The last bus into Kathmandu
Trip Start
Nov 04, 2007
1
62
Trip End
May 03, 2008
Kathmandu, Kathmandu, Nepal
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
I can't quite believe that I'm writing our last blog entry! Right, soldiering on before I get upset thinking about it...
We arrived back in Kathmandu from a fairly uneventful last Asian bus journey and headed to our new hotel. In our brief sojourn in Kathmandu on the way through from Chitwan we woke up in the middle of the night itching like crazy. Bedbugs were the last straw at Hotel Northfield so after demanding a change of room in the middle of the night and then refusing to pay much for it, we moved all our things to storage at Hotel Nature before setting off to Bhaktapur. The building isn't quite so atmospheric but the people are nice and the rooms are bug-free - two fairly important things we feel. And it's on the much quieter Paknajol side of Thamel.
To keep ourselves busy and to stop ourselves thinking about our impeding end of travels we had a list of shopping, photo-backing-up and pub/restaurant/cafe-visiting to get through, which kept us busy for a day and a half. On our last evening we headed out to Swayambunath, a stupa on a hill to the west of the city. We had barely climbed to the top before one of the mighty 'pre-monsoon' storms rolled in and, deciding that on the top of a hill wasn't the best place to be, we ran back down and watched the storm light up Thamel from Tom and Jerry's pub. Once the rain had abated we went for our last proper meal in Nepal - Momos and Thukpa. We thought it might be a while before we'd find those again...
A few points about our silly-long journey home
* In order to confirm flights with call centres based in India it is best to leave about two hours free. You will need a stiff drink afterwards.
* We arrived at Kathmandu airport at midday on Friday 2nd May. We arrived at Heathrow at 3.45pm on Saturday 3rd May. For those of you clued-up on your time differences, that made our journey over 32 and a half hours. What joy.
* Kathmandu airport has a resident cat who hangs out by the duty free shops. It finds bored passengers who try to speak to it in hewwo-pusscat-English a bit scary.
* We took three flights - Kathmandu to Delhi, Delhi to Amman and Amman to Heathrow. Note to self: In future, three is probably a bit of an overkill. Especially when you don't like flying.
* We stopped over for 13 hours in Delhi. We decided not to leave the airport but to stay in transit and then discovered that they were digging up the transit lounge. Faced with the prospect of 13 hours (4pm to 5am!) sitting on a metal chair beside a bloke smashing up concrete, we paid the extortionate $25 each to sit in the business lounge where we got to curl up on a sofa, watch telly and partake of the free food and drink. Thankfully we could pay in a combination of Indian rupees, dollars and pounds as we emptied pockets and wallets and money-belts. Unfortunately the free-of-charge computer wasn't working and the four guys who tried to fix it failed. Hugh was repeatedly called upon to help various businessmen connect their laptops to the internet as the staff couldn't cope - ah how we'd missed India...not.
* The airport staff at Delhi couldn't be bothered to check us in to our Royal Jordanian flights until two hours before we left, by which stage it was apparently impossible to seat us together on the Heathrow leg. After waiting in a chaotic transit queue at Amman it proved perfectly possible - the flight was half empty.
* In spite of the Royal Jordanian staff telling us differently on the phone, it is easy to check your luggage in at Kathmandu all the way to Heathrow, even if you are changing airline mid-journey. If you bug them enough you'll even get to identify it before it's moved to your next flight at Delhi.
We arrived back in Pinner and after briefly touching base with my mum and grandma we headed up to Telford early Sunday morning. You see, the reason that we'd not written this last piece of blog until now (I'm sitting in our flat in Eastcote. And no...I've not had a ruddy avocado yet) and the reason that we'd not told many people we were coming home is that we thought we'd surprise Hugh's mum on her 60th birthday.
She saw us coming up the drive with our bags and wearing our packamacs and thought we were selling tea towels. That's what six months in Asia does to you!
When can we leave again?
