Stage 2....Kathmandu

Day 1 was spent resting, writing, and visiting a Korean professor at the new medical school  associated with Patan Hospital.  She had arranged for us to have a tour of the hospital, which was the one the Drs.' Fleming founded in 1958 under another name.  It is now run by the government, but still has some Christian employees and a few mission doctors.  Soon Park gave us a tour of the medical school  which is in it's  second year.   She is the only Ph.D (Bio-chemistry) on the faculty and is here as a volunteer.  They provide housing.
She is finding it increasingly friendly and

Dr. Soon Park surrounded by her medical students

enjoyable to teach the problem-based learning
they use.   She had visited Tansen around Easter and invited us to dinner when we came through.  A good friend to keep in our scope!

NOW to Day 2......our Christian taxi driver picked us up at 4:30 am (had to pay him extra for the privilege) to take us to the airport for our Everest flight!  It beats trekking!  At least for us at this time.....probably anytime.  The only problem was it only took 15 min. to get there, not the 45 we'd been told.  Then we had our days mixed up and, luckily they put us on another flight an hour later. So, we spent the morning waiting on one thing and then another!



You see here the plane we didn't fly in.  We taxied around the tarmac then parked it and climbed into the one that is closer in the photo.  See them looking under-the-hood?    It was fine with me!

Ready, set, go again!

Jon and I had the front seats on each side of the aisle.  They are ahead of us in no time.....the
Everest set of mountains, beginning with
Langtang Lirung and ending with Makalu on the
east side of Everest.  The peaks were on my side of the plane going east, and on Jon's coming back.

The Flight Attendant was great about pointing out which mountains were which as we sped along....and we each were given a map to follow.

Everest is far away in this photo, at the end and to the right of the cloud cover.

The attendant had let each of us go up into the cockpit one at a time to get a look out the front window........it was great! We planned on taking a photo in our PLAIN HARDWARE shirts for the bulletin board in Plain.....but, only room for one of us!

We headed straight for it as we turned around to go back.  There is a layer of clouds at the top.  

Lhotse is the tall one in front and to the right of Everest.  Closer mts. look taller.

Telephoto helps, too.....


And then we headed back.  This time through the list, I could recognize more of the mountains.  I have enjoyed reading many books of mountaineers, especially in the Himilayas.....so this has been really fun.

To the right here is Gauri Shanker at 23,405 ft. and the flat-topped one further right is Melungtse
at 23,560.    Jon says they look like the North Cascades, just 15,000 ft taller!  Yah!

We caught another taxi and headed to the tourist area, Thamel for breakfast at the Himalayan Java.
We'd been there in March....coffee!   After shopping for last minute items in the wild streets of Thamel, we asked a Rickshaw driver if he would take us to our street.  He thought he could,








but after LOTS of time meandering around, and having to push us sometimes because his legs couldn't handle any slope, we asked a bystander how far it was to Patan Hospital and decided it was too far for a rickshaw.  So, he found us a taxi and we paid him well for his efforts.

HEre we are caught in a traffic jam, with an enteprenerial fruit stand moving around traffic on his bicycle.

This colorful soul is a Hindu .....  chief religion of Nepal.  I don't know the significance of his attire, but certainly colorful.

When we 'happened' to wander into Durbur Square, we decided to try for a snapshot in our shirts in front of the Hindu relics.
Our driver wanted to be in the picture....then we finally got him to understand we'd like him to take one of us.....a local shopkeeper stepped over to see if he'd done it right.  People were always good to help guide us around....foreigners that we obviously are!
Which man shall I take home?













Bags are packed, clothes washed, alarm set for 5:45 and our taxi man set to come again.....paying a little extra this time becuase of the price of gas going up....hmmmmmmmm.
Hong Kong, Taipei and Seattle, here we come!  Because of the International dateline we will arrive the same day we leave after 24 hrs. of travel!  9am-7pm...go figure! See you soon!