Literary Cacophony

We have now been here for almost two weeks, and we have been falling into a routine. To begin with, this place is beautiful and the more you here the more it sinks in. The view is absolutely incredible and induces the tritest adjectives. It is though truly spectacular and has a charming inseparable mix of natural grandeur, culture and oddities. The Everest peak is directly above the Bakery. Everywhere you look, the sky is framed by high mountains that look deceptively close and thick glaciers that seem about to spill off the steep edges.

To the right of the monastery there is a big white gompa with a golden top and the entrance to the monastery is through an elaborate colorful carved gate featuring flowers and two golden dragons. A long staircase leads to main building, a beautiful, white old structure. There are many smaller buildings where the monks’ rooms are, and the house of the Rinpoche. Draped fabric adorns the window tops and colorful clothes are the traditional doors here. There are prayer flags everywhere.

While most religious symbols are something I ardently abhor, I do like the prayer flags. Partially because the are colorful and aesthetically gorgeous as they blow in the wind. But, what I like about it most is that are inclusive. The prayer is not restricted to one’s family, clan or group, it is distributed evenly and un discriminately to where the wind takes it.

And in the midst of this natural and human architecture the grass is shared by 4 black horses that gallop free and belong to the monastery, a couple of dogs and passing herds of yaks. Yaks are a very padded, weary looking cows. Their hair is long and thick, a mixture of black and white, which makes them look very respectable, and they have bells around their necks that ring when they slowly move. There are dogs, giant crows and two bulls.  Monks in saffron and mustard gowns walk around and porters carry enormous, heavy straw baskets around their forehead bringing supplies to the lodges. And there are tourists in ugly fleece jackets and these horrid, horrid pants that have a zipper in the middle and can be unzipped to become shorts. 

I know this is a bit of a digression but I find these pants not only inexcusably ugly but also incredibly stupid. They should only exist in one of these catalogues you get in the mail that sell alarm clock cookie jar or a portable bar that is also a shoe rack. It is not something people were ever supposed to buy. The site of hairy legs with a dirty piece of pants wrapped around the ankles like some silly tribute to Flashdnace, is something I don’t wish to see anymore. You can’t avoid making some decisions and one of them should be wear long pants or short pants. You can’t eat the cake and leave it whole and you can’t take the damn things over your boots, so what’ the point?!

It is already April 6^th and I am so far behind it is a bit overwhelming, so I decided to concentrate on trivial issues. 

To begin with, the impossible happened and I found a worse toilet paper then the eco-friendly type we had in Calgary. It is the most common cheapest and so horrid, you would consider wiping with you hands rather then get this close to your skin. I think it is made from toxic waste that is bleached. It has a sharp, strong smell that can burn your nostril’s hair. It is virtually impossible to blow your nose without passing out.

The other insignificant issue that I feel compelled to waste time on is my shampoo. I was very proud of myself to think of buying biodegradable shampoo and soap for the trip. My shampoo is not only bio-degradable but is also cruelty free, which means that no defenseless bunnies were shampooed before this product was unleashed on the moral members of society. Buying it was a huge task before we left: not only did it provide a good reason to avoid packing, but also made me feel like a modern day saint. I was congratulating myself endlessly about what a good person I am.

Showers here are available but not luxurious. The water is heated through an electric heater and they are usually lukewarm on average, temperamental and the stream is feeble. They are also not very clean. So, when you finally shower you want to finish it as fast as possible. It is an act of bravery. Well it turns out that if my shampoo company would have bothered to wash a bunny or two, they would have found out that this shit burns like a bitch. It is incomprehensible to me, as it supposed to be all natural. I have no idea what natural ingredient would singe so bad, unless they use chili or the chemicals from the toilet paper. As I was freezing in a cold shower trying desperately to wash the soap of my eyes I was questioning my ethical decision. To add insult to injury it doesn’t have a nice floral smell either, so you are not even given this satisfaction and odorous stamp of approval that you are clean. All I had to show for after finally having a shower, is not smelling as bad and a pair of red watery eyes.

The acclimatization trip proved to be very helpful. We were climbing up a lot faster and needed less rests. There is a heart breaking decent to the river and a two-hour grueling up-hill to Tengboche from there. And so, we were there, the distinct shape of the monastery was right at the top. After months of planning, guessing, and hoping we didn’t make it all up, we were finally in Tengboche. Now we had to find out whether they know who we are.

