My trek to the Everest Base Camp- Part 17

At home, in Bangkok and in Bangalore, our family was getting restless. We had already informed them of the situation. Our daughter was upset that we had not returned as promised. I requested Ajit’s parents to buy her a cake for her birthday. Priya, a dear friend, took it a step further.  She started planning a birthday party for Trayi. Trayi would still have a grand birthday celebration. Even if we were not there to share it.

On day 2, in an idle moment, it had struck me that if the gridlock lasted more than a week, there would be a couple of thousand people stranded. We would need Nepal to deploy its army helicopters. The good weather might not last long, and there would be a small time window to get everybody out. The airlines would not be able to manage the backlog by themselves.

International pressure would be the best way  to get Nepal to deploy the army. Why would they bother otherwise?. And we could activate the  international pressure by getting all the stranded passengers to call their respective embassies in Kathmandu. We were a mini-UN up there. With 20-30 different countries represented. Many from Europe. The idea appealed to Dirk, but not many others in our gang. He called his embassy, I called mine.

And the glory of being 1 of 1.2 Billion revealed itself upon me. Who was I ? A Nobody, in India.  I was put on hold for several minutes and my call transferred around like a Ping-Pong ball. We were Nobody. We were nobody’s responsibility.

Many others arrived at this same idea independently and called their embassies.  Every Person Mattered in their scarcely populated countries. They were Needed. Their embassies would send special planes, they were assured. Or get the Nepal Government to do so. But only when the sky cleared.

By day three of our stay (day 5 of no airplanes), our Lukla adventure began to make little bylines in the newspapers in the western world. Those news articles went viral within the Lukla community.  Hope bubbled among the stranded passengers. Someone, somewhere had taken notice. There was some hope of government intervention now.

But would it help those of us whose embassies didn’t care ? Or would only the Needed Ones benefit ? Who knew.

After Dirk and Cas left, we tracked their passage back to Kathmandu via Whatsapp. They would make it to their scheduled international flight as well. Any lingering doubts about the Surkhe option vanished. Dirk also revealed the name of the tout from whom they had managed to secure seats on the Helicopter. The owner of the Illy Coffee shop – a smiling, simple lady.

Seriously ? She was the kingpin of the helicopter mafia ? Sometimes, looks are deceptive.

Ajit decided we would try to leave by helicopter as well. Mohammed had decided to wait it out in Lukla. Sheena was on the fence. He went up and spoke to the Illy lady that same morning – November 6^th. All the business given to Illy over the last few days, came back to benefit us. She told us to be packed and ready. She would get a call anytime. And we would have to leave at short notice.

We packed up and waited. The call came. There were 2 seats in a helicopter- in the next one hour. But all the money 1200 dollars (in Nepali Rupiah) would have to be paid in cash. Right now.

Ajit scurried around trying to organize the money. There was just one ATM far away. He ran there. There was no money in it. He went to a Loan Shark. Loan Shark would help Ajit withdraw the 1200 dollars(in wads of Nepali Rupiya) against his own credit card. But would charge 12% interest. No problem. Just as long as we got the money.

But by the time Ajit got the money and returned, it was too late. The seats in the helicopter had been given away. The Illy lady asked us to wait.

It was the afternoon of the 6^th now. Then the Call came again.  We quickly settled our dues with the teahouse and ran to Illy. It was raining. We called Balaram as well. Mohammed and Sheena came to say bye.

We paid the money to the Illy lady’s agent. There would be one helicopter less than one hour from now. But I walked at Snail’s pace, remember ? Surkhe was almost an hour for the fast trekker. And with the rains, the path would be slippery now. There would be no way I would be able to make it. Ajit and Balaram looked at me, and decided it was too risky to attempt this ride. There just wasn't enough time.

Ajit requested the Illy lady to give us at least 2 hours’ notice for the next helicopter, as I was Slow.  She agreed, returned our money,  and gave the seats away to somebody else.

And then the rains came down hard. And no more calls came for us. We had missed our chance for getting out. Just because I was slow. I felt miserable.

We went back to our old teahouse. Our vacated room was already given away. Balaram found us a new one-a seedy one at the edge of town. We joked that our next teahouse would be outside Lukla, in the next village. We checked in to our teahouse and then went to meet Sheena and Mohammed at the Khumbu lodge – Sheena’s cozy teahouse. It was a quiet evening, and nobody was in the mood for jokes.

Early next morning, November 7^th, even before the sun was out, Ajit woke me up excitedly. The sky was completely clear . The clouds had cried themselves empty onto the mountains –leaving behind their frozen tears and covering all the mountain tops with snow.

Without brushing his teeth, without having even a morning coffee , Ajit ran to Finju’s office. He asked me to get ready and rush to the airline office as soon as I could, with my bags. Balaram turned up to help me.

The rule of the airlines was that – those passengers with confirmed tickets for the day got the 1^st right of passage for the day. That in itself would be half a dozen plane-loads of people for each airline. Then they would start clearing the back-log from its first day. There were 7 days of backlog to clear- we belonged to day 6. Almost the bottom of the pile.

Today, 7^th November, was the day we would leave Lukla. But it was not clear how we were going to get out. Or when. Would Finju intervene and help us? What about Mohammed and Sheena ? And what about getting to Bangkok ?