Climbing Everest is quite a feat

Many people have bucket lists — lists of things they'd like to do before they die, such as running a marathon, swimming across the English Channel or getting gored by a bull in Spain.

- Melvin Durai

I've never written a bucket list, but if I did, climbing Mount Everest would definitely be one of the things I'd leave out.

I'm not going to fool myself into thinking I could ever climb Mount Everest, especially since I lose my breath just watching other people climbing.

Climbing can be exhausting, as I realised recently when I made my way to the 21st floor of a building. I had to catch my breath several times as people got on and off the elevator.

Mount Everest is 8,849 metres high, which is like climbing 50,000 steps, according to Glorious Eco Trek Nepal. That's 3,000 to 4,000 flights of stairs, depending on the number of steps in each flight. At my age and physical condition, I'd want to take only two flights: one flight onto a plane, and another flight to the mountain top.