It was cold and grey when we arrived, but the view was unbeliavalbe. Tengboche is on a flat ramp framed by the most spectacular view of the Everest, Lhotse, Ama Dablam and Tamaserku. The Monastery is at the top of the up hill and there are 5 very small, old guesthouses. At the “end” of flat area, lies the bakery.

Sitting outside the bakery were our two voyager friends. They of course made the trip from Namche in record time. We were fast on their tracks, merely insignificant 3 hours behind. Even with a long lunch break, we still couldn’t account for this length of time. They must have taken out their moccasins and run up the fucking hill. It is pure luck that we weren’t born in 1700. I am fairly sure there were no heroic stories written about us. Canada would still not have been settled, probably even discovered.

Our contact guy was a monk named Michael. Originally born in Germany, he has been a monk in Tengboche and in Kathmandu for 27 years and he and his wife Helen founded and built the eco-center in Tengboche. In his e-mails, Michael directed us to Tenzing as our main contact guide as he will be in Scotland and then in Tibet at the time.

So, I went to the Monastery, leaving Aviv to drink tea with the voyagers and went to look for Tenzing. Finally a monk assured me that the man that I’m looking for does exist, that he is not a monk and that I should wait for him in the bakery until he shows up.

Tenzing did show up and he even knew who we were. He was amicable and friendly and recommended we stay at his wife’s lodge, which was not only 15 minutes walk and 170 m lower, but also newer and more comfortable.

We graciously accepted the offer. We were cold tired and a bit stressed out. Our voyagers’ friends stayed even further and offered to carry our packs, which we refused, for the far chance they might want to remain our friends. Even though we are layman in the way of the pioneers, we suspect that the true voyager would have carried their packs till death due them part and we wanted to be historically correct.

At the bottom of the hill we parted ways with strong hugs and set them free. Tenzing’s wife, Jungmu, is the manager of the new, modern and fancy lodge called Rivendale. There is a sign in the entrance to the dining room explaining that Rivendale is taken from the Lord of the Rings. So much for guilty feelings of imposing more “Western” culture in the Kumbu valley.

I have developed what is nick named the “Khumbu cough”. The extra amounts of cold dry air one needs to breath in high altitude irritate the bronchi and you develop a cough and a sore throat. Since there is no infection, there is not much to do besides hacking. Most hikers and sherpas wear a thin scarf over their mouth to protect them from the dust and moisten their breath. We forgot about that.

Throughout our hike we were crossing paths with a woman and two men that had the heroic “Everest-ER” logos embedded on their clothes and on their bags. It turns out that they are doctors who volunteer at Base Camp and have been doing so for the past 8 years.

We had a nice chat with them, Lue-Anne, Steven and Gary, about health care, politics and base camp gossip. We learnt that most climbers have the Kumbu cough and it is so severe they frequently break their ribs coughing. As a matter of fact, this year they were conducting a study about the Khumbu cough trying to treat it with inhalers. We also found out that the high altitude IRONING record has been broken. Since at this state my cough was minor, I wasn’t paying too much attention to what they had to say about that and was a lot more focused on the details of the record breaking. Someone did bring and ironing board, an iron and some wrinkled clothes to an altitude of 5400 meters. A part of me died a little for not coming with marvelous idea myself. To be fair, I don’t deserve it as I don’t recall ironing at sea level.

It is already March 30^th and I have a lot to catch up, so I will try and keep it short.

On the 25^th We arrived at the airport at 5:45. It sort of felt like a bit of reunion as we met many familiar faces including Katherine and Louis David, the pissed off Australians. It took about 3 hours and a lot of anxiety, but by 9:30 we sat on our flight and the plane did take off.

Rather soon after leaving Kathmandu, the mountains reveal themselves and the view is spectacular and makes you forget all the hassle and the long hours of wait. Just before Lukla, the plane takes a turn close to the mountainside, and slows down in preparation for landing. These few minutes are terrifying enough to make you regret the decision to come here, and wonder if you are about to reveal your last meal to your fellow passengers. The wind is fierce, the mountain is close enough that you could jump from the plane and land on your feet.. The minute the plane touches down, the pilot hits the breaks. I’ve mentioned it before, but until you see it, you can’t believe how short the runway is. I could sprint the length of it without loosing my breath and most of my training is sitting down in Beano drinking lates and eating bagel with peanut butter and banana. So, there we were after many months of planning at the Tenzin and Hillary Airport at Lukla.

