Trek, day one (Kathmandu airport)

First off, some deets about the trek. We fly from Kathmandu to Lukla, which is at 10,000 feet our so. The trek is three days up, to Temboche, and three days back down. The maximum height we reach is about 13,000-14,000 feet, but there's a lot of up-and-down. It is strenuous, to say the least.

So. The journey starts at the Kathmandu airport. During five hours of mysterious flight delays (many other folks had even longer), I made a series of concise photo essays on the following:

- Faces of boredom, fatigue and a general sense of hopelessness
- The 'relaxed' security measures (the metal detectors went off for everyone, resulting in a cursory and haphazard pat down)
- Faces of bewilderment and defeat upon seeing the flight status board
- Flagrant disregard for heeding / enforcing the "photo / video recording strictly prohibited" notices.

Also, they stopped me at security to confiscate a 10mm wrench I had in my backpack. I forgot it was there. I liked that wrench. Maybe they thought I would slowly disassemble the plane with it while in flight. In high school, I used it to fix my Datsun's carburetor. I guess I don't really need a physical representation of that memory anyway.

So, anyway. This whole post turned out to be about the airport. Trek update coming shortly, I'll include some teaser photos.

- Carey