We arrived!
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| Kathmandu |
Whilst
still on the plane, I asked the flight attendants if they would fill my water bottles
with water. I anticipated the water
Kathmandu had to offer would be disgusting, so I wanted to have bottled water
as long as possible, if only for a few more hours or so. The nice Korean Air ladies, in their neatly
pressed matching uniforms (how were they still wrinkle free after hours and
hours of flight time?) nodded and filled my liter bottle and two liter bladder,
as well as Sam’s two liter bottles.
Then, we grabbed our backpacks, shuffled off the massive airplane, and
filed onto a flat bus that took us 100 yards to the main doors of the Kathmandu
International Airport. It’s not a very
large building, only two stories high and long and flat. The open-air walkway into the main entrance
was lined with flowerless rose bushes; the landscaping was surprisingly modern
and well done.
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| Seoul Airport |
Inside the glass doors, there was a large open space with
hundreds of deplaned people milling about and getting into queues behind a long
set of customs counters. We elbowed our
way into a line, ignoring the end of it and choosing a respectable, middle of
the pack place in line. Cutting closer
to the front is socially unacceptable and will draw the crowd’s ire, but
jumping in around the middle causes nary a flutter.
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| Seattle to Seoul |
While Sam stood in line, I jetted over to the money exchange
window to quickly swap my crisp USD for Nepali Rupee. I hadn’t done this in the States, because
Wells Fargo was going to charge me an arm and a leg in exchange fees. Jerks.
I suspected the airport exchange rates would be higher than I could find
elsewhere, but if I did it now, I wouldn’t have to worry about it later. The greedy-looking man at the counter made me
sign a bunch of papers, took my money, and wandered away. A moment of panic swept over me as I stood
there, alone at the counter, fearing he’d made off with my money and I’d never
see him again: foolish American, just giving money away and assuming honesty. However, to my intense relief, he did
reappear, with my 400,000 NPR (roughly 400 USD) in his hand and counted it out
for me on the counter. I again
experienced panic, as I realized everyone in my vicinity now knew that I was
loaded with cash. Total victim
status. Quick as I could, I swept the
paper bills into the money belt wrapped around my waist and shoved it beneath
the waistband of my pants. At least I’d
make the would-be muggers work for it.
Then I rejoined Sam, who had made little progress in the
slow march toward the customs windows.
Finally through customs, which processed our Immigration and Visa
paperwork at the same time, we regrouped on the other side and followed the
crowd down the stairs and through an x-ray machine. We bypassed the luggage area and encountered
another checkpoint line. There were
different stalls: several for people with baggage, and one “express line” for
people without baggage – which was closed.
We had to stand in line and then, when it was finally our turn up at the
front of the gate, try to tell the supervising officer we didn’t have any
checked bags for him to search through.
There was a lot of pointing to the express line and then gesturing with
open hands to signify we only had the packs on our backs.
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| Seoul to Kathmandu |
Once through, we made a beeline towards the exit doors. Immediately, taxi and tour pushers began
mobbing us to try and get our business.
I said, to nobody in particular, that we wanted to go to the Tourism
Board. One small, middle aged,
nondescript man said “Yes” and I asked if he’s take us for $5 – I’d read that
would work like magic and had packed a $5 especially for this purpose – the
man, delighted, agreed. He took us out
the doors and through a congested log of taxis to a dinky little car. He passed along our destination, I assumed
that’s what he said, since he spoke in Nepali, to the driver and we climbed
inside with our packs on our laps. Then
we sat there. Another man, or maybe it
was the same man, came up and asked us if we had a hotel – I was expecting this
and said we did and then demanded that we leave right now for the Tourism
Board: I didn’t want it to close on us and was starting to freak out that we
were just sitting there, not moving.
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| Sitting in our cab |
Eventually, he left us and the driver finally started driving. The car was without air conditioning and we
began to sweat profusely, trapped as we were in the back of the car without
windows that we could roll down for air.
Not that it would have mattered, the air was hot and wet and reeked of
garbage and diesel exhaust and something like the combined musky sweat of a
million unwashed people. If you’ve
never traveled on roads in a third-world country, you’re missing out on a great
adventure of close calls, horns beeping in seeming chaos, mopeds with entire families
packed like jenga pieces on the two wheeled vehicles, cows sleeping in the
road, and some very creative traffic flow.
I have some video I took at the end of our trip, on the way back to the
airport, but that drive was early in the morning and doesn’t quite capture the
evening rush hour traffic we participated in on our initial foray into
Kathmandu. During our ride, Sam marveled
at my knowing what to do to secure our transportation and how to get where we
needed to go: it pays to read beforehand and I’d read every book, blog, and
advice blurb I could find during the months leading up to this adventure. Thank you to those who have gone, and written,
before me. We were not complete
innocents abroad.
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| Check-in with the SPOT tracker |
About 30 minutes later we arrived at the Tourism Board
building and the driver pointed us in the direction of the correct door. After standing just inside the doors for a
second to get my bearings in the dimly lit foyer, I skipped over to a lady
waiting behind a counter and selected our correct ACAP paperwork and we got to
work filling in all the tedious information questions. As I was handing in my paperwork and paying
my fee, the woman said they were closing in 10 minutes and we should hurry so
the TIMS woman would take our paperwork!