Since we only meant to get to Tengboche Monastery and stay there, a 3-4 days hike, we opted not to hire porters. Our bags were massive and heavy carrying camera equipment as well as a computer, two hard drives, a tripod, batteries and cables. There is a built stone path, which goes down to the river. The sound of horns and vehicles was replaced by wind, bells rings on the necks of the yaks and our heavy breath. Supplies in the Kumbho area has been carried by porters for decades, since people were settled in the valley.

The site of porters carrying their loads in big straw baskets supported by a strap that is placed on the forehead, is one of the most characteristic sights of trekking here. The loads are unimaginable. Most of the porters carry more then double their body weight. Everything is carried by porters, from raw meat to propane tanks to building materials. They walk long days and stop frequently resting and supporting their load on a short T-shape wooden stick.

Hiking here is different in the sense that you are always sleeping and eating in teahouses and lodges that are owned by the Sherpas. It is a comfortable way of hiking. Things have changed considerably from even 4 years ago where we’ve been here. Most lodges now have private rooms electricity and “English” toilets as they are called here, as well as the common squat hole in the ground. The only heated room, is the dining room where there is a big furnace fueled by wood, in the lower parts, and yak dung in the higher parts.

There are several options where to stop and rest on the first day. We were hoping to get to Monjo at 2835 meter. It was a long way for our first day with the heavy packs. The first part of the hike is gorgeous and offers some of the most beautiful rural scenes on the hike. The Elevation is still low and the villages are beautiful. The houses roofs are thatched and most have gardens where they grow cabbages, cauliflower and carrots.

We were slow, but we did make it to Monjo around 5 in the afternoon. We ate some dal bhat, the traditional Nepali meal of rice, potatoes and lentil soup and went to sleep.

Monjo to Namche Bazar

The hike up to Namche is brutal. The climb is steep, long and it is the first time you begin to feel the altitude. This up-hill is quite literally a bitch and since one tends to forget the effects of the increasing height, it has a tendency to feel like the slowest, most sluggish person on the mountain. The scenery is beautiful and we decided to sit down and enjoy it more. After all, how frequently do we find ourselves hiking in rural Nepal on the way to the Everest? Surely, it is okay to arrive later and absorb the surroundings as much as possible.

This all holds true until the first hiker passed us and as more and more, I got a bit agitated and all of a sudden in a great hurry to just get there. Aviv who is not only more sensible, but apparently immune to peer pressure didn’t seem to mind other people silly rush.

When you finally reach Namche there is a bit more of a steep uphill you must go through to get to the lodges. This is precisely the point where I run completely out of gas and want to die. It was the case 4 years ago and I guess some things never change. I felt like taking the hard drives and throwing them off the mountain; the pack was unbearable. But we did make it finally and crashed in Thamaserku View Lodge.

Even since we’ve been here, four years ago, there are many changes. It is cleaner, bigger, busier and much more expensive. Namche is a thriving mini city with dozens of lodges and everything imaginable to buy from climbing gear to gifts and souvenirs. There are several more expensive lodges being built. One hotel in particular is geared for tourists who come with a helicopter to get a peak at Everest. The rooms are pressurized and oxygen is being pumped for those who are too lazy to haul their miserable asses up the mountain.

As mentioned, things have changed considerably, and one of the biggest changes is the availability of cell phones. It seemed like we are the only yahoos without one. In fact as we were walking up the trail, a sherpa called “hello”, and even though we were on the up hill and needed every scrap of breath, I cheerfully answered, ‘Namaste’ making a complete imbecile of myself, as he was talking on his cell phone.

Some things never change though, and one of them is the reading material on the hike. It seems to be compulsory to read something about hair raising mountaineering expedition. Everyone tracks to the base camp. After all there is only one highest mountain in the world. Some hikers here, never left the city before coming here. I am not one to talk, since I admitted before that most of the training I’ve done for this trip was gathering the courage to quit my job and hanging out in Beano. But at least I have a past I can resurrect when necessary of traveling in third world countries, hiking and climbing. With all due respect to Café Beano, I didn’t come straight from there.

