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Monday 15th January Day Four Kathmandu - Lamidanda - Lukla - Phakding Woke up quite early, 5:45 am (actually 4:00 am but didn't get out of bed). We had breakfast and then went early to Kathmandu Airport, the fog was very heavy so we anticipated a delay to our flight, we were right. We spent about 2 hours in the departure lounge before we were taken by bus to the plane, it was a small twin propeller one operated by Yeti Airlines. We waited another 45 minutes on the tarmac before we could board. Inside it was very cramped with single seats on the left and double on the right, I sat on the left as I was informed that that side had better views, they were right. We could see many fabulous snow covered peaks that must have easily been over 7000m high. We landed at Lamidanda airport, a small strip with a runway not much larger than the 100m sprint track we had at school. From here we took a helicopter to Lukla, this was a great flight and was the fist time that I had been in a chopper, I enjoyed it immensely. The lift off was amazing as the pilot banked right immediately, I felt like I was a character in the old TV show Airwolf. At Lukla we waited for a couple of hours and had our packed lunch which consisted of a cheese sandwich, some biscuits, a boiled egg and a chicken leg, I ate it all except the chicken as it had been in the sun for a few hours and I didn't want to get ill before I began. From here we had a nice and easy walk to our lodge. Along the way we had spectacular views of the most magnificent mountains. At the lodge we ordered our meals, I had a veg soup and egg fried rice. We were then shown to our room, a cozy little number with two small beds in, my roommate for the night was Mikael. We went back down for our meal, stayed there for a couple of hours and then retired to bed. Mikael and I talked for a while about various traveling experiences.
Monday 16th January Day Five Phakding - Jorsale - Namche We awoke at 6:30 am by our Sherpas bringing us a nice warm cup of tea and a bowl of water to have a quick wash. We had breakfast, mine was a chapatti with jam and honey and started walking at 8:30. We walked through some wonderful scenery and over many suspension bridged very high above the ground. We stopped for a break at a small cafe in Jorsale which had a great view of Thamserku. We then walked to the next rest stop for lunch about 1 hour later. We stopped there for about one and a half hours, I had the Tibetan noodle soup which was very nice. Namche Bazar was a tough uphill walk for 3 hours from here. Along this trail we had our first view of Mt. Everest. We made it to Namche at about 4:00 and go to the lodge for about 30 minutes, we then go into Namche to look around the shops. Back at the lodge we watch the movie "Into thin air" and after that we have dinner and retire to bed.
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