On cloud nine: Filipino helper climbing 6,200m Everest neighbour peak after saving Hong Kong salary for 2 years

A Filipino domestic helper who overcame her impoverished background and reinvented herself as a keen Hong Kong adventurer has now set her sights on a bigger challenge - 6,189 metres to be exact.

Liza Avelino, 43, who has been working as a maid in Hong Kong for 19 years, is currently making her way to Island Peak - the first of her profession known to do so. 

Avelino, who has been hiking on her days off for around a decade, said it took two years to save up money - her salary and bonuses - for the expedition to Island Peak, less than 10 kilometres from Mount Everest itself and a popular peak in the Everest region.

She also saved up much of her holidays last year so she could go on the 22-day trek up the Himalayas.

This morning she got her first glimpse of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain at 8,848 metres, posting a photo of it on Facebook.

“When I was little, I had a dream to travel the world. But there was a lack of resources - time, money, I didn’t have it,” she told the South China Morning Post in an interview at her employers’ home in Discovery Bay before she flew to Nepal on Saturday evening.