THIS is what I had in mind: Annapurna II

Today is flight day. Or flight night, to be more exact. We enter a plane of Turkish Airlines with destination Istanbul and guess what: my seat is already taken. The flight attendant I ask for help is neither willing nor helpful, but at least she leads me to another window seat. With the plane’s wing below my window I see not a glimpse of the earth, but for the first part of the trip this is ok. More important is the second flight: 23:59 hours before departure I took severe care about the reservation of a window seat on the left side: all for the gorgeous view on the Himalaya.

Angry or Equanimous? Depends more on your Inner State than on External Factors

It will be the second (2 out of 2) time that Turkish Airlines is uncapable to deal with conflicting situations. My seat mate might be a nice guy in better times, but tonight, he is drunk. So boozy that he is unable to stand up or sit straight. Every now and then he falls over and bumps at the seat in front of him. Or at me. But all of this would be okay if not for the breathing: He smells disgustingly sour of alcohol. I wonder if he is part of a Yeti clan, for what all that I have heard they are not supposed to smell of roses… Anyway, I will not stand this for further 5 and a half hours.

My father would have said: “Riecht wie toter Hund ganz hinten”. But that would be a very nasty description of my flight neighbour…

The flight attendant turns the situation into the best for the drunken (he now has 2 window seats all for himself) and leads me to a free seat in the middle of the plane. Bye-bye mountain view…

In exchange for the smoggy view on distant mountain peaks, I get to know a bit about Nepal from the young Nepali at my side. Later during my journey, I will think back quite often to the clean-up-Nepal campaign he told me about and why a change of mindset is deeply required.

During the flight, I meet 4 of the 14 group members of our trekking trip, but recognize only 1: Sabine, the friend who started it all along and with whom I share the holidays, lodge rooms and a lot of laughter. However, we will have plenty of time to get closer together within the next two weeks while the trek unfolds.

Plenty of Time to Work on my Karma