Today started off earlier than most days for me. Why? I never really slept in the first place. Last night was cold. The cold has the power to make you feel everything at once and then suddenly, nothing at all. With temperatures dipping below -10° at night, it’s a wonder I didn’t freeze!

I finally gathered enough courage to crawl out from the heavy blanket at around 8 in the morning. It was bright outside but that did little to change the temperature. -8°. On the bright side, I walked out of the tent to the prettiest view. Right in front of me, was Mount Everest. It’s snowy peak stark again the backdrop of a cloudless blue sky. We were extremely lucky. That itself made last night totally worth it.

After braving the cold a bit longer in order to get a few pictures, we made our journey back down towards saner heights. Relatively. My mind eased a bit more each time I saw the temperatures increase. I never thought I’d ever be so happy to see the temperature at zero.

Not even an hour away from Everest and dad tuned in to the local radio hoping to hear the odd stray Bollywood song as he had got lucky the previous night with ‘pardesi” playing in the police car. Well, we were hoping for Indian radio and boy did we get Indian radio. The weirdest thing started happening. Radio stations from Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Indore started playing, clearly, I must add. I don’t understand how that even happened but the homesick part of me didn’t mind at all. In hind sight, it was all rather eerie. Dad dubbed the area the Indian Radio Graveyard.