A wake up this early is hard to take, but we did it. Cold breakfast, heartfelt goodbye to one of our trusted drivers and off we went. Through the verdant flat lands and farms of West Bengal and into Nepal. More bureaucratic nonsense on both sides of the crossing, but we made it in just over a couple of hours. Our destination was a tiny, grimy airport just inside Nepal where we waited more than two more hours for our flight via Yeti Airways back to Kathmandu. While there, we were inundated by perhaps two hundred Nepali refugees who had been evicted from Bhutan and were now en route to Dallas Texas. Such a wide assortment of people from the very young to very old, all with a duffle bag containing all their worldly possessions. Some of the young adults looked like they were ready to be recruited into god knows what gangs or organizations leading to god knows what crimes or misdemeanors ... what would happen to these people in Texas?
The crowded flight was only 45 minutes but we got seats on the right side and were treated once more to a moving tableau of the amazing Himalayas, including Kantajanga and Everest. Looking at Everest never gets old: it is not only massive, it has an almost perfect pyramid shape. Then, descent into Kathmandu.
We took a walk and did some shopping along Kat's funky, noisy streets. Hundreds of white people were there, mostly youngish backpacker types. As a consequence, western food and music prevailed, along with the detritus of bygone hippy days. Drugs, tie-dye, and new age paraphernalia bought and sold. We enjoyed it, and truly loved our pizza dinner. But the walk along the road to the hotel at night was a dusty, headlight-illuminated walk among cars and trucks into a Mad Max movie. Some of the dark side streets looked a little murdery, but we prevailed.
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| Our airline |
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| Mount Everest: tallest pyramid shape in front of the wing |
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| Kathmandu street: Felicia, Gail and Michael |
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| Kathmandu Lou |
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