Nepal

Getting Ready

Well it’s already been eventful and I haven’t even left Miami yet. Last night while packing I started feeling rocky. Thought I was overly tired. Or that some fingernail polish we attempted to use as glue on my camera was bothering me. But no such luck! Woke up in the middle of the night, with severe stomach ache. I must have given myself food poisoning. Who would think that tahini sauce would go bad! Since going vegan over a year ago I have not been sick and have had a super strong stomach and intestinal system. At one point I was thinking "good thing I just bought the travel insurance." As there was no way I could have been sitting on a plane, the first leg to Doha, Qatar, which is close to 14 hour flight.

Packing

A few Pepto Bismol tablets and a few fitful hours of sleep. Final packing was a bit of a challenge! Very sore stomach, nothing to eat but a piece of black rice toast, some tasty jam and some stomach ease tea! Had to make some tough decisions, to make baggage weight, had to jettison my water sandals, a nice polo type shirt, a T-shirt, long underwear top and bottom. A sleeping bag, sleep is overrated when traveling anyway. The hardest thing was I left behind 15 or more little Teddy Bears . Originally I was going to give them to each family, now it will be only the kids, but I have enough for them (I think). One bag was 46 pounds, one bag was 69. I had been stressing over the baggage for days. Qatar Airlines had not answered my request for a baggage exception, not via telephone, online through their customer service portal or when Veronika contacted them via Facebook. "We are routing it to the appropriate department!" Over a week to get no answer.

The Flight

Slept most of the flight. Flight attendant just announced that during the holy month of Ramadan that Eating and drinking during the daylight hours is forbidden 🚫

Doha Airport is very pretty, but sterile, cold. It may be not busy because of Ramadan. There are more employees than travelers. Cleaning, mopping, straightening. One whipped my toilet seat down for me.

Arrived!

Uneventful flight from Doha to Kathmandu. Only thing if interest was it was a fairly empty flight, but my seat was right beside a young Nepali woman who was apparently very nervous about flying. She would move and sigh and fidget and cover her head with her jacket. I wanted to tell her to do deep breathing but figured it may get lost in the translation or be misinterpreted. Right after take off I moved to a empty row and had the whole row to myself. Slept most of the flight. Prior to landing I tried to get a better window seat ( I gave up a decent one when moving rows) so I could see the approach to Kathmandu.

You really could not see much of the approach of Kathmandu. The wing obscured most of my view. The rest was reduced even further by rainy drizzle cloud cover and the ubiquitous smog over most metropolitan areas in the world. However as I was peering through the gray rain clouds, I noticed white billowy clouds in the far distance. And rising above the billowing clouds were the majestic snow covered Himalayas! Much higher than the clouds the spread out endlessly. We circled several times, and you could see terraced green hills and valleys and a bit of urban sprawl. Gone was the majesty of the snow capped peaks, to be replaced by the sight of urban blight and a never ending sea of humanity.

Kathmandu

In town it is a beautiful, old, crazy, chaotic town, with old Kathmandu center maintaining its great old charm, and newer parts combining the old charm With the chaos of a modern Asian culture. Exotic sights and smells, crazy never ending traffic and on the surface no apparent traffic laws.

Please stay tuned!