To get back to the point, everyone is reading harrowing mountaineering stories here about people who fell into crevasses and lost their nose to frost bite, yet lived to write a book about it. I think the days there will be an oral exam about Into Thin Air, to get a hiking permit, are drawing near. The “serious” hikers read The Climb, by Anatoly Bukareeve instead. The reason I am lamenting about it, is that I happen to take an excruciatingly boring book with me, by Kinglsy Amis, about 3 middle aged welsh men who are mostly drunk and do nothing, and my options of exchanging it for a decent read are almost zero, unless of course I want to read yet another account of how fucking miserable and cold it was to get stuck on a mountain side.

The lodge in Namche was great and we got a rare opportunity to sit in the kitchen, and not in the dining room. Ang Phurba who lived there for 35 years runs it. Her daughter is one of the most famous sherpa guides who summated Everest twice as well as many as the other mountains and died in a climbing accident two years ago. Ang Phurba is one of the most impressive woman I’ve seen with natural authority and a great sense of humor. We came back to Namche later and I will tell a bit more about her if I ever catch up.

The recommended acclimatization schedule is to stay two nights in Namche to let your body adjust to the altitude. It goes up fast from here, and unless you want to come down blue and in a helicopter, this is the right way to go about it. We were lucky since we arrived on Friday and every Saturday there is a local market. The market designated for the locals and mostly sells food in bulk. It is quite a wild site. Vendors sell fresh yak butter and home made cheese, apples, bananas and canned food. They sit in two long rows which runs almost at an abyss. One of the most exciting parts is the meat market on the top level. There is a long counter full of meet, mostly yak, behind on the wall meet parts are hung on hooks, huge rib cages, legs, thighs. The floor is a mess. I positioned my tripod between a piece of scalped skin with ears still attached to it and some internal parts, I would have recognized if I had a clue what lies under the yak’s fur. It has the loud, frantic, busy atmosphere of market, full of shouts, arguments and haggling. It is exciting, makes for great photos and footage and quite a good reminder to avoid meat here.

As you go up in altitude, it seems that your body craves proteins. Since meat is out of the question, we eat a lot of eggs and tuna. One of the most popluar dishes in the lodges is fries with fried eggs on top.

It is not enough to stay idle in Namche to acclimatize. To get your body to boost making red blood cells, you need to hike, preferably go up in altitude for several hours and down again so you can get a good sleep. And so we did, after the market we started hiking up towards Tengboche. The way out of Namche, as the way in, is through a steep climb that is demoralizing. We hiked until a small place called Kyamgjuma at 3600 meters. Mercifully after the big climb, the majority of the trail is quite flat and is spectacular. You are waling on a mountain side, a turquoise river below you and the mountains frame the view. Kyamgjuma has the first front-raw seats to view the Ama-Dablam, one of the most gorgeous mountains in the Himalayas with a distinct graceful form and razor sharp sides to it. There is also a small bakery in Kyamgjuma.

To be continuted….

By the time we got the airport, it was seven o’clock and much busier then the previous day. We met Catherine and Louis David again who had the same tickets, the same flight number, only their departure time was marked 8:00 while ours was marked 8:30. Funny how these things happen. This time we were waiting by the airline broken booth, next to a very pissed off Australian couple that tried to reason with a calm Nepali airport worker.

Lukla airport was closed again. If anyone had a chance of flying it was the early flights that were booked for 6:30. The Australians were waiting for 3 days and every time they re-booked their flight they got the 8:30 slot as the earlier ones were already taken. What the frustrated tourist desperately tried to explain to the indifferent airport official was that they should have gotten the earlier flight by default. Only that the man they were talking to, wasn’t in charge and probably even if had been in-charge he would do the same thing. It was a lost effort. The logic and inherit justice in the Australian man’s desperate demand, enforced by a bulging vein in his right temple was totally missed by the guy, who kept saying, “but, you might fly today!” He didn’t.

Between quizzing Louis David and Catherine a bit more about their summer voyage (mainly about how it feels to eat lard for 3 months) and watching the Australian man loose his sanity, we were plenty entertained. At 10:30 we were told, that all flights were cancelled for the day and we had to go back to Kathmandu.

