Moving on to Nepal

On my way to Nepal, I left Bombay and had to make a connecting flight in Delhi. I had a lay over of about an hour and a half which would have been plenty of time to make my connecting flight; however, we didn’t get off the runway until one hour and seven minutes after the flight was supposed to take off. So, needless to say, I was late for my connecting flight. When I arrived in Delhi at the local airport, I had to collect my bags, grab a taxi, travel 20 minutes to the international airport, go through customs and board the plane. I paid the taxi driver 100 rupees to drive me there as fast as he could. He did exactly that… and although I made it to the airport in one piece, I think my life was shortened by about ten years. Millimeters separated our car from the semi on the left and the cement barrier on the right. Unfortunately the airline staff said, “I was too late” and that I would have to catch another flight a few hours later. That was the case until another lady and her family who were in the same predicament begged and pleaded because her father was ill and she had to get to Kathmandu as soon as possible. As a result, they decided to let us on the plane.

Nepal, on the other hand, was everything I hoped it would be. The moment I got there, I had 2 messages waiting for me at the desk and I was greeted at the hotel by staff taking my luggage, people opening doors for me and a glass of juice as I checked in. The room was great and moments after I reached my room, I had a phone call from friends that had visited me in the States. Suresh and D.S. Hadn’t seen them in about a year and they were anticipating my arrival. We went to have coffee and they asked if there was really something I just had to see… of course I had no idea what Nepal had to offer… but I did pull out a business card of a local restaurant. One of our student’s Aunt, Uncle, Grandpa and Grandma had visited our university about 7 month’s ago and his Uncle handed me a business card of the family business and said that if I ever got to Nepal, I needed to stop by. So I showed Suresh the card and he said, “The guy that owns this Restaurant is my friend! We went to engineering school together. I’ll call him.” So he called him and Heerendra, our student’s father, immediately dropped everything and came to meet me. We walked to his restaurant and I ate more food than I previously thought was humanly possible. I finally had to say, “No more food. Please. I hurt.” But, it was a great night. He owns a 5 story restaurant with a private terrace on top. We had a perfect view of the entire city. While they were all wearing jackets I had on a short sleeve shirt and it was the temperature of a cool summer evening. Besides I was from Minnesota… I have grilled hamburgers in a t-shirt in 20 below temperatures. Okay, that’s a stretch… but the point is, we didn’t need jackets. Anyway, that was the start to a great trip.


Heerendra,
Suresh,
and Myself
the
first
night
I
was
there





The next morning began with a Mountain Flight to see Mt. Everest. In short, it was Majestic. Perfect case in point of how awesome our God really is. The Himalayas were fantastic and Everest in all its grandeur was perfect. I have a few spectacular pictures and some video of the flight as well. (I decided to add a few more pictures of my Mt. Everest flight because they turned out so well.)




After the flight, I went back to the hotel and got ready for the Seminar. This of course also went really well. I presented to over 200 people and I spoke with them individually afterwards for a few hours. That night I went to a traditional Nepali restaurant. Ate pretty much everything in front of me and watched some extravagant traditional dancers in between courses. Pretty good ending to a not so mediocre day.




To be continued...

As promised, more Everest/mountain pictures:













Enjoy!