Climbing Mt. Everest
A small challenge for five US women

On her milestone fifth anniversary of surviving breast cancer, backpacking granny Midge Cross is taking on another small challenge: climbing Mount Everest.

Two heart operations and a case of mercury poisoning can’t keep Alison Levine down. Kids at home, jobs, the full gamut of middle-aged life - no problem for Lynn Prebble, Jody Thompson and Kim Clark.

The most unlikely band ever to try to scale the world’s tallest mountain leaves Wednesday on a journey with a message for everyone.

"You can step out of your comfort zone and push yourself to go for the things you want, and you don’t have to be deterred by war or terrorism or economic crisis or anything like that," says Levine, who came up with the idea for the all-female expedition and got funding from Ford.

"We want to show that women do have a place in mountaineering and that it isn’t all about getting to the top. It’s about going out there and working as a team. It’s about the power of women, about perseverance, about the American spirit and how we are not willing to give up our dreams just because there’s a lot of chaos in the world."

Planting a flag on the peak of the 8,710-meter (29,035-foot) mountain, which has claimed the lives of 174 climbers since 1922, and becoming the first all-female team to scale Everest would be a bonus but it’s not the goal.

These are women who have plenty of experience scaling mountains around the world, but they are not professional climbers. They have a different agenda.

For the 58-year-old Cross, who would be the oldest woman to reach the top of Everest if all goes well, the triumph is simply in trying, in conquering fears if not mountains, and inspiring others not to let age or disease stand in the way of their dreams.

She might look wispy, but she’s been climbing up and down slopes since she was a little girl with her grandmother in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. While planning climbs in Nepal five years ago, she found out she had breast cancer.

"Wait a minute, you don’t understand, I don’t have time for this, I’m going to Nepal," she told her doctor.

"Wrong, you’re not going to Nepal," he said.

The doctor won, and after radiation and a lumpectomy the disease has not come back.

"So five years later, almost to the day, I have an opportunity to go and it’s just incredible," she said. "Now, as luck would have it, my younger sister has breast cancer and she’s going through chemotherapy. So in a way, this is a climb for her, too."

Facing her own mortality, Cross cherished more than ever the climbs she made with her husband on several continents, the skiing and mountain bike racing she did to train, the majesty of the world around her in tiny Mazama, Washington, in the Cascade range.

"I think that we who have been closer to the end, or seen that we’re not going to live forever, look at every day as a blessing," said Cross, who also has diabetes.

For Levine, who will turn 36 next week in Nepal when the expedition embarks for base camp, the trip is about going beyond the normal boundaries of life. She was born with a condition called Wolff-Parkinson White Syndrome, which can cause rapid heart rates. Four years ago - 18 months after her second heart operation seemed to end the problem - she started climbing. And kept climbing. So far, she’s climbed the highest mountains on six continents.

Her workout schedule can be exhausting just to read. She takes spin classes twice a week, climbs on a Stairmaster with an 18-kilogram (40-pound) pack three times a week from 4 a.m. to 5 a.m. and does 80 push-ups each morning and evening. She also runs a 16-kilometer (10-mile) trail once a week along with 30 minutes of weight training three times a week. For the past 10 weekends, she’s either been snowshoeing up ski slopes in Tahoe or climbing 4,200-meter (14,000-foot) peaks in Colorado.

"I do wall sits every morning while I am blow-drying my hair," she said. "I tell myself I have to stop blow-drying when my quads burn so badly I can no longer stay in the position."

When Levine started planning the expedition last summer, plenty of daunting obstacles came up. She had energy-sapping circulation problems that turned out to be mercury poisoning from eating tainted fish in Asia. She shrugged that off.

Then the royal family in Nepal was massacred and Maoist guerrillas were wreaking violence in the Himalayan foothills. The U.S. economy was in recession. And then came Sept. 11 and the war in Afghanistan.

