Lukla

Lukla

Early morning and Heathrow Airport has been teleported to Lukla, a small town in the Himalayas. I wake up in my tent to the incessant sound of helicopters and then aircraft ferrying people in and out of here. Westerners trying to leave, food aid coming in and yesterday the dead and injured from Everest Base Camp.

The landing strip is a one chance only version, get it wrong and you fly into the mountain. There is a point at which there is no going round again. To take off the runway helps as it goes down hill, this enables the aircraft to to gain the required speed before the mountain side drops away. There are no roads, cars, motorbikes or trucks, just a small town with a very busy small airport.

 We are camping as the place is full to bursting with trekkers and climbers coming in from the mountains. Lukla is hardly affected at all. You can get good coffee, burgers, pizza, beer and souvenirs. There is a reminder from BBC news on in the bars showing the devastation. It is now over 5000 dead.

It is like a departure lounge, shops, places to eat, places to sit, with the addition of lodges and a dramatic mountain back ground.

When it is our turn to leave we share the small airport apron with huge Indian Air Force helicopters evacuating Indian nationals. Our plane brings in relief aid in the form of sacks of rice which are unloaded before we board. To aid our entry to the aircraft the ground staff build a staircase out of the sacks to the aircraft door. The floor of the plane is covered in rice.