I rushed Sam though his paperwork, flung the money for his fees on the
counter, left Sam to finish there, and literally ran down the hall to start the
TIMS paperwork in another office. I have
never written so quickly in my life, the words barely legible in my hurried scrawl. Sam finally joined me as I was finishing my
pages and I barked at him to hurry. I slapped my paperwork on the counter and the
little, pinched faced woman with a tight bun of hair said she was closed and I
would need to come back tomorrow. Horror
filled my entire being. I couldn’t feel
my limbs. We only had our hotel room for
that one night, due to a miscalculation of dates when I booked it and our
travel itinerary didn’t allow for us to spend an extra day in Kathmandu. She began to spin away from me in her chair,
but I rallied and was having none of her dismissive behavior. I firmly and confidently said the ACAP lady
had told me that she (the woman now in front of me) would take my paperwork. I
repeated myself, for emphasis, and made it clear I needed it done today. Tomorrow simply would not do. Finally, she rolled her eyes, leaned over her
desk to glare down the hall toward the ACAP office, and took my paperwork,
photos, and money. As she processed my
hastily written paperwork and angrily stapled my photo to the TIMS card, I
helped Sam with his information. After
she handed our completed TIMS cards over the counter to us, she quickly
switched off her computer and closed up shop.
The two men filling out paperwork behind us would have to wait until
tomorrow. Sorry guys.
Then, with the adrenalin slowing its flow through my body,
we took some time in the dusky foyer to collect ourselves, look at maps and
pamphlets, and figure out how to walk to our hotel. I tried to solicit directions from the still
available ACAP lady, but she neither understood English, nor could she read a
map, or point us in the direction of Thamel - the trekker district of
Kathmandu. Sam announced that he knew the way, so we started
walking. We walked, and walked, and
walked. I kept being neurotically afraid someone
would steal the water bottle off the back of my pack and made a mental note to
find a better place to carry it before tomorrow.
We walked over a score of bridges and past a palace surrounded by a
tall, white wall. There were throngs of
people, but none of them were white.
Where was Thamel? Finally, we
came to a T in the road and spotted a white girl, about our age, who looked
like she knew where she was going. She
looked so at ease: dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, sunglasses on her head,
with a half-liter water bottle swinging in one hand. I, however, looked like a swamp-monster:
wearing two-day old clothes (or was it three days?), sweat pouring from my
body, with a huge red pack on my back, and a water bottle that banged
uncoordinatedly against my right side.
Needless to say I was totally envious of her whole being and demeanor. We stalked followed her as she walked
down the street, crossing when she did, waiting for a lull in the ceaseless
traffic, before scurrying across and hoping to not get creamed by a moped, bus,
or mule drawn cart. After awhile we
began to see more trekkers and the shops began to look more ‘touristy’ and we
didn’t fret when our unwitting guide took a right turn and we were again on our
own. We’d reached Thamel. By the way, the ‘h’ is silent, as it is in
all other Nepali words…
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| A busy street of Thamel |
As we walked down the side of a narrow road (there aren’t any sidewalks, it’s just the street, lined with buildings, so one must be always on the lookout to not be run over), some unknown fiend in a building above us dropped a dye bomb on Sam. He took a direct hit, with liquid dye splashed all down his back and pack and pants and spattered all over the left side of my body. Awesome. Not. The ne’er-do-well must have been practicing for Holi, their holiday that is next week. We kept walking, since there wasn’t anything to be done about it and Sam will now be sporting some pink highlights for a while.
Finally, we had to stop and consult the map again. We were totally clueless as to where our
hotel was located and where in Thamel we were.
A young guy pedaling a rickshaw stopped and wanted to give us a ride,
but I said no thank you. Who knows how
much a rickshaw costs? He left us, but
then turned around in the congested street, stopped at us again, and said he’d
guide us to where we were trying to go.
So, with no better option, Sam told him the hotel name and the guy
started pedaling. I nearly had to run –
not an easy feat with my pack – to keep up with him, but after only two minutes
he stopped and pointed down an alley. I
looked and sure enough, there was a sign with our hotel’s name on it. We never would have found it. I thanked the rickshaw guy profusely, who
nodded and pedaled off into the crowd.
Then, we headed down, down, down the concerningly narrow alley to the
hotel door.
We checked in and were shown our room on the 5th
floor. The railings in the hall and on
the stairs were ornate wrought iron and the floors were some sort of stone; the
building must have been lovely at one time.
One end of the hall was a balcony, so we wandered over to get a look
over the city. The view actually
revealed a junk filled courtyard and some pigeons cooing in a nook within arm’s
reach. The buildings were so close
together; Sam said he hoped there wouldn’t be an earthquake while we were
there, or we’d be in trouble.
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| View from our hotel rooftop restaurant. |
Our room
is decent, with two single beds and an attached bathroom with a showerhead
between the toilet and the sink. Handy. Then we walked down the stairs - there isn’t
an elevator - to see about getting bus tickets.
The manager said there were no tourist busses, only local busses to
Besisahar and that would cost us $20 each.
We thought this a lie. There were
3 or 4 old men sitting off to the side of the front desk, in the lobby, who
kept saying we should take a taxi. A
taxi, they insisted, would be comfortable, convenient, and not very expensive –
only $100. Yeah, that option wasn’t going
to even get consideration time in my brain.
They reminded me of those old guys on the Muppets, who sit up in the
theater gallery and crack jokes. I like
the muppet hecklers, but I didn’t like these old men. Sam and I trudged back up the stairs and used
my iPod touch to do some research (the hotel had free wifi) and then went back
down to the front desk – this time with my headlight, since the electricity had
gone out in the building. There was a
new person behind the desk, a younger boy in his teens, and he got to listen to
my demands for a tourist bus to Pokhara.
He said that could be arranged and charged us $10 each. Done.
Simple. He said our tickets would
be delivered in the morning. Satisfied,
Sam and I climbed the stairs, yet again, this time to the top where the
restaurant was located. Sam ate dinner,
but I wasn’t hungry, so I sat with him and looked out over the city and its
colorful sea of lights. Upon returning
to our room, I tested out the shower and then we went to bed. There’s a few dogs barking somewhere and I
can hear the noise of the vast city as it transforms into its night mode. I’m glad I brought earplugs.
