The departure area filled up quickly as a Buddha Airlines ATR arrived from KTM. No sooner had the plane stopped moving that the door was opened and the
pax were being herded off the plane. Meanwhile the Buddha groundstaff were manhandling cargo and luggage out of the forward hold. When the last PKR
bound pax had stepped off the plane, terminal staff threw open the doors and the Buddha pax streamed toward the aircraft, leaving the original 6 of us
from Guna airlines checkin in a deserted departure lounge.
When our aircraft eventually arrived I happened to be sitting directly in front of the boarding door, so I got first dibs on the seat, and photos of the
apron. Trust an airline nerd to get a kick out of that!
Yeti Airlines aircraft arriving on the walk to the plane.
Cabin interior shot. I opted for a seat toward the back, away from the wing and propellor.
This guy was disengaging some sort of equipment from the aircraft when the crew started the engines. He almost blew away.
The rest of the passengers quickly boarded, receiving a cursory 'Namaste' from the flight attendant. A pre-recorded safety announcement with no
accompanying demonstration was played first in Nepali then in English. It was only halfway through when we took off. For the first few minutes of the
flight we followed the highway to Kathmandu, which I had been uncomfortably inching along just a few days previously. Other than that, the views were
severely restricted due to the clouds. To me, this was more than made up for by the in flight service, which consisted of a pre-takeoff boiled lolly, a
packet of peanuts, and a plastic cup of lukewarm Pepsi, with TWO proactive refills!
Indicative of the views. The dirty windows didn't help.
Banking over the outskirts of Kathmandu.
Lolly.
Very tasty peanuts. I was unable to photograph the Pepsi due to some turbulence ...
... which also resulted in the FA having to momentarily take a seat.
Cockpit shot.
We landed smoothly in KTM ahead of time, but taxiied in the opposite direction to the terminal buildings. We deplaned toward a waiting bus which
confirmed that we were on the exact opposite side of the runway to the terminal building, which lead to a long and bumpy bus ride.
As least we were prepared.
And we definitely had it better than this guy.
Another planeload of hardworking Nepalese heads to the Gulf.
For some reason, the bus bypassed the terminal proper, where passengers from Buddha and Yeti Airlines were getting off their busses. Instead, the bus
took us to an open air pergola where a large group of South Indian women were having a picnic. There, our bags were unloaded into the midst of the
picnic and one other arriving flight and our bag tags receipts were cross referenced.
The baggage claim pergola.
And the picnic.
My hotel had failed to send a car for me, so I begrudgingly paid the 500 NPR prepaid taxi fee to get to Thamel, but was soon cheered up by the fact that,
as I was free to wander the streets of another tourist ghetto, I was certainly back where I belonged.
Brings a tear to the eye.
Guna Airlines was rudimentary, however it was clean, safe and cheery enough to convince me that parting with US$80 for the experience was worthwhile.
And as for my impression of Nepal, that's a whole other story which I am in the process of putting together now.
Thanks for reading, comments, questions and feedback are much appreciated.
afterDawn