By now we were dispirited. Thamel with it’s crazy mishmash of westernized leftovers seemed impossible to bare. I was not in the mood to listen to Bob Marley accompanied by a loud generator while politely refusing to buy a flute. If not mentioned before, I abhor Bob Marley, particularly No Woman No cry, an annoying song with a stupid title, followed closely by Buffalo Soldier. I also dislike The Doors and Brian Adams and I don’t care putting them in the same sentence which I hope to never use it again!

We went to our travel agent and asked to be on the 6:30 flight the next day. After assuring us there were only two airlines that fly to Lukla the day before, he magically managed to find us tickets with another airline, which was not one of the two for the early flight.

We went to eat fried food and met with Katherine and Louis David and went to Monkey Temple. We then went back to our rooms and waited patiently for our flight the next day.

There is a major leap of faith one has to make when they get to an airport in a third world country and the domestic terminal in Kathmandu airport challenges you know about airport safety as well as basic common sense. It sits on the fine border line between charming and alarming. The airport looks like a forgotten military post during the cold war. Rusty barb wire and street dogs welcome you in the entrance, a dilapidated tower and a couple of soldiers in blue camouflage uniform.

There are two ways to get to the trek to the Everest Base Camp: the first and most popular is to take a 40 minute flight to Lukla, which is the proud home of the most dangerous airport in the world, and hiker from there. The second option is to take a bus from Katmandu to Jiri and hike 6 days up and down until you reach Lukla. It is a testament to the power of human laziness, that one rather die then hike for extra 6 days. To be fair, the hike from Jiri is a bitch and it’s a lot slower then crashing on a mountainside.

We arrived at 6:00 AM and stood in line among travelers and locals until we were allowed to get in. We put our bags and went through a rickety metal detector that looked home made and I doubt was working. The main checking area is old and run down with electricity cables running everywhere, and crumbling, water stained walls. The airline check points are marked by broken, rusted signs.

Lukla is notoriously hard to land in. It has an astonishingly short runway that ends in a cliff. If the weather is too cloudy or too windy then the flights are cancelled. We went through our baggage drop-off fairly quickly, got a boarding pass, jumped over the huge scales and found ourselves in the “gate” area. Not very different in terms of aesthetics, the waiting room had a little kiosk where you could buy snacks and milk tea and even a cyber room with Internet, that was down. We were notified the Lukla’s airport is closed and they were waiting for the clouds to clear. After about 3 hours, our flight was called and we went up on a bus to our double engine plane.

In the meantime we met Catherine and Louis-David, a couple from Quebec and started chatting with them. One of the best most exciting parts about traveling is the people you meet. Catherine and Louis David turned out to be certified extreme tourism guides. In 2008 they were part of an expedition that tracked the footsteps of Alexander Mackenzie’s voyage on the Peace River in 1793. Filmed for a TV show, the idea was to be historically correct in the equipment, clothing and food that the voyagers had. They canoed for a hundred days for a distance of over 1000 km. They told us that after the base camp track they are going on another 4 months expedition, this time 4 times the distance from Winnipeg to the North West Territories.

We passed two hours quizzing then about their journey, which sounds heroic, adventurous and utter torture. Adamant on being historically accurate, all they are going to eat for duration of the trip is pig lard pees, occasionally fish if they manage to fish them. They only have a blanket and a tarp and will not only row for 14 hour days, they will also have to carry their supply and canoes where the water is too high. Obviously, they made our little hike sound like a nursing home afternoon activity.

Finally our flight was called and we boarded the double engine 18 passenger plane. We were greeted by a flight which told us to sit on the left, the mountain side! The only thing that looks professional in Kathmandu airport is the filght attendants; dressed in traditional Tibetan garb, full make-up and high heals, they look reassuring and out of place at the same time. Once we were seated, our flight attendant passed with a tray with cotton balls to muffle the engine sound and hard mango flavored candy. Looking from the window I noticed that even the tarmac was patchy with missing asphalt in some places. We put our seat belts on and waited anxiously. After an hour on the plane we were notified that all flights were cancelled due to poor conditions at Lukla airport and were sent back to the airport to pick our bags.

We took a cab back to the Thamel area, changed our plane tickets to the 8:30 flight leaving the next day and went to eat fried food, true to the assumption that when you are traveling food has no calories and you burn them even sitting in bed.

