Himalayas from the Air on a clear day

I am really kicking myself now because I forgot my camera on the most beautiful trip I have had since coming to India. Last night I was telling Karen I would need my camera since I hadn't been to this city before and it was over towards the Himalayas. Well, I got up and my driver was early and so I was in a hurry and when we got levelled at 41,000 feet I was just so sick to my stomach because I didn't have my good camera and telephoto lense. As we levelled I looked out the window at the most unbelieveable sight I have ever seen. Just hundreds of miles of the most beautiful mountains I have ever seen. At, even though we were 41,000 feet above sea level, we were only 12,000 feet above some of these peaks. My eyes could barely take it all in. For awhile I was just completely filled with awe and almost unable to do my job up there. I was so distracted for about 30 minutes. It was just a mind bogglingly religious experience. To have had the camera to really show you would have completed my day. It was clear and cloudless for hundreds of miles, just awesome, as a cold front had recently come through and showed me a world I knew was out there but had never been able to see.

I took out my trusty Blackberry with it's pitiful 3.2 megapixel camera and fired away. It's kind of sad to see all that beauty and then not be able to bring much of it home, but I will still post the photo album and let you see a little bit of the amazing world that I saw today.

Coming SE from Delhi, we never really got down as far as Mt. Everest or K2, although I believe I saw them from the cockpit, but they were still over 100 miles away. But, on the trip from Delhi to Patna, India, we saw hundreds of miles of the Himalayas. To see those gorgeous mountains on the horizon and realize that it represents the highest places on earth and all the beauty that they contain was completely life changing. My good attorney friend in Chattanooga, Scott Graham, had bothered to come to Nepal in 2004 and climb Mt. Everest successfully in May of that year (GO SCOTT) and now I was seeing it out my window. And today the sky was clear and you could see how huge this area is. But, the biggest thrill was to see from our cat-bird seat these huge mountains, so high they looked like they were out the window, not down below.

I promise now that next time I go this way I will have my good camera and will never miss another opportunity to put this place in it's best light. I will send out a link really soon with connection to the rest of the Himalayas photos that I took today, along with a few others from this week.

Now, I have to go to Nepal and see this magical place. Even though we mess it up continually, I am transfixed by the pictures of our Blue Planet from space and now from high in the sky to see these mountains was completely magical - what a beautiful sight!!

Still kind of tingly from today's flight!!

Dan