Feeling less threatened lately? That's probably because the Bigfoot body which was "discovered" last week in California turned out to be yet another hoax. But Japanese scientists, undeterred, are leading a trek into the Himalayas to collect definitive evidence of the existence of the yeti, Bigfoot's Eastern cousin.
Yeti Project Japan left Kathmandu Thursday seeking traces of the half-man half-ape which they believe lives on the Dhaulagiri IV peak. If they find nothing, maybe they can have a big party up there since the expedition is co-sponsored by the brand "Lost in Translation" made famous, Suntory liquor.
Nepal-based Yeti Airlines has volunteered to clear away a mess of bottles and cans littering a town known as the Gateway to Mount Everest. The town of Lukla is home to Tenzing-Hillary Airport--perhaps the sketchiest in the world--and has apparently accumulated a lot of waste due to careless hikers and hotel owners.
A senior official at Yeti said the company hopes to clear away as much as 37,000 pounds of empty beer bottles alone! We suppose it probably takes a few drinks to talk yourself into climbing the world's highest peak.
Recovered bottles will be given to breweries to be reused or recycled. Airline officials are hoping their effort will raise awareness among both tourists and locals about the importance of preserving the local habitat. We're glad Yeti's doing this, but it's a tad depressing that the awe of the Himalayas hasn't been enough to drive that point home.
One of the world's most dangerous airports--at least according to us--will be renamed to honor the two climbers who tamed Everest in 1953. Lukla Airport, a small strip served by Yeti Airlines, will soon be known as Tenzing-Hillary Airport, and a route between it and the Everest base camp will also be named for them.
Officials are also planning to put up some statues of the famous climbers at the mountaineering museum in Pokhara, east of Lukla. Oh, and before you go booking a flight to the airport, watch some of the white-knuckle rides that people have uploaded to YouTube to make sure you're up for the trip.
Officials at Nepal Airlines, the country's state run airline, have sacrificed two goats to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god, following technical problems with one of its Boeing 757s, the airline announced today. Seriously.
The goats were sacrificed in front of the balky aircraft on Sunday at Nepal's Kathmandu airport--following Hindu traditions. So to quickly recap, if you land at Nepal's LUA airport you have to deal with a freaky take off and landing, and if you land in Kathmandu you may witness a goat sacrifice in action.
A senior airport official said:
The snag in the plane has now been fixed and the aircraft has resumed its flights.
Hmmm. Somehow we doubt PETA members will be flying this airline anytime soon. We don't know what is more disturbing, the actual sacrificing or the fact that the aircraft was declared "fixed" post sacrifice. You decide.
Gone are the days when an expedition to Mount Everest was only for hard-core adventure travelers: We already know you can make cell phone calls there. Now you can book the Classic Everest trek which the British tour company World Expeditions say is "for those who are short on time and do not wish to camp." It's a 12-day climb out of Lukla and seems like a really soft way to see a bit of the Himalayas.
To their credit, they haven't changed their entire program to suit busy businessmen who want a Mount Everest-conquering picture on their office desks. Kayaking along the coastline and interior riverways of Belize sounds a bit more hard-core, and the 31-day trek in Nepal to the Mera and Island Peak mountains is properly billed as being "for the ambitious adventurer". But half their trip blurbs include the phrase "if you're short on time". If they're not careful, adventure travel will become "short on adventure".
There is still a big mystery surrounding the first climbers to reach the summit of Mt Everest. Of course, we routinely credit Sir Edmund Hillary as the king of the Himalayas, but many suspect that British climber George Mallory got to the top 29 years earlier.
The reason we can't ask ol' George if he made it or not is that he died in the process. This week US climber Conrad Anker and British pal Leo Houlding climbed Everest Mallory-style, proving that it was technically possible with their 1920s equipment. But it ain't the same as having proof that they got there. If only China Telecom had installed their cell phone mast nearly a century earlier.
For the next couple of days we are doing a quick fly-over of the world's most dangerous airports. Know a stomach dropping, palm sweat inducing airport we should check out? Send it along.
Since Lukla Nepal is the place most people start their Mount Everest trek, this Himalayan strip gets quite a bit of traffic--mostly to and from Kathmandu.
Sirens inform folks for miles when an airplane is landing here, and as you would suspect, only helicopters and Twin Otter type planes can handle the 2,000 foot, uphill runway that is fenced off at the end, to protect you from the edge of a mountain cliff.
As for take off?
When you take off, you go downhill and then the runway just disappears into the valley down below. If you don't get enough speed, you drop until you get lift and then hopefully get back up again.
Wind and weather cause plenty of delays here, however, there is usually plenty to drink around the airport, just in case you need to pass the time or get up the gumption to get on your flight.
Yeti Airlines is one of the few commercial airlines you can book through to get to LUA.
Click Here to check out a small craft landing at Lukla.
Truth in advertising's a controversial subject: if you Photoshop the sky to make a travel poster for a mostly-sunny destination more appealing, is that such a bad thing? How about if you use a national tourism symbol from a country on the other side of the world to advertise your national airline?
We draw the line at that point. But that's exactly what Royal Nepal Airlines did--presumably accidentally. Yes, the national Nepalese carrier advertised their services with a beautiful picture of...Machu Picchu. Yes, Machu Picchu in Peru, on a completely different continent.
The airline offered apologies to Peru for using the picture of the Machu Picchu Sanctuary on a poster to promote their country and assured that the lamentable error has been corrected ... As a consequence, the Nepalese airline fired an employee in the rank of a manager
Experts do say that the landscape in the Himalayas can look similar to the Andes, but this is surely the kind of error that just shouldn't happen. Or maybe someone should just start advertising the Great Barrier Reef with a picture of somebody's swimming pool.
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by egw
