(CNN) Most people don't make it to the top of the world once.

But mother-of-two Anshu Jamsenpa, aged 38, has done it five times, all from the South Col route on the Nepalese side of Mount Everest -- an incredible feat for any mountaineer.

This year, she broke a world record and made global headlines when she became the first woman to conquer the 29,028-feet-tall (8,848 meter) Himalayan giant twice in five days -- first on May 16, and then again on May 21.

Anshu Jamsenpa completed her second ascent to the top of Mount Everest this year on May 21.

Astonishingly, this wasn't her first double ascent on a single trip.

In 2011, Jamsenpa summited the tallest mountain in the world on May 12 and May 21. She subsequently made a single summit in 2013.

Jamsenpa attributes her amazing achievements to the connection climbing Everest gives her to her faith.

"I always think that I am very close to god, I am getting a blessing," Jamsenpa tells CNN of her emotional state while on the mountain. "I only feel that whenever I am at the top."

Small town living

Jamsenpa was born in Dirang, a remote mountain town in the north-west Indian district of Arunachal Pradesh, which borders Bhutan and Tibet.

Small-town life had its advantages. "You're surrounded by nature," remembers Jamsenpa, referring to nearby Bomdila where she moved to as a child. Yet she also says the area was lacking in exposure to the outside world and opportunities.

The daughter of an Indo Tibetan Border Police officer father and nurse mother, Jamsenpa had three older sisters and a younger brother. She says she always knew she was different.

Mountain climber Anshu Jamsenpa.

"When I was small, my family used to watch TV in one room, and I would go to another room, sit quietly, draw the curtains and listen to music. I used to think differently."

While Jamsenpa grew up dreaming of becoming a journalist, she didn't attend university.

Rather, on her 16th birthday, she met future husband Tsering Wange, and fate steered her down a different path.

The week before at his family bakery, Wange had taken a cake order, requesting the text "Happy birthday Anshu Jampsenpa" written on it. He was curious about the girl with the unusual name.

"He called up my cousin (who had placed the order), and she invited him to my birthday party. He said: 'Yes, definitely -- I will come, and bring the cake myself.' So, that's how we met."

In 2000, when Jamsenpa was 21, they got married.

Business savvy

It was Wange's entrepreneurial spirit that nudged Jamsenpa towards Everest.

In Bomdila, he founded a travel agency which organizes trekking expeditions in Northeast India and Bhutan, called Himalayan Holidays.

After Jamsenpa fell pregnant with their second daughter, in 2003, she began working for her husband's travel business full-time.

"When I started doing the accounting, I realized he was running the business at a loss," she says. "He was a workaholic, he just had to work -- but he never maintained the accounts."

Despite being president of the All Arunachal Pradesh Mountaineering and Adventure Sports Association, Wange had "never had the opportunity" to do any climbing himself, but Jamsenpa was hands-on.

Jamsenpa trained for two years before her first attempt at climbing the Everest.

She started taking clients on trekking and river-crossing expeditions around the Himalayas.

During one expedition, a customer suggested that she train professionally.

"He told me: 'You have the courage, and your fitness (level) is also very good -- so why don't you go for a professional course?'

"After that, I immediately I went for an advanced adventure course. Once I started, I never looked back."

Record-breaking summits

In 2009, Jamsenpa had the idea to climb Everest, and began two years of intense training, attending courses aimed at those wanting to climb the world's highest mountain.

