Bangkok > Kathmandu: Yoga and barbed wire
So, we check-out and make it to the airport at 8am for a 10:30am flight. Obviously no need for such an early arrival as we are straight through the check-in desk of one of the worlds busiest airports without even having to queue, hmm.
After a short walk around we are wondering why people say BKK International has great shopping a la Singapore. So we decide to dine on KFC to lift our spirits - I still love the Thai KFC much more than the Aussie version.
Anyway, we finish our fine chicken meal and decide to head through passport control - under the impression we would just head straight to our departure gate, sit, relax, and wait. However, as soon as we get through to the back we can now see the shopping opportunities. There are shops forever - but in typical Thai style, they all sell the same thing.
Off to the gate we go.
Once there we see some pretty weird trekking sorts, laying around, practicing yoga in the departure lounge. Needless to say they are Americans.
Onto the plane we get eventually, and that’s that. 3 hours later on an empty plane where we can spread where ever we like, we are in Nepal. We of course had to fly over India and we had the pleasure of checking out some of the landscape as we were over the top. Very picturesque, as was the first sighting of the mountains on the horizon… Tanya of course thought I was trying to show her some strange cloud formations before realisation kicked in.
Ok, so after the steep, picturesque decent, we land at KTM airport. We have to walk across the runway Kalgoorlie-style, and after some haphazard x-ray checks, we escape customs without having to hand in our declaration - not that there was anything to declare anyway… unless that white powder I carry everywhere counts.
World Expeditions greeted us and began to take us onto the Radisson.
Our first impression of Nepal from ground-level was a little different.
Mainly because there were army barricades lining the street to the airport, and all the locals were just standing around,… staring.
“What are we doing here?” was the general consensus we both had. And after 20 minutes of dodging and weaving streets where there doesn’t seem to be any road rules, we had no idea how we were going to navigate the city for a few days. It’s safe to say that neither of us really wanted to venture outside the sanctuary that was the hotel. However, I mustered the courage to change some money near the hotel at a money changer I noticed on the way in, and I was a little more at ease.
In the evening we met our trek leader - Ang Tshering Sherpa - whom has summitted Dhaulagiri in 1993. His brother is a mountaineer and summitted Everest in 2003 for the 50th Anniversary. Anyway, we met Ang and the rest of our group; Christina and Eric from Melbourne. Both med students, but other than that I’m not sure how “smart” they actually are.
After the introductions we all head off to Thamel for dinner and bonding. It was a place called Killroys; where World Exp seem to take all their groups and the leaders appear to eat for free. Nice setup huh?
Ahh well, I can’t complain… the food was good, just a little expensive for Nepali standards (330R). After a nice dinner and chat we have a little wonder around Thamel and find our way back to the hotel relatively unscathed.
KTM isn’t that imposing after all.
