The Flight of Your Life

Arrived in Lukla yesterday and the flight lived up to it's reputation. Firstly, we were going at speed down the runway at Katmandu to take off only to have the pilot power down and return back to the terminal. We were all a little nervous at first thinking a possible failure of some sort (definitely not what you want flying into Lukla) but as it turned out, Lukla was that moment temporarily closed due to poor weather. About 2hrs later we were taking off again, in what was still pretty cloudy conditions as we flew higher up into Everest region with mountains on either side of the aircraft actually being higher than the height at which the plane was flying. At times the mountains were so, so close - it seemed close enough to clip the wings of the plane. The plane bounced around a lot as it passed through clouds. 14 passengers in total all sitting in single seats. To my right was a local Nepalese women who had a firm grip across the ailseway of my shirt and was in tears terrified by the approach. As the plane came up hard against a peak, at the last minute it took sharp turn to the right and there in sight was the short runway of Lukla, literally hanging to the cliffside. Before we knew it we had touched down and pulled up hard at the end of the 400m runway…….we had made it to Lukla!