Heading Home

After more than a month on the mountain we were all more than ready to get back to civilization. We changed clothes about once every 8-10 days and none of us had bathed. Due to lack of proper sanitary conditions or facilities we had also gone without shaving. This was quite a treat for some of the younger members of the team who had been in the military since they were 17 or 18. They had never seen what their beards looked like.

What was a two full day hike in turned out to be a very quick descent. The faster members of the team managed to make it down to the village we had started from in about 4 hours. It is nice when gravity helps you out.

After four days of sitting around in a small mountain town - still without having bathed - we headed down to the local helicopter pad to be picked up by the Indian military.

In the process of waiting a poker game broke out that used one of our medical supply boxes for a table. Without poker chips, crackers, beedee cigarettes, and small pebbles had to suffice.

Other entertainment included the slack-line, which we set up between two soccer goal posts. The local kids thought is was the greatest thing ever.

The helicopter didn't come that day due to foggy weather in the Assam Valley. We were dejected to say the least. Fortunately, the helicopters were able to come get us the next day!

From The Abor Hills we returned to Dibrugarh. Over the next 48 hours we traveled from Dibrugarh to Kolkata to Pattaya to Hawaii.

It was a long haul, but totally worth it. I am very glad that I went.

A HUGE thank you goes out of all of the people in my organization and other entities that busted their butts to get us home on time.