Our second day in Kathmadu was dedicated to running errands and getting over our jet lag. It was also getting re-acquainted with the city. Kathmandu has unique smell: an intoxicating blend of incense, spices, old cooking oil, diesel fuel, flowers and garbage. It is fragrant and noisy. Traffic is a mess. To be fair, the locals do occasionally take their hands off the horn. Since the road is shared by cars, bicycles, pedestrians and animals, and sidewalks as well as traffic signs or lights are sporadic, honking is the most effective way on communication. Every dirt trail can turn into a 4-lane highway instantaneously.

Electricity is notoriously un-reliable and hardly surprising when you look at the wiring. The only shock is that there is electricity at all. Almost every house of business has a generator, big or small, but always loud that contributes significantly to the beat and cacophony. When you add dog barks, cows mooing, occasional high pitched tune from a vendor trying to sell hand made flutes, you get a full blown cacophony. This is not a migraine friendly city!

Thamel area, where most of the tourists stay is a whacky, patchwork mishmash of local culture and western 70’s memorabilia with a Nepalese twist. So, Bob Marley as well as Brian Adams are still quite big here. At night local cover bands sing hits from Pink Floyd’s The Wall in ear shattering volume to get over the sound of the generators.

It is also gorgeous, full of stunning art and every color imaginable. As soon as you leave the tourist area, things become messier, more hectic and more picturesque. There are little stupas and places of worship on every corner; some are hundreds of years old. Religion is inseparable part of life.

Our biggest mission was to find a second power bar. We needed one since electricity points are sparse and we will need to charge the computer and well as multiple batteries and hard drives. The decision to buy a second one followed the death of the one we bought just the day before. We decided to go to the market area outside of Thamel. All we needed to do is find the electric appliances street. We passed by butchers, vegetable vendors, underwear and shoes until we finally found it, at the end of the dentist segment.

The stupidest financial decision I have ever made was to not sleep with my dentist when I was 18. Forget quitting my job, never mind stock options, this is all small change. He was actually kind of nice, just not very attractive. Years of painful treatments and enough money for a hefty down payment turned me into a dentist hater. This is a bit beside the point, but I find the fact that dentists have the highest suicide rate, poetic justice at all its glory. Looking at the dentist shops in the market displaying old dentures (one of them even had a huge ball filled with human teeth as part of it’s window display), made me wonder if here the highest suicide rate belonged to people who had toothaches. I would sure pick that over a visit to one of these clinics. I think that surviving a bullet to the head would have been less painful. I was so mesmerized, that we almost forgot the power bar and had to come back.

We spent the rest of the evening in our hotel room sleeping periodically and waiting for our flight to Lukla tomorrow.

Photos from Thamel and Durbar Square.

I shot video from the back on a Rickshaw today.

After nearly thirty hours of travel we are finally in Katmandu. The two weeks preceding have been hard. There is nothing as stressful as coming to terms with the crap you’ve accumulated and trying to fit it into storage. No matter how optimistic, calm and reasonable we were trying to be about it, it was a nightmare. Talk about film materials, it had it all: the harsh truths we didn’t clean our place nearly as much as we should have, the gore that lies behind the fridge and oven, the tragedy of realizing you own Ikea furniture, the horror of life-size dust bunnies, the suspense of whether you will be done on time before the movers show up, and the psychological suspense of whether you will emerge defected and deranged from the experience. By Thursday we had no jobs, no apartment, no phone, no cell phones, no car, and only 3 keys for storage boxes somewhere in the Southeast of the city. The transition was, well, a bit abrupt.

All of our belongings were now cramped into two huge backpacks: very little clothes, a sleeping bag, gore tex shells, a down jacket, something that suppose to server as a towel, but looks like an oversized dust cloth (one that would have helped when we cleaned our place) and a whole lot of camera equipment, sound equipment and cables which I have a vague idea of how to use. The roaring sensation of freedom and relief I was assured will come by people too polite to say anything else, was stalling. Instead, as I was gazing at my red monstrous pack I felt more like a moron. The inside of my forehead transformed into a drive-in large screen projecting the opening captions for the moment, that were insultingly succinct: WTF?!

