The reason I only spent 3 days, is that most of the RIDS staff in Humla were leaving around this time to go home for the Dashain festival. It is the Hindu equivalent of Christmas.
The first time I had to return to Kathmandu when I was trying to go to Humla, was there was a possible Cholera outbreak near Humla. It turned out to be a diarrhea outbreak, which was serious as 5 adults had died from it, with additional adult seriously sick. It was in Kalika, which is about 4 days walk from Simikot. Engineers Without Borders thought it best not to risk it, and I returned until more was known about the situation. This wasn't an unusual decision as there were well over a hundred deaths from Cholera in the mid western region, Jajarkot district during July and August.
This was not in Humla.
When it was confirmed that it was not Cholera, and I had my supply of various antibiotics, with various methods of water purification, I was given the okay to try and get to Humla again.
Luck it seems, was against me.
It is near the end of the monsoon season for the west of Nepal, hence there can be a large amount of rainfall.
To get to Humla, you have to fly into Simikot, which has a dirt airstrip. They have started a project to seal the runway, but it will take a bit long to complete. They have been slowly upgrading it for a few years already. There is no part of the runway that is sealed yet. I have included an image of a few kids playing on the muddy runway in the early evening, when there are no flights of course.
The airstrip is also at 3000m above sea level, surrounded by mountains.
So to land at Simikot, a few conditions need to be met.
* A dry airstrip (being a dirt airstrip, and in the monsoon season, luck isn't with me)
* Clear sky (The pilots land by sight. So if the surrounding mountains are concealed by thick cloud, it makes things a little risky)
* Not much wind (Which means landing early in the morning, as you can have a dangerous crosswind later on in the day when it warms up)
Check out the image viewing the clouds around a mountain from the helicopter window.
To fly to Simikot, you need to fly from Nepalgunj, which is about 30 minutes from the India border, and its hot and humid. Or you can fly from Surkhet, which involves taking a 4hour journey through windy roads from Nepalgunj.
The second time I tried to get to Humla, I travelled with the managers from RIDS, with them trying to improve my Nepali.
In Nepalgunj we waited for 8 days, to try and get a flight. When there was no luck, we thought it better to get a helicopter from Surkhet to Simikot.
There are regular helicopter flights to Simikot to take up rice with the World Food Program. As there were delays for flights to get to Simikot, there were an excess of people wanting to go.
So we waited for 2 days in Surkhet to try and get a flight. In the end there was only one seat available, which I took.
You can have a good insight into the conditions at the airport from the photo below. Of the helicopter leaving the airstrip. Note the cloud all around the airport, which is not unusual at 3000m.
So I finally got there on the 10th of Sept, after initially trying to get there on the 23rd of August. I don't think I'll be complaining about a 1 hour flight delay again.
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