Flying Tara Air- 16 seater twin otter 
And so we start to walk
Turning the prayer wheels sends the prayers up to the gods. You must walk to the left of them and turn them only with the right hand 
We flew into Lukla from Kathmandu. I have to say it was the bumpiest plane ride I’ve ever been on. It wasn’t this bad last time I flew here in Oct 2016. The plane flies over a high mountain pass 20 minutes into the ride and on the left side the mountain is so close to the little 16 seater twin otter Russian plane that you almost feel you could poke a stick through the window and scratch it. The plane was jolting all over the place and suddenly it started making a ‘dinging’ noise, well I thought that was it and we were going down but it was in fact the seat belt sign going on. Although in reality no one had actually ever taken their off as it wasn’t a great flight. After another ten mins I could see the tiny airstrip and although it does look awful I though ‘thank god’. The airstrip is so short that it has to go uphill steeply to bring the little planes to a half before crashing into the side of the mountain. It known as one of the most dangerous landings in the world. Sadly Edmund Hillary’s wife and daughter both died here in a crash when they were coming to visit him whilst he was helping the Nepali community build a school and other services. Hillary has done so much for the Sherpa community here that that was a very sad tragic event.
We landed safely thank God and walked out and around the airstrip to the Paradise Tea Hut where we had breakfast and hot drinks. We then started our walking up the base camp route following the many other trekkers. The first days walking is very easy, mostly flat with quite a bit of downhill although this comes back to bite you on the second day for what goes up must go down and vice versa.
We arrived at Phakding where we spent the night at Mountain View Tea Hut. It was very pleasant although the light didn’t work properly which made it interesting for me after dinner when it was dark. It kept going off and on. I could have used my head torch but the intermittent flashing was just long enough intervals to do quite a bit what you wanted to do then just pause when it went off and wait for it to come on again. I didn’t want to waste some of my batteries when it wasn’t totally necessary.