Photos: Exploring Mount Everest The journey to the summit of Mount Everest is a challenge an increasing number have taken on since the summit was first reached in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Until the late 1970s, only a handful of climbers per year reached the summit. By 2012 that number rose to more than 500. Hide Caption 1 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Explorers are seen in 1922 at Camp II on the East Rongbuk Glacier. That same year, seven Sherpas were killed when they were caught in an avalanche during an expedition led by George Mallory. Hide Caption 2 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest George Mallory and Edward Felix Norton reach 27,000 feet on the northeast ridge of Everest in 1922. They failed to reach the summit. Hide Caption 3 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Mallory returns to Everest In June 1924. He's seen here with his climbing partner Andrew Irvine at base camp. This is the last photo of the the two before they disappeared on the mountain. Mallory's body was found 75 years later, showing signs of a fatal fall. Hide Caption 4 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Mountaineers are seen preparing to leave their camp during one of Eric Shipton's early expeditions on Everest in the 1930s. While Shipton never made it to the summit, his exploration of the mountain paved the way for others. Hide Caption 5 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Shipton leads an expedition exploring the Khumbu Glacier icefall in November 1951. Hide Caption 6 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Shipton is also known for discovering and photographing footprints of an unknown animal or person, like this one taken in 1951. Many attributed these to the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman. Hide Caption 7 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Edmund Hillary sits at base camp in May 1953 before heading out on what would become the first successful ascent to the top of the world. Hide Caption 8 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Hillary and Nepalese-Indian mountaineer Tenzing Norgay climb beyond a crevasse on Mount Everest in 1953. Upon meeting George Lowe, who had climbed up to meet the descending duo, Hillary reportedly exclaimed, "Well George, we knocked the bastard off!" Hide Caption 9 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Members of a U.S. expedition team and Sherpas are shown with their climbing gear on Everest. The team, led by Jim Whittaker, reached the top on May 1, 1963, becoming the first Americans to do so. Hide Caption 10 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Whittaker's team members climb Everest's West Ridge in 1963. Hide Caption 11 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest On April 5, 1970, six Sherpas died in an avalanche at the Khumbu Icefall. The icefall, at the head of the Khumbu Glacier, seen here in 2003, is one of the more treacherous areas of the ascent. Hide Caption 12 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest British Army soldiers and mountaineers John "Brummie" Stokes and Michael "Bronco" Lane above the icefall at the entrance to the West Col (or western pass) of Mount Everest during their successful ascent of the mountain. The joint British-Nepalese army expedition reached the summit on May 16, 1976. Hide Caption 13 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest In 1978, Reinhold Messner makes the first ascent without supplemental oxygen. Messner is seen here at Munich Airport showing reporters his frozen thumb after climbing to the top of Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, alone and without an oxygen mask. Hide Caption 14 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest French climber Jean-Marc Boivin becomes the first person to paraglide from Everest's summit in September 1998. Hide Caption 15 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest The 1996 climbing season was one of the deadliest, when 15 people died on Everest, eight in a single storm in May of that year. Hide Caption 16 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Francys Distefano-Arsentiev became the first American woman to reach Everest's summit without bottled oxygen on May 23, 1998. However, she and her husband, Sergei Arsentiev, never made it off the mountain. They died after becoming separated while attempting to descend in the dark. At least one climbing party found Francys barely conscious, but there was nothing they could do to save her. Her husband's body was found years later. It is believed he fell while trying to save his wife. Hide Caption 17 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Pemba Dorje Sherpa and Moni Mulepati became the first people to get married on Everest's summit, on March 30, 2005. The couple are seen here waving from base camp on June 2, 2005. Hide Caption 18 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Sherpa climbers pose at Everest Base Camp after collecting garbage during the Everest cleanup expedition on May 28, 2010. A group of 20 Nepalese climbers collected nearly two tons of garbage in a high-risk expedition to clean up the world's highest peak. Hide Caption 19 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Mountaineer Ralf Dujmovits took this image of a long line of climbers heading up Everest in May 2012. Hide Caption 20 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Jordan Romero became the youngest person to reach the summit, at age 13, on May 22, 2013. Jordan, right, is seen here on the summit with one of the Sherpas who helped him make the ascent. Hide Caption 21 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Yuichiro Miura, became the oldest person to summit Everest, on May 23, 2013, at the age of 80. Hide Caption 22 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Malavath Poorna, left, holds up her national flag on May 24, when the 13-year-old daughter of poor Indian farmers became the youngest girl to climb Everest. Hide Caption 23 of 23

"I did all kinds of training -- running, gym, yoga, aerobics, hiking," she says. She also scaled numerous peaks, including Nepal Peak from Sikkim in 2010.

In 2011, joining a group of nine climbers, Jamsenpa headed to Everest. She says she didn't feel nervous about the trip, because she didn't mentally have time to worry.

"Everything happened at the last moment. I didn't have much time to prepare for this expedition, because I was working on (getting) sponsorship," she says.

"I reached base camp and couldn't register in my mind that I had actually planned to climb Everest."

The biggest challenge, she says, was leaving behind her two daughters, then aged 5 and 10 years old.

I reached base camp and couldn't register in my mind that I had actually planned to climb Everest. Anshu Jamsenpa

"(Leaving them) was the hardest part ... What I decided was this was a time, in my absence, for them to bond with their father."

Jamsenpa made her attempt from the South Col, which sits on the Nepalese side, rather than the North Ridge, which begins within Tibetan borders. "I can't climb from the north side, because we have a visa problem with China. That is why I went from Nepal side," she explains.

Both the North and South Col routes house camps at varying heights, where climbers acclimatize and refuel. On the South Col, the route that Jamsenpa has taken on all five of her ascents, Base Camp is located at 17,600 feet (5,364 meters), and there are a further five camps until climbers make their bid for the top.

Realizing a dream

It was at high altitude that Jamsenpa made perhaps the boldest decision of her life: to try a double ascent of Everest.

The idea was born when Jamsenpa -- unsure of how she was doing -- sought repeated reassurance from her Sherpa guide.

"I was used to asking: 'Do you think I would be able to summit?'"

Despite her insecurities, she was acing the climb.

So much so that at Camp Three of her first ascent, 23,500 feet (7,163 meters) above sea level, her Sherpa raised the idea of a second ascent from Everest Base Camp.

She says he told her, "OK ma'am, not only can you climb once, but you can climb twice."

"The idea clicked from there," says Jamsenpa.

Ten days after her initial summit, she was back on top of Everest. Of all five summits she's made in her lifetime, Jamsenpa says the second one in 2011 was the easiest by far.

"The weather was very good, that made the climb easy," she remembers. "I reached the top five times, but that was the best weather I got. It was so beautiful. It was so clear. It made my climb very easy. It took six hours from South Col to summit."

