Finding herself on the mountain

One would not think that someone who had been considered timid, introverted, and accident-prone growing up, would end up going on a 13-day, 130km trek in a foreign land, climbing 17,600ft, walking up to eight hours a day and lugging six kilograms of luggage with her! 

Yet, that is what Ayesha Khanom, a young woman in her 30s accomplished, achieving the challenging trek from Lukla to Everest Base camp, 5,365 metres above sea level. 

This is not a journey for the fainthearted because it includes the very real possibility of altitude sickness with symptoms such as shortness of breath, nausea, dizziness, and sometimes even death if the signs of a medical emergency are ignored. 

What inspired this aspiring mountain climber to go on this arduous journey one might ask?  

Well, it all began when Ayesha read a novel when she was a girl, aged about 11, called “Lost Horizon” by James Hilton. This is where she first read about the Himalayas. 

From then on, she used to imagine herself walking through the mountains that were described in the book. Many years after that, when Ayesha was an undergraduate student, she went to listen to the famous mountaineer, Wasfia Nazreen who had come to give a talk at EMK centre. 

On the way to Lobuche (elevation 4,940 m), which is one of the last overnight stops with lodging on the "trail to base camp" Ang Babu Sherpa

Ayesha had been going through some tough times, mentally and financially, after losing her father who had just passed away. For a while, everything had looked bleak for her.  

Her two younger siblings, the youngest being just four, left to join their aunt in the US to help deal with the financial stress that overtook her family. 

It was a troubling time for the young teenage Ayesha.  

At the talk, Wasfia spoke about her struggles, how she found herself among the mountains of the Himalayas, and somehow it made Ayesha feel less alone in her dark times. 

In 2021, things started looking up after the world had suffered through a year of the pandemic. 

Vaccinations had started, and she set a lot of physical and mental goals for herself.  But then everything changed when just after Eid-ul-Fitr, she tragically lost her mother.  

Naturally, this was a huge burden to bear, as she had lost both her parents over the span of a few years.  

Her two siblings were also far away.  For a while, time stopped moving for Ayesha.  She let go of all the things that used to make her happy, entertained, and fit, including books and music.  

She felt completely lost. Her husband was her only companion but he, being a banker, had to be away most of the day, while she worked from home. 

But one day, after several months of being lost, Ayesha realized that her life was precious. She decided that she needed to pull herself out of the rut of depression. 

She recalled another book she had read a few years back called “Touching my Father's Soul” by Jamling Tenzing.  

Jamling was the son of Tenzing Norgay who first climbed Mount Everest in 1953 with Sir Edmund Hillary.  In the book, Jamling revealed that it was not so much about how fit one is physically, but how resilient one is mentally, that basically led to success or failure on the mountain. 

Ayesha realized that she herself had faced many challenges in her life and still came out stronger, which could mean that she too had the quality of resilience in her. Dare she try this? She decided to go for it. 

Having a challenging goal would make her feel alive and she felt she would be able to heal and find herself in the process.

There was a lot to learn from just watching YouTube videos.  Every day, she woke at the crack of dawn, to go through some calming mental and physical routines.  

This included strength-building exercises, after which she set off for work. 

After work, she would go for a  six-mile run. This would normally take two hours.  

Ayesha on Hillary Suspension Bridge, named after Sir Edmund Hillary, the final suspension bridge before entering Namche Bazaar Darcy Elks

Her grueling fitness regime was important as all the experts advised that getting fit would prevent problems on the mountain. 

Her diet too changed completely.  Ayesha was known for being a foodie, but she willed herself to do a 360-degree turnaround.  

In the morning and afternoon, she depended on fresh juices which she whipped up herself. In the morning she would prepare a juice made up of pineapple, bananas, oranges, turmeric, ginger and wait for it… garlic!  

For lunch too she had another fresh juice (her office luckily had a juicer) of beetroot, spinach and carrots.  

Her meal at night was a regular Bengali meal.  

Finally, when she felt she had reached her desired level of physical fitness, she took a fortnight's leave from her office and flew from Dhaka to Kathmandu. 

At Kathmandu, she first bought warm clothing as she could not find the suitable kind in Dhaka. 

A few colleagues and friends though had lent her a few items. In her backpack, she carried water-purifying tablets, a rain jacket, a beanie, warm clothes, and flasks for carrying water. 

Equipment wise, she had two poles, which would provide support and balance on the mountain.  

Unfortunately, she could not get the right type of mountain boots. 

Her first task was to arrive at Lukla from Kathmandu. Lukla airport is known for being one of the scariest and deadliest airports in the world, and it often has flights cancelled due to bad weather as the runway is very small and bad weather can make the situation risky for the pilots to land properly. 

This is exactly what happened to her, cancelled flights! 

After waiting for five hours at the airport and realizing that there would not be any more flights that day, she tagged along with two Greek trekkers who she had met at the airport to fly by a chopper to Lukla. 

It was her first ever helicopter ride. 

Acclimatization day at Namche Bazar (elevation 3,440m) Ashok

The weather in Lukla (elevation 2,860m) was so bad that the chopper even could not land in Lukla, instead opting for Surke, a village in Nepal (elevation 2,309m) situated near Chaurikharka and Cheplung. 

When Ayesha jumped off the helicopter and looked at the massive mountains, waterfalls and greenery all around, all the troubles she had encountered to get there vanished from her mind. 

She could not believe that she had finally reached her destination and that her trekking adventure had begun on the foothills of the Himalayas. 

Each day she took on a long trail lasting from six to eight hours.  Every day, apart from her luggage of clothing and equipment she also carried six litres water! 

On these treks, nature was her only companion. The solitude felt magical to her. It was as if nature was whispering “you are meant to be here, you were meant to take this journey by yourself!”

On those long trails her only companions were the tall trees, mountains and waterfalls and watching these beautiful marvels kept pushing her to move forward. 

For Ayesha, this trek was a means to come to terms with the past and find peace within herself. 

It taught her the importance of taking care of herself and valuing herself which she had always overlooked. 

The journey helped her arrive at the conclusion that when compared to the might of nature, human beings were very insignificant and life is very short as well, so one should value every moment. 

Of course, she faced some tribulations along the way. She ended up changing guides three times and even got lost along the way during bad weather.  

Luckily her brutal routine of preparation back in Bangladesh paid off.  

When she started climbing to the higher altitudes, she seemed not to be affected by altitude sickness. 

Although the oximeter that she carried showed her Oxygen level had fallen significantly, she felt alright.  

What kept her strong on the mountain was recalling how she had moved many invisible mountains of trouble in her life, which made her into a strong resilient human being.  

This gave her the strength to take on the challenge of the trek up to base camp of the real Mount Everest which she reached on September 16 this year.

After coming back, Ayesha is still inspired to go higher and take on more mountains in her life, both real and metaphorical!

R L Anam is an academic, researcher and writer.