had to turn the plane around and so we’re back in Kathmandu. At the minute we’re just waiting for the weather to break but hopefully we’ll be off early next week. Thankfully being from Northern Ireland, we’re used to unpredictable weather!”
Going, Going......Almost Gone!
Purchasing last minute supplies in Kathmandu is Pat a Canadian climber who is part of the expedition team, Ramish, shop proprietor, with Noel and Lynne Hanna.
Going, Going......Almost Gone!
A busy market street in Kathmandu.
