Departure from Mumbai

There were many, many fine reasons not to go, but attempting to climb Everest is an intrinsically irrational act - a triumph of desire over sensibility. Any person who would seriously consider it is almost by definition beyond the sway of reasoned argument.

Jon Krakauer
Into Thin Air

It was all like a vision we had which was turning out to be successful. The first step of which was our flight to Kathmandu. We reached Mumbai about an hour and a half before our scheduled departure time of 07:45 pm. As we came to know later, our flight carrier - Royal Nepal Airlines never arrived on time. We got to experience it as well, and we were worried the delay might just turn out to be too nasty for us. The flight took off at 11:10 pm (nearly 3.5 hours late), and reached Kathmandu at an odd hour of 01:30 am.

As per our calculations, we were counting on a couple of hours after reaching Kathmandu and another couple of hours of the following morning for renting essential trekking gear. We feared that the delay in the Mumbai – Kathmandu flight could potentially trigger off a cascading set of unwanted events, the first being an extra day’s stay at Kathmandu. We had already come packed with a barely adjustable schedule, and the last thing we wanted was to start compromising on the number of days that we had reserved for the actual trek (i.e. the number of days apart from those spent in travelling to and fro).

After a tiring wait for our luggage at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, we contemplated the thought of waiting at the airport itself to book an early morning flight to Lukla, which would have guaranteed that there would be no change in the itinerary. It seemed too ambitious a plan; rest was the need of the hour. Right at the airport exit we bumped into one Mr. Meghraj Tiwari who was quick to realise we were tourists and by the look in his eyes, he seemed to be saying ‘welcome my prey’. He immediately flashed out an identity card that proved him being Nepal Government authorised travel agent. We didn’t seem to have any other option than to accept his help, and what he said seemed to be pretty reasonable.

He claimed he would arrange for the night’s stay for us and would try his best to get the Kathmandu – Lukla flight booking done for us on the following morning. It was very nice of him to personally accompany us at that odd hour (being a localite made all the difference), to a hotel where we were to spend the night. It was a good hotel, by the name 'Hotel Lai Lai', pretty much in the heart of Kathmandu, approximately 8 kilometres from the airport. I doubt if the hotel owner would have woken up at that odd hour if Mr. Tiwari had not been there.

We were already running short on time with respect to sleep though it still took us 04:30 am before dozing off. We had a hectic day ahead.