Nepal and Mt Everest

One of the icon images of Nepal. Large Buddhist stupa in Khatmandu
I have been a bit carried away with the wildlife posts recently. I just love the bush and there are quite a few more bush posts to come. I love taking wildlife photos and I guess that one of my main ideas with this blog is to shear photos and travel experiences with you.

So now for something completely different - Nepal. I have been to Nepal twice - both times to attend a congress. The first trip was before the earthquake and the second was after the earthquake. I will do a post on the before and after at a later stage. The earthquake struck Nepal in April 2015, killing some 8964 people and injuring nearly 22000. An estimated 3.5 million people were left homeless. The quake was a 8.1 magnitude  quake and caused wide spread destruction. Many of the wonderful unique structures, including many UNESCO world heritage sites, in Nepal were destroyed.
Mountains from the airport

The first thing that comes to mind when you hear Nepal is the Himalayas and of course Mt Everest, the world's highest mountain, calls Nepal home. Yes, there are massive mountains in Nepal and these tend to dominate the landscapes. However, there are also lowlands and of course there are nature reserves - so, sorry for you - back to nature and wildlife - but this will be in a later post. I did visit Chitwan National park, which is widely regarded as one of the top game reserves in Asia. One of the main animals in this reserve is the Asian rhino.
Early morning view from the plane

Hiking (mountain tracking) is also one of the highlights of Nepal and many people who visit want to do the hike to Everest base camp. This is a very long track and most take at least 9 days. This is mainly due to the altitude. You cannot climb too far in a day, or you run the risk of getting altitude sickness. I did not do the track to Everest base camp, but I did do a track. I did the first two days of the track to Mt Annapurna base came. The highest peak in the Annapurna massive is over 8000 meters, with thirteen other peaks of over 7000 meters. This is also very high on the climbers hit parade.This trek is also another story and another post. This is just like going to the movies - half the time you spend looking at the trailers of upcoming films!
Mt Everest

Well - the main event today is a scenic flight over Mt Everest.  You would think that with Mt Everest, being the highest mountain in the world, that it would be pretty easy to see and would stick out high above the surrounding mountains. Well, this is not the case. The range in which Mt Everest is found has many very very high mountain peaks. A total of nine of the of the top 10 highest mountains in the world are found in the Himalayas. The only mountain not in the top 10 is K2 in Pakistan - the second highest mountain in the world.
Another view of Mt Everest

So, as part of the first congress, a scenic flight around Mt Everest was arranged. I think the cost of the trip was around US$ 100-00. The flights are all early morning flights, so it was a very early start and we headed off to Khatmandu airport. Most of the flights taking off or landing in the early morning from Khatmandu airport were scenic flights.  The plane was not a big plane. Everyone has a window seat.
Surrounding mountain peaks

The flight was about 2 hours long. The flight path first took us along a route where Mt Everest was first on the left hand side of the plane and then we turned around and had the views of Mt Everest on the right hand side of the plane. Each of us on the flight (about 20 people) had the opportunity to go forward to the cockpit to have a spectacular view of the mountain range.
Khatmandu valley

Mt Everest does not stick out as much are one would think! The surrounding mountain peaks are all pretty high. The mountain range is spectacular! Lots of very high mountains. Well worth the trip and something that I would highly recommend to anyone who is visiting the beautiful country of Nepal.
Nepal is a country with an interesting culture and food. Well worth a visit.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Looking for Tigers in Ranthambore

Image
Spotted deer. All my photos The star of the Indian wildlife reserves must be Ranthambore. This is a massive area of some 392  square km and it is a great place to look for Tigers. This was my third trip to look for wild Tigers, so, hopefully, 3rd time lucky. My first attempt to see wild Tigers was in Chitwan National Park in Nepal and the second effort was Jim Corbett Reserve in India. Came close in both reserves, but just saw beautiful tiger tracks. Ranthambore is close to the town of Sawai Madhopur in Rajastan. Apart from the main attraction - the tigers - Ranthambore is also a famous heritage site with various ruins within the boundaries of the reserve. Local gathering wood outside the reserve Tiger painting at the train station My trip started with a hotel close to one of the railway stations in Delhi. All of my previous trips to India, I was doing consulting for companies in India, and I had only been accommodated in top of the range hotels, so this was my fi...
Read more

The Embassed Elephant

Image
Charging elephant - not my photo Yet another elephant story! Anyone would think I like elephants. Well, I do. They are amazing animals and I just have a few very interesting elephant stories to tell you. Just wait until I start on tigers! I love tigers. In fact, I pretty much love all animals and any travel option which includes looking for animals is right up my ally! Now, an elephant story from the dim and distant past! Many many years ago in a kingdom far far away, there was an elephant. No - back to the real story. Many years ago I was working on diseases of fish and we (I was working at Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute) had a meeting and we invited one of the world leaders in fish diseases from the UK to the meeting. This meeting was held close to Lydenburg (where many of the trout farms can be found). The director of Veterinary Services was also attending this meeting and as we were quite close to the Kruger National Park, we decided to treat our overseas guest to a visi...
Read more

Richard Bragg in the First World War - Part 2 - Trench trains

Image
Damaged railway line at Ypres In the first part on the history of my Grandfather in the First World War, I explained that I only had very limited information on his story during the Great war. To my surprise, when going into his military records, I discovered that he also took part in the South West African campaign from 1914 to 1915. This I discussed in Part 1 of this series. According to his records, he was discharged from the army after the successful completion, and defeat of the Germans in S.W.A. He was discharged on 31 August 1915. He was a train driver, so I presume he continued with his life as a train driver. I obtained some information from a family member that his brother, Joe Bragg (it was probably Joseph Bragg - as this was a family name at that stage), also came to South Africa with him as a train driver. I understand that he was killed in a train accident. There was a train crash in the Cape on 22 April 1911 in which 30 people were killed. Another fatal train crash i...
Read more