Airports.
They say the average person spends a total of seven years waiting in their lifetime. Waiting for a bus, waiting for a phone call… just waiting. I’m sure I’ve already spent my seven.
They’re all the same. Confusing layouts, shops never open when you need them to be, and when you’ve been awake for 27 hours, the airport just gets worse. Coffee doesn’t do anything to keep you awake at this stage. It just tastes really bad.
The idea of air travel is great until you actually reach an airport. Aside from getting close to completely undressed just to be able to pass through customs without setting the metal detector off, you are then faced with hours of more waiting in a large steel tube as it flies through the air.
Speaking of time, I have concluded that Time Magazine is the choice of travellers and adventurers alike. Its pages are thinner than that of say, GQ, it’s easily rolled and folded into whatever size cravass you are left with in your backpack and it’s a half decent read to boot.
So my hours have begun.
It’s not going to make life any easier that my personal in flight entertainment screen has crashed, either!
This morning I woke to find an email from Mr Newell saying plans had come apart again. He was supposed to meet me in Nepal, arrive a few days earlier even, but the email told a different story.
He was still in Delhi, and being told all flights were grounded due to a pilot strike. Yes, well the last thing I want my pilot to be is an unhappy one! In 12 hours I will see if Gentleman James has charmed his way out of this one, or if I, Solo Sammy will be left to my own vices…
Sunday, 13 September 2009
The Journey Begins
Arrival Day.
I am met at Kathmandu airport by a rather hairy bloke. James.
It’s humid. It’s hot. There’s no sense of order. “Make an orderly line for the health desk” gives way to crowd around, push and yell until the health desk officer notices you. Or just walk right past.
James had befriended a taxi driver / travel agent / hotel finder while he was waiting for me, and following a hair raising drive into the centre of Kathmandu, (Thamel), we were settled. $5 a night. Everything in here, Hotel Tasi Dhargey, appears to be in order at first glance.
You can’t even thinking about using the tap water for anything. I have yet to test my stomach’s resistance to the food. Nearly 36 hours of travel tends to help you loose your appetite.
So first impressions then?
It’s loud. IT’s colorful and it takes balls of steel to want to drive here, although I suspect India will be worse. I think the entirety of the driving rules are:
Just go, make sure you beep a lot and don’t stop for anything.’
That night, however the sound of the city gave way to complete silence.
How can this tiny city with it’s unpaved roads, no driving rules and endless shop fronts be so much louder than a city the size of Sydney, then by contrast, so much quieter at night.
The biggest problem so far is that my pillow is akin to a brick.
Monday, 14 September 2009
Arrival Day +1
We’ve decided to climb Everest.
Just to base camp anyway. In a few days we should be well on our way to the rooftop of the world.
After only just one day exploring Thamel, I can already tell I don’t want to spend too much time here. It does get a bit old being asked for money every two minutes, but it comes with the territory I guess.
The tea here is truly amazing. It’s incredibly tasty. I will have to find out what its made with. Yak milk, I suspect.
Found time to check out the Monkey Temple via rickshaw ride as well. Not too many monkeys but the ones that were hanging around were very funny.
James has the runs. He’s been eight times in the last two hours. I’m laughing now but I know I’ll be there at least once on this trip.
I’ve been told of a place called Nagakot. Sunrise and sunset provides a view of 42 out of 50 Himalayan peaks. Sounds like a place I need to get to.
I must admit I feel like bad. And old Nepali man (obviously chasing money as they all seem to be) drew a picture of me even after I told him I had no money for him, yet he gave me the drawing anyway. I looked for him when I passed back through Durbar Square when I had some change for him – but no luck.
We keep hearing the same stories from the locals about how there haven’t been any tourists in recent times and they are finding it hard to make a living. Not sure wether to believe this or not. They also don’t like the Chinese very much here in Nepal.
Nepali kids are terribly cute. It’s a shame they are sent out to beg for money. We rang into a small group of children in a back alley, one of them insisted he show us a magic trick – so he threw a firecracker on the ground next to James. A good laugh for me, a good fright for James.
Kumar, the man who owns the hotel we are staying at, just so happens to own a travel agency as well! We’ve been in talks with him about Everest Base Camp trek. We’ll see how that progresses. I didn’t think for a moment before I got here that we would walk Everest. But its there. It’s calling…
I can’t wait to get out there and see the real Nepal.
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
A-Day +2
I took a shit when I got up this morning. I fear this is the beginning of the end.
I woke early to try and get a shot of sunrise over Thamel from the roof of the hotel. No go. Low cloud. Welcome to Nepal! Looks like rain today. (it didn’t rain)
James woke, emptied his stomach for the 9th time in 24 hours and we were good to go.
Surprise, surprise who should turn up at breakfast but Kumar. I think the hotel staff call him to let him know when we are awake and having breakfast in the hotel. Sneaky fuckers!
He does appear very genuine to me but I’m not rushing into any decisions. We checked out a few more travel places and went back to haggle Kumar later on.
Remember my mention of Nagakot? I managed to swindle us into what appears to be an excellent deal. 12 days Everest trek, two days in Nagakot for free. I wonder if I can convince James to stretch his budget to a mountain flight as well…
I guess today is the unofficial Day One of the Everest Trek. We decided to go for it.
We were introduced to our guide, Deepak. Seems like a great guy – we had some laughs then he told us he had just come back from bringing a tourist down from Everest who had AMS (Altitude sickness).
I hope to hell I don’t end up with it. I want to be able to say I made it there and back. Also sounds like Deepak is in high demand. He’s had to turn away many tourists saying to them that he doesn’t start trekking until November, but had made an exception for us for some reason!
4:30am wake up call. 6am flight to Lukla – the adventure really picks up tomorrow.
