Had to get up early to catch my flight to Kathmandu. Not that the plane was leaving that early, but getting to the gate always takes hours. At the last moment, I realised I was probably a bit short on Thai Baht for a taxi from my hotel, so I decided to hoof it to the nearest Skytrain to see if I could get to the airport by public transport. Even though I had to hike a bit with all my luggage and make 3 train transfers, it worked out pretty smoothly in the end.
The pack I’m using has been lying dormant since my last big trip, but I really appreciate its versatility and flexibility. It is canvas, which is a bit heavy for hiking, but durable enough for baggage handlers. The shoulder straps tuck away behind a zipper flap so they don’t get caught in airport luggage machinery, but when you need them for hiking distances and jockeying between trains, they’re nice to have.
Just a short flight from Bangkok to Kathmandu. Relatively speaking, anyway: 4 hours. The plane was deserted. A 777 with 9 seats across and only one other person in my row! Not exactly peak season for visiting Nepal. The flight in was quite spectacular because it flies over flat India, and you notice the hills starting to climb as you cross into Nepal. Soon enough, you are flying just above some pretty spectacular mountains as the plane starts to descend. Of course you think, “Where are they going to land this thing with this terrain?” but then the hills level off as you enter the Kathmandu valley, and you can see the big flat runway on the plain.
Flight from Bangkok into Kathmandu
Map of the route “Dog man can but cat man do”: 2,341,768 m, 2,619 m of climbing and 1,130 m of descent, elevation between 8 m and 2,293 m, time 03:35:42. It starts at 13.69025, 100.74381 and ends at 27.69878, 85.35799 (latitude, longitude).
Since Kathmandu is down in a valley, it isn’t as cold as you would expect in February. But at 1500 meters, it certainly is a lot cooler than what I’ve been travelling through over the past 2.5 months. No more hot, sweaty tropics for a while, which is a bit of a relief. Kathmandu seems like a crazy place, with Sri Lankan-style traffic chaos and even worse roads. Some of the city streets look like mud. I would hate to see what they’re like in the monsoon season.
I had arranged for my hotel to have a driver meet me at the airport. He took me to this groovy little section of town, with skinny little alleys running everywhere, full of craft shops and backpacker guest houses. I’m one of very few guests in my hotel at the moