Rescue!

We have nothing much to do for the rest of the day. Lakpa retires to the dining hall with a jug of chhang. We settle down in the yard with two glasses of lemon tea, chatting with Jamaal. Soon, we spot the rescue helicopter flying in from Kathmandu. It flies straight into the valley, makes a dizzying turn around the Machhermo Peak, and lands in the Machhermo Rescue Post yard across from us. A Japanese tourist boards and the helicopter takes off, to disappear towards Kathmandu. The rescue effort hasn't climbed down the food chain for the young porter yet. The helicopter returns for him an hour later. A young American who's just arrived finds all this amusing. He tells me, "See, that's how it is. Send one helicopter and everyone wants to go home." "Help me, help me, I am sick", he shouts, lurching down the hillside drunkenly, flailing his arms at the sky as the rescue chopper tries to make its precarious landing on the ledge opposite. Later, he takes out a wad of hundred-rupee notes from his pocket and hands it to the lodge-owner. He doesn't want to carry any small change over the Cho La pass, he says.