Days 1 & 2 -- April 5-7: Fly from Seattle, Washington to Kathmandu, Nepal

9:03 AM Seattle Time on Saturday the 6th. I write from the Bangkok Airport awaiting our flight to Kathmandu.

After almost 10 hours of flight we rested our airplane-seat-molded bodies in Tokyo and then, as Brian put it, we were put back in the hole for nine more to Bangkok. Both stretches were done in sardine style coach on Boeing 777's. Since Mike helped design the interior when he worked for Boeing, he complained the least. I would rather do my time in business class!

As the jet cruised at 32,000 feet and 519 miles per hour, I passed the time reading, starting to decompress and finally beginning to focus on all the great adventure that lies ahead of us for the next 50 days.  During each leg (first to Tokyo 10 hrs and 20 minutes...then to Bangkok for about six hours) I ignored the movies and the cardboard food and studied about the Nepalese culture and refreshed my memory about the signs and symptoms of high altitude medicine.   I finally am able to distinguish the difference between Hinduism and Buddhism.  Since both believe that Karma is affected by behavior, all the good we have done at Ecology should get us to Moksha in this life!

I also learned about the various Gods of Nepalese worship.  The one I will be talking to is named Machhendranath.  I feel this guy's pain for he is in charge of water and controls the monsoons.  May Machhendranath be good to us and keep the monsoon storms away and the days clear and bright until we reach Manaslu summit.

The most spectacular experience of the flight to Tokyo was to discover Scott and Jerome's Northwest 747 flying off to our right in clear tandem proximity for over an hour.  The image of this technological wonder creating a snow white vapor trail extending for miles as it slipped through the atmosphere was breath taking.  I captured it on film, then ran back to my seat and grabbed my binoculars to take a closer look through the door window.  Naturally a crowd gathered (after all who carries binoculars onto an international flight) in anticipation of a turn to look closer.  After I took the first look I announced that the pilot's eyes were blue!  It is amazing what people will fall for after 8 hours in a sardine can!

Bangkok is hot (82 degrees) and muggy even for being 10 PM.  The airport has no rug on the floor so it will be a practical transition to sleeping on the ground during our next 11 hour holdover.  Mike said the floor looked dirty.  Brian replied "on the way home you will not want to sleep on it for fear you will leave a grease mark on it!"

I am anxious to experience Kathmandu and the mountains I love so much.  Meanwhile I will study further the people and cultural diversity we are about encounter and absorb.  I have made a list of the top ten things not to do.  One I will have to work hard to avoid is staying out of the kitchen of a Nepalese home.  It is a sacred family place.  Thank goodness we have the opposite practice in the USA.  If we did not, I would not have all the great memories of friends gathered around our island buffets planning for our Manaslu summit!  They are all here with us in spirit now and with their help we will come home safe after standing on the top of seventh tallest mountain in the world.

During the short 24 hours the team has traveled together the building excitement of this objective is already showing.  But we have a long way to go before we even get the chance.  Patience is a real virtue in this journey.  Mountains, especially big ones, demand it of you.

Tom Fitzsimmons, Team Leader

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