"We thought this is probably not an ideal time to be putting something like this together," Levine said. "Then we thought, that’s exactly the reason we should go." (AP)

Nepal wants tie up with Thailand in tourism

By A Staff Reporter

The Nepal Festival is in full swing in Bangkok. This is the first effort on Nepal’s part to forge a tourism link between Nepal and the South East Asian countries, especially Thailand, which is a hub for the tourists coming to the region.

The Festival was inaugurated at Bangkok Hilton on March 28 by the Thai Minister to the Minister’s Office of the Kingdom of Thailand by lighting an oil lamp (a Nepali tradition). The Festival is jointly organised by the Royal Nepalese Embassy in Thailand, Thai-Nepal Chamber of Commerce, Royal Nepal Airlines, Hotel Hilton International and Hotel Association of Nepal. The festival will last until April 3.

The Festival is portrayed as a small window to the manifold attractions of Nepal, said Nepalese Ambassador to Thailand Janak Bahadur Singh. ‘The importance of establishing a link with the ASEAN tourism market has been recently realized by Nepalese tourism. If Nepal can tie up its tourism with that of the region, especially Thailand, it would get a big boost to this industry," he said.

Presently, as HAN President Narendra Bajracharya said, Nepal was getting a negligible part of the two million strong Thai outbound market despite very strong, religious, cultural and friendly relations between the two countries.

He said the festival was meant to publicise Nepal as a soft adventure, cultural and holiday destination. The other attractions of the festival were the Nepalese handicrafts, cultural show and Nepali food.

"The purpose of the festival was also market Lumbini and discuss with the Thai Airways to explore the possibility of launching the same promotional packages in Nepal which are now offered to Indo-China sector," Bajracharya said.

During the festival, HAN also hold a press conference with HAN delegates assuring the travel agents and tour operators that the situation in Nepal poses no threat to tourists and it does not restrict the movement of the people. Nepal is willing as ever to receive and welcome guests as usual, they said.

‘PM’s India visit helped tap potential tourism market’

By BMD

Although tourism was not on the agenda of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s recent goodwill visit to India, tourism entrepreneurs believe the visit can help Nepal tap the potential Indian tourism market. The visit was an important opportunity for leaders of the two neighbour states to talk about of the bilateral relations.

The Nepalese business team, who had travelled to India with the Prime Minister, met with the Indian Civil Aviation Minister Syed Shahnawar Hussain. The Indian Minister was in favour of allowing one more Nepalese private airline to operate flights to the Indian destinations.

The visit has made it easier for Nepal to penetrate the Indian market, which until two years ago, made up around one-third of the total tourist arrivals. The number of Indian visitors visiting Nepal started to go down following the hijacking of a Delhi-bound jetliner of the Indian Airlines in the end of 1999. The frequent bandhs and strikes and the subsequent negative presentation of Nepal in the Indian media contributed to the sharp fall of the Indian visitors.

"With the situation becoming more favourable following the Prime Minister’s visit to India, it is easier for us to attract the Indian visitors," said Joy Dewan, President of Nepal Association of Travel Agents (NATA).

"But we must make tremendous efforts to promote Nepal in various parts of India to restore the potential market," said Dewan, after his visit to India "Politicians and business people have to take initiative to increase the number of Indian visitors in Nepal."

He believes that the Indian media has to be mobilised to continue to see Nepal as a safe and peaceful holiday destination for Indian travellers.

"We must convey the positive message that there is no anti-Indian feeling among Nepalese people. We have to invite the Indian media to Nepal so that they can observe the situation," he added.

He says that once the image of Nepal as a safe and secure destination is brought to the Indian visitors, the number of Indian visitors visiting Nepal will definitely increase.

Relations between the two countries have always been good not only because of physical proximity but also because of cultural and religious similarities. Promotion of business and tourism will help enhance them further.

"We need to adopt a suitable strategy to bring about positive changes in the minds of the Indian people about Nepal," said R. M. Singh, another tourism entrepreneur, who was also in the Prime Minister’s entourage to India.

Singh emphasised the need for mobilising the Indian media to create confidence in the minds of the Indian visitors that Nepal is a safe destination for them.

Regaining the Indian market will help the Nepalese travel trade in a period when tourism world-wide is suffering.