Lukla - Waiting

Thursday, June 7th

We are scheduled to fly from Lukla to Kathmandu today so after an early breakfast we hustled over to the terminal to check in. This airline, Summit Air, restricts total checked plus carry on baggage to ten kilos. Mike and I have twice that but the two porters have much less so we are ok.

There are no X-ray machines or other modern screening devices in evidence. We weighed and checked our big bags, carried our day packs to the inspection point, denied having lighters or other hazardous materials, went through a male/female pat down station and were in the waiting room.

Bad weather has the Lukla strip closed so far. Ramesh says we stand by here in the waiting room until 1400 in case the weather improves. The amenities are a restroom and a tea stall. The tea stall has a variety of cookies, candy bars, crackers and drinks. Guess we'll have crackers for lunch.

0900 still surrounded by grey clouds. One airline canceled and pax left the terminal. We're still holding out hope for clearing.

1100 we can see the sunshine on the hills across the valley but still clouds on this side. Temperature up to 58° here in the waiting room. Still hoping for flyable weather.

This is the strangest terminal.

Some of the passengers came in dressed for Kathmandu. Our checked bags are outside on a luggage wagon covered with a tarp. The cold people wandered out, rummaged through the bags until they found their own, found extra clothing and came back into the terminal through the "do not enter" door.

Awhile ago, Ramesh left, went over to the shopping street, bought some snacks  to share and came back in, no questions asked.

1300 still socked in. We'll wait a little longer.

1330 started to rain so we gave up for today.

Anticipating possible bad weather, when Russ arranged the schedule, he and Ramesh built in a cushion here in Lukla so we would be able to wait out a couple days of clouds but each day of delay makes it a little more nerve wracking.

If bad weather persists, we'll face a decision. We can take a chance and wait for clear skies but possibly miss our flight to Seattle or walk two days to the road where we can take a jeep to Kathmandu. Hopefully we'll get out by air in the next day or two and won't have to face that big decision.

Took a stroll through the town shopping street and saw a carpenter and his apprentice cutting plywood strips.

These tools belong to an old time finish carpenter installing wooden trim (brick mould) around the door jambs of this new building. I watched him use the adz on top of his step stool to trim the joint at the top corner. Very skillful.

Here's hoping for a good day tomorrow.