Notes on Nepal
Nepal is a mysterious country to many. A lot of my friends (who are bad at geography) didn't even know where it was until I told them it's where Mount Everest is. I found mostly the adventurous types end up in Nepal.(and hippy types
) Even though Nepalese people are quite poor, I found them to be quite happy and very hospitable people. I was surprised not to see many beggars on the street. However Kathmandu does have its problems- essentially no sanitation and a lack of power(common all over nepal). Nepal though is truly a backpackers haven. It is surely the cheapest travel destination ive been to and also there are some interesting tourist attractions to note. Beautiful scenery as well.
Route: KTM-DEL
Airline: Kingfisher flight 66(Coach Class)
Departure: Dec 11th 3:40PM(ON Time)
After 5 short days in and around Kathmandu, I was headed to India for a North India(Golden Triangle) tour. In order to get there, i bought a ticket that essentially was a one way from Kathmandu to Hong Kong via Stopover in Delhi on Kingfisher.
I arrived at the airport around 1:45PM and ended up being one of the last people to board the plane. Check in was relatively easy- everything is done manually, but they insisted that I check in my luggage which apparently was too large to carry on. There are layers of security at this airport which i found to be a joke..more on that later. Immigration formalities took a long time and being Nepal, it wasn't so orderly with people constantly cutting me.
I mentioned the security. Well for each carry on bag, you're required to put a standard luggage tag in this case that carried the Kingfisher logo. In order to pass through each layer of security you must obtain a stamp which I didn't know. I few checks they didn't give me a stamp so I had to get sent back to another guy to get the proper stamps on this luggage tag. I think they cared more about the proper stamps then the contents of the bag. The layers of security are there, but I didn't find much actual checking of the luggage going on... well except for that they found a fork in my bag when it went through the xray. They confiscated the fork! I have a thing for getting random things confiscated. In the Dominican republic they took my umbrella because they said the tip was too pointy. Anyhow after all these checks I finally made it to the gate and another 15 feet bus ride to the aircraft where another security check was performed.
Upon takeoff, I found out I was sitting on the wrong side of the plane to see the himalayas. Once we reached 10,000 feet, i found an empty row and began snapping pictures. It was an amazing scenery. The mountains were barely below us even at cruising altitude. Pics below.
After about 30 minutes following takeoff we made a left turn towards New Delhi away from the mountain view. A meal was served which was surprising for such a short flight especially in Y. 1 hr 45 into the flight we descended toward a foggy/hazy New Delhi. Immigration was quick as I just beat out the pax from the AA flight that just landed from ORD. I proceeded by taxi to the designated hotel as per directed by my tour company.