Day four, in which Amber wears a stranger's shoes, sees her first squat toilet, and flys to Mt Everest.

It's only ten past 3pm at the moment, but it feels much later! Last night we decided to organise a flight of Mt Everest and decided to try and book it from the hotel we will be staying at when the tour starts (which is just next door to this one!). By chance our tour guide had just arrived so he handled all the details.

We set the alarm for 5.30am to get i the taxi at 6.30am, but ended up awake by around 4.30am. Not surprising since we went to bed at 8pm! We went in for breakfast, and felt bad for the hotel staff who appeared to be snoozing before we walked in. Breakfast was great, although once again we couldn't finish all our meals. The trip to the airport was uneventful, and passing through air port security no worries (although they did take away my matches). While waiting for the flight I thought I'd better use the loo first... Squat toilet. Eeep. I ended up chickening out and not using it - we didn't have any toilet paper in the back pack and the toilet floor was soaking wet so to put the bag down it would be sitting in a pool of - ? The flight was great. Absolutely amazing. I never thought I'd actually see Mt Everest. I took a few photos and some video - I'll share when I get home. We were also able to visit the cock pit and the view from there was just spectacular.

I grabbed a book that to take with me that I bought our first day here, "Into Thin Air" which is about the 1996 expedition which claimed many lives. The man who wrote it, Jon Krauker, also wrote Into the Wild, once of Vince's favourite books. Of the men who were a part of Jon's trip to the summit only one guide survived, and Aussie named Michael Groom. Guess who was sitting in the seat in front of me in the plane? No, guess? Pretty cool. Michael was taking some friends from QLD on a trip around Nepal and happened to be doing the Everest flight on the same day. It was very neat. He signed my book for me (which I only brought along as a last minute thought).

Upon approach to the Kathmandu Airport we were informed that, due to fog, the airport was closed and we had to fly to near-by Pokhara. It was a long stay, but not a problem. They had western toilets there (hurrah) but no toilet paper. Lucky we had a copy of the Kathmandu Times in Vince's bag. Speaking of Vince, the flight left him with another headache, although not as bad as the other times, either because the flight wasn't as long or because he took half a motion sickness tablet.

The tour starts tomorrow which will be great. The family on the flight who were travelling with Mike Groom had just done a similar type of thing and that has left me a bit more confident about the trek and rafting.

The shoes - when we went into our room there was a pair of sandals/thongs left on the floor. I gave them a wide berth on the first day. After ended up with a really swollen heal on my left foot we went in search of some sandals for me to wear when we're going around the city. The only ones we found had straps around the back which would have made it worse, so the only other two options were a pair of thongs (which I would have to wear bare-foot!) or a pair of sneakers. I didn't like the idea of paying a (relatively) large amount for cheap shoes which would prob do more harm then good, so I ended up scrubbing the old shoes in the sink and have been wearing them around with a pair of socks. Incredible. And very trending, socks and sandals woo! I can't believe I'm wearing a stranger's shoes, but my heel is better now so I won't complain (and I did wash them pretty good). Luckily dad told me to bring some insoles which I've been using with the sandals which make them better (the person who left them was a guy I think because they are very big).