Nepal: Katmandu/Mount Everest. Real Men Love Mountains.

Some men like fast cars, expensive suits and (insert phallic symbol.) I like a big ol’ rock. Yep, that’s right I love a certain mountain. I'm a mountain man and I love mountain women… Awkward silence… Is this thing on? (Tap, tap.)

Wow, apart from that tragic joke I would like to declare my love for Mount Everest. I don't know why I love it, maybe because I’ve mythologized about it since childhood and have since filled my large head with useless Everest trivia. It’s 8,848 meters high and first climbed in 1953 by former beekeeper Edmund Hillary - interesting.

A few months ago in New York I used a moving company to transport some office furniture and discovered that one of the movers was (in his spare time) a Sherpa on Mount Everest. He said that a climber must pay $65,000US for every ascent and, that for every piece of rubbish left on the mountain they are fined $3000US. He has ascended Mount Everest over seven times and was part of the ill-fated 1996 expedition where 15 climbers were caught in bad weather and froze to death. He survived because having grown up near the mountain he was properly acclimatized, actually it's usual Sherpa practice to smoke and drink up to 8000 meters on the mountain. Imagine a piss-up on the rooftop of the world! I found him fascinating and was surprised that you could earn the more money moving furniture in Manhattan than scaling the world's tallest mountain.

Anyway point is I am a sucker for Mount Everest. I would love to climb it but I'm so unfit that I get tired from scaling an escalator, let alone a mountain. Maybe it should go on my To-Do list after cleaning out my garage. I won't bombard you with any more Everest facts (2,062 people have climbed it) but I had my chance to see it up close.

About to get on Yeti Airlines for our Everest flight.

So we got into a small aeroplane (Yeti Airlines) and headed out of Kathmandu towards the Chinese border and Everest. It was an overcast day but the plane burst thought the clouds into brilliant sunshine... and there she was. (Yes, I know I’m naming the mountain as a woman but it's because she's damn sexy.) It was amazing. Looking through plane windows I am used to staring out into the empty expanse of blue sky. But now I was looking at the Mountain bursting through the clouds. But Everest wasn’t the only peak bursting through… its surrounded by other mountains. There are 14 peaks in the world over 8,000 meters and 8 of them are alongside Everest.

Mount Everest

So the Nepalese plane flew around the mountain and twenty minutes later we landed back at Kathmandu. I was beaming, really beaming. Had I climbed Mount Everest? No. Had I even completed the 12 day trek to Everest base camp? No. But I had seen it with my own eyes and that was enough for me.

Maybe I should carry around a picture of the Mountain in my wallet. Actually that would just be weird.

So from now on I won’t be impressed with fast cars, coloured credit cards or Italian made suits. Only a big rock will move me. Well maybe that and a midget dressed as an Oompa Loompa – now that would be funny.