We have been wanting to go trekking in Nepal for a LONG, LONG time. This trip was about to make that a reality! Hope you enjoy.
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Gulf Air is based out of The Kingdom of Bahrain and consists
of a fleet of brand new planes kept as clean as the white robes of the oil
barons that own them. Our flight from NBO was packed with Somali young teenage
boys, maybe ~40 all together. Each one had a cell phone, new suitcase, and
modern hip clothes. The were relatively well behaved (at least compared to the
same size pack of Kenyan or American boys) but the stewardesses still had to
teach them about assigned seating. They were orderly, until one of the boys
dove for an open seat and then they scatted like ants into the nearest open
spot.
Our short layover in Bahrain was uneventful, save meeting a
Brit photographer who watched us trying to learn about aperture setting on our
SLR camera. He eventually couldn’t keep to himself and longer and spoke up to
teach us the “proper” way to hold our camera. Thank goodness we ran into him or
else none of our pictures would have turned out!
Landing in Kathmandu ~8PM, we were greeted by an old man
holding a sign with our name & Dolphin Guest House written on it outside of
the passenger arrival area of the airport. With a big grin, he took our trolley
and led us to a dilapidated old van, where a driver loaded the bags. The driver
then told us we should pay the old man something small. Perturbed, we told him
we had no Nepalese Rupees, but he insisted. We then told him that we had only
just gotten money from the ATM and we had no small bills. He continued to insist and showed us a
10 Euro note as an example of what we should give the old man. We knew this was
an insane amount, but could obviously not argue our way out of it so we ended
up pulling a 200 Kenyan Shilling note out of our pocket and giving it to him. They all
seemed confused, but at that point the driver was tired of the back & forth
and pulled away leaving the old man staring at the new monopoly money.
@ ~9PM Surendru greeted us @ the Dolphin Guest House and he
was extremely helpful with everything. He already had our permits for trekking
and plane tickets from Jomsom to Pokhara . He missed our request for Pokhara to
KTM return flights, but had that sorted out by 7:30AM the next morning.
After we dropped our bags in the room, Surendru immediately
walked out with us to find a 3500RP down jacket for Wendy (Marmot knockoff, but
nice!) and an ATM. He also directed is to the tourist area for dinner. We were
torn between Mexican (mojitos) and falafel, but ended up at a cool place called
“New Orleans Café,” where we had a great meal of pad thai with chicken and a
mushroom, goat cheese and spinach pasta dish. After mojitos (Wendy) and tasting
some local beer (Patrick), we did witness a bit of street violence (@ 10:30PM
on back streets of Kathmandu) but we managed to find our way home quickly. We
were impressed with the number of uniformed police patrolling the streets (in
the tourist district anyway) and the seriousness with which they were doing
their jobs.
We stopped over in
Bahrain on the way to Katmandu. It has a small airport in the middle of the
desert with both a Chili’s AND a Macaroni Grill. Just like a New Jersey
strip mall! Sad to say that we dined at the Macaroni Grill.
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