Hi friends,
I know its been a while since I wrote but I actually wrote a nice, long blog the other night and then, just as I was getting ready to publish it, it all disappeared and I lost the will to recreate it on the same night. So, I went to bed and now here I am in Pakistan just sitting in my hotel room and wondering what it would be like to just go out to the mall or something. It feels so strange to be in a country that I know so little about. I will have to say that the people at the airport were nothing but nice and brought the fuel truck on time and pumped us right back to where we wanted to be for our departure to Bangladesh tomorrow. I don't think in any of my wildest dreams that I thought I would ever be flying from Pakistan to Bangladesh but here I am and here we go. To add interest to the program we are flying the Norwegian Ambassador to India and his staff. My daughter's boyfriend before her husband was Norwegian and he and his family really did some wonderful things for Shayna at her wedding. It was just awesome the way they decorated the gymnasium for her reception, I have never seen anything like it. I told the Ambassador that is made a lifetime impression on me and all the staff were so pleased. They had already complimented our air hostess and said that she needed to start a restaurant in Delhi for the kind of food she served. I had some after we landed and it was really good, I will have to say.
Anyway, I find myself looking out the windows at a country that speaks a similar language to India but, in many ways, is very different. Here, it doesn't feel nearly as crowded and that's probably because this is a desert climate and won't support the numbers of people that the Indian continent does. But, also, the roads are much better and there are fewer cars. We drove about 20 minutes form the airport and didn't hit a single "Jam" as the Indians call the nightmarish Delhi traffic. So, when I get back home I will send some of the pictures from this trip and write another travelogue about where I have been this week. I realize that it must sound like National Geographic at times but it just happens to be my life on the other side of the world. Today, while we were flying over here I heard another airliner on the frequency and it gave me pause for thought as it was "Vietnam Airlines". Here I am, over Pakistan and hearing Vietnam Airlines. It made me realize what kind of a specialized world that I live in here. I consider every day of my life as a HUGE adventure and so interesting for this little, old country boy from Tennessee for the last 30 years.
Last week we did one of the most awesome trips that I have done since coming to India. We flew over to Calcutta, which was my first trip to extreme Eastern India and so I got a look at that city from the air. Then, we flew North of Calcutta towards the Himalayas and spent parts of 3 days in the Himalayan foothills at Bagdotra, with our hotel city being Siliguri. The mountains were staring down on our hotel room windows. I took a private taxi ride for the day up into the mountains to over 5,000 feet. I took over 400 photos which I will eventually post if I ever get the captions done. I have had to go out and buy extra space on my website so that I can post all my photos. While we were flying in and out of Bagdotra I got some of the most awesome photos of Mt. Everest that I have been able to get so far. I had to really reset my brain to look out the window of my jet and be descending through 20,000 feet and see a mountain not that far away that stands over 10,000 feet ABOVE me. This can't be happening, but it was. In this photo above you can see Mt. Everest on the right and K2 on the left, the two highest peaks in the world. I couldn't help but think of my friend Scott Graham in Chattanooga. He took leave from his job in the spring of 2004 and took a couple of months off to climb (successfully) to the top of this mountain. I also thought about the many folks who have died while trying to climb and many who are still up there on the mountain as there is no way to get them down if something happens above a certain altitude. Scott explained to me that once you get into what they call the "death zone" you have to take care of yourself. A broken ankle or any little thing that might prevent you from carrying your own body up here will be a death sentence as no one else can do anything for you at these altitudes. At some points the trail is narrow and they literally have to almost step over the bodies to get to the top. It all just seems unreal and Scott said his brain felt like mush for about 2-3 months after he came back. I know some wonderful young man from Scandinavia gave up his life climbing the mountain last May so it's not an automatic for anyone, that's for sure. I just felt so in awe looking out the window at the really special place on earth. Karen and I have plans to fly over to Katmandu commercially and I will for sure be doing the aerial tour of Mt. Everest before I leave this side of the planet for good. My son's wife, Jessica spent a student missionary year in Nepal and so I am sure she has special feelings about this area.
Those of you who know me know how much I love to go to places that I have never been before and especially if they are outstanding or different places to visit. That is what makes this flight to Pakistan so special today. I wonder if any of my classmates from either high school or college have ever been here, and that alone makes it special to be able to come here. My friend Dr. John McGhee, from Auburn, Washington, was born here in Pakistan and speaks the local language, Urdu, which is similar enough to Hindi that my Indian crewmembers are able to converse and get along just fine here with the language. For those who don't know India and Pakistan were one country until 1947 under the British rule. When Britain pulled out the man who ended up being the prime minister for Pakistan said he wanted all the Moslems here and he shipped all non-Moslems to what became a smaller India under their first independant leader, Nehru. Many of those who travled to India during this very unsettled time were killed and never made it on those death trains to India. I have several friends in Delhi who can tell you terrible stories about that time. It's within my sister's lifetime so that kind of puts it in perspective for me. Anyway, to be sitting in a nice hotel room in Islamabad tonight and thinking about the incredible differences in culture that mankind has come up with just fills me with amazement.
Our other air hostess says that the food is good here so in a little while we'll wander down to the restaurant here at the Crowne Plaza and see what they have. This is not the American Hotel chain that you might be thinking. I thought it was but that would definitely be a 5 star hotel here and this is a 3 star. We have comfortable rooms and air-conditioning and wi-fi, etc, which seems to work faster than just about anywhere I have been in India but it's still not blazing speed, but no complaints and just interesting to look out and take it all in with my eyes. So far, the people have been very nice. We asked if it was okay to take pictures at the airport and sure enough, they said it was fine. I was trying to get pix from the back seat of the taxi on the way to the hotel and I will see how that turns out later. The second pic above was a large 777 or something that flew OVER us at 41,000 feet while I had my telephoto lense on so you guys get treated to a rare photo of that. My autofocus won't work through the aircraft windshield and its very hard to get a good shot of something going by at 1,000 mph.
Well, we have decided to go for a walk at night. Everyone assures us it will be just fine. There are three of us so here we go.
I will send another update soon and let you know what we are up to next.
Karen is in full recovery mode and has been going to the gym with me every morning, so she is starting to look good. Everyone at church was very impressed and mentioned how nice she looked so I was happy for her.
You guys take care, we think of you every day,
Dan and Karen
No comments:
Post a Comment