Jamsenpa says the idea to do a double ascent came from her sherpa, during her very first climb.

How did it feel to be on top of the world?

"I was totally blank (when up there) -- I didn't know how things looked," she says.

It was while descending she had a special moment.

"During my first summit, when I was coming back, the weather was bad so I wanted to descend quickly," she remembers.

"I was trekking down and suddenly saw a view of the South Col. I was shocked, because the view -- that picture -- I had seen it in my dreams."

Long way to the top

While her 2011 achievement was incredible, it didn't get her in the record books.

That honor went to Chhurim Sherpa, the Nepali climber who took the record as the first woman to climb Everest twice in 2012.

Jamsenpa claims that Chhurim Sherpa officially broke the record first due to politics: the Nepali authorities processed the paperwork of the homegrown climber before that of Jamsenpa, a foreigner.

Jamsenpa receives medals from the Nepalese government after her first double ascent -- on May 12 and 21, in 2011.

Whatever the reason, Chhurim had made her double ascent from Everest Base Camp inside a week -- faster than Jamsenpa's 2011 achievement.

Jamsenpa says she was slowed down that year, due to the time it took to process the paperwork for her unplanned second ascent.

Determined to beat Chhurim's record, Jamsenpa returned to Everest in 2013. "My plan was to do it in less than one week," she says.

However, Jamsenpa couldn't get permission from the Nepal government that year to summit twice, so settled for one summit, becoming the only female Indian mountaineer to climb the world's highest peak three times.

In 2014, she attempted another double ascent -- but the devastating avalanche in April that year, which claimed the lives of 16 sherpas, ended the climbing season.

In 2015, the Nepal earthquake thwarted her ambition.

Scaling the mountain

That Everest is a perilously dangerous mountain to scale has not escaped Jamsenpa.

Sixty-three sherpas and 111 climbers died on Everest between 1990 and 2016, according to the Himalaya Database.

"You're putting your life at risk for (Everest) each time," she acknowledges.

For Jamsenpa, the tragedy isn't an abstract idea. She's seen it firsthand, both on her second second summit earlier this year, and in 2011, when she came across dead bodies from previous expeditions.

I felt really heavy. It took me some time to overcome that. Anshu Jamsenpa

"During my second summit this year, I saw someone who was dying -- they were in a critical condition. I felt bad, and then I felt like crying," she remembers.

"But then I motivated myself and said: 'No, this is not going to work. If you cry ... you lose your energy. You are not going to gain anything.'"

Reluctant to leave the climber, Jamsenpa asked her Sherpa what could be done. It was too late.

"I looked back at him, and he was already dead."

"After my summit, I felt really heavy. It took me some time to overcome that," she says.

Finally, success

Before setting out on her expedition this year, Anshu met with the Dalai Lamma in Guwahati, Assam, in India, to receive a blessing from the Buddhist leader.

She describes the experience as "the most beautiful moment in my whole life."

After taking 38 days to acclimatize at Base Camp (at 17,600 ft), on April 4 she began her main journey. On May 16 she unfurled the Indian flag atop Everest.

Three days later, she began her second climb.

On May 21, Jamsenpa safely achieved her dream: she broke the record for the fastest double ascent of Everest by a woman, in five days.

Jamsenpa meets India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

It hadn't been easy.

"This year, I found it more difficult, because the weather was very bad," she says. "And there were so many people there -- there was traffic."

It didn't help that during her first summit this year she had issues with her oxygen mask: "I ended up losing a lot of energy."

Despite suffering from the effects of a malfunctioning oxygen mask, Jamsenpa managed to break her own record with her double ascent in 2017.

Her body was still feeling the effects of that record-breaking climb more than a month after her return.

"I didn't feel pain when I was up there, but I can feel the pain now -- when you get up, you can feel it. It's on my right leg, both knees and ankles."

Climbing Everest is not just physically challenging, it's a financial feat, too, with Jamsenpa paying $35,000 for each ascent in 2011. She raised the money by asking for sponsorship from the Indian government, and selling land she and Wange owned.

This year, her climb was supported by a spread of sponsors, including the State Bank of India, her profile as a climber in India helped her gain support.

Inspiring women

Jamsenpa has received accolades including Woman Achiever of the Year 2012 from the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry, and was in 2012 decorated with Arunachal Pradesh State Gold Medal.

But she has also faced criticism as a mother and wife for undertaking such a risky path.

"(People) used to tell me: 'Why are you wasting your money, time and energy?'" she says. "(They were) telling my husband: 'Why did you allow your wife to go? She might leave you!'"

Jamsenpa and her husband travel frequently -- although they still have a base in Bomdila, India.

But Jamsenpa believes there are more people who are inspired by her achievements, than who are critical of them.

"So many people come to me and say, 'You've inspired us. How do we go?' They're asking for advice, not just on mountaineering -- also in other fields. They say: 'If you can climb mountains, why can't we build things?'"

Her own family has always been supportive.

"My daughters know what I'm doing. And they're very happy and proud. I told them: 'If something happened to me, you should be happy.'"

Jamsenpa would have died fulfilled and fearless.