Lucky for me, I have a very strong and effective coping mechanism as I am quite shallow and get bored easily. For a moment I was sadly wondering if assuming that I can shoot a focused picture with compensable audio using equipment that is two weeks old is not only arrogant but also ludicrous; if presuming that I can hike up to Tengboche hauling a 16 kg backpack when the only training I’ve done is sitting in Beano drinking coffee might be wishful thinking, not to mention the far fetched medical assumption that I’ve convinced myself with that nursing hangovers is a viable practice to altitude sickness. It was too much to contemplate. It was also a bit late, as we were in the airport I settled for being delusional over arrogant, settled for “I guess I will have to find out” course of action and silently wished not to sit by screaming children so I can read the portable audio device manual for the next 9 hours of flight.

Flying is less glamorous then it used to be. I’m not old enough to remember when people actually dressed up to fly as to a cocktail party, rather then looking like they have been unemployed for the past decade but still, things are becoming increasingly worse. I think the days you will have to go through security buck-naked are coming close. I will need to loose at least 10 pounds just to get the fuck out of Calgary. Every time I am forced to take off my shoes, my belt and still buzz because some ghost metal once touched my skin, then being violated by a pissy women in uniform, I am wondering whether it qualifies as a physical and I can get my birth control prescription renewed.

I still love to fly and I even know a tip about where is best to seat thanks to Shannon and one miserable flight for a field school trip a couple of years ago. I didn’t know Shannon very well as we never bothered with one another. We were in different social circles, and I was still devastated over the fact I went to school instead of waitressing and saving money for travelling. At the airport, she asked to see my boarding pass and then asked me if we can switch seats. She casually explained that since my seat was at the front of the plane and hers was at the back, statistically I would have had better chances of surviving a crash. Not anymore, since I already handed her my boarding pass. The audacity!

A week later on our way back Shannon once again asked to see my boarding pass, completely oblivious to the fact she already asked me the same question. In my entire life, twice I got a seat at the front of the plane. This was the second time. While my urge to live is not that bold, I suffered this patronizing, silly cow for a week and survival of the fittest was the last thing on my mind. I was ready to mess with Darwinism. When Shannon sweetly asked me to change seats, I said, Hell no! Statistically there are much better chances of surviving if you are at the front, I informed her with such authority you would think I conducted the research myself. Beside, I added, the bathroom smells. I was so annoyed with her that I actually hoped the plane would crash. I wanted to test this theory.

The truth is that I don’t really want to survive a plane crash. I am not very competent and won’t be much help in a deserted Island situation. I don’t want to deal with the loss of my luggage either. I use to read a lot of deserted island books as a child and in one of them, I think it was Coral Island, 3 young boys survive a storm in the ocean and end up on a deserted Island. The most competent one, (which was also the handsomest and the tallest), manages to swim to shore with an iron pot, which proves to be quite pivotal in their survival. I don’t remember the details, but I do remember that he said “ a good scout never leaves the house without a pot”.

Aviv

I took it to heart and from the ages of 8 till 10 I never left the house without my mom giant soup pot to my dad’s utter fury with me. I might not have been the most normal child, but I was definitely stubborn and you couldn’t take me anywhere without this pot. You would have to break my fingers to take it away from me. On at least one occasion we had to take it with leftover soup, as we were late and I wasn’t going anywhere without it. My dad was livid with me and questioned my mom about who’s offspring I am, since he didn’t want any credit for this one. No matter how hard my parents tried to reason with me to part ways with the pot, I wouldn’t budge. I guess I always treated what my parent’s told me with suspicion, which proved to be justifiable since they did lie to me a lot, just not in the case of our chances to end up on an Island on our way to a neighbors bar mitzvah.

Anyhow, now that I am grown up I have nothing to do with pots anymore, and if I do crash on a plane and end up on a deserted Island, I have no intention of cooking for everybody. I am choosing death and not survival. I don’t want to face the choice of hunger and perhaps resorting to eating some of my fellow passengers. Most likely I will get eaten first since I brought the cooking apparatus. And really, in the unlikely possibility of living through a crash and being saved from this god forsaken Island alive and un-chewed on, it is reasonable to assume I might develop a justifiable fear of flying and then what? Will I be doomed to stay in one place for the rest of my life? So, when I have a choice, I am always picking the back seat. It is close to the washroom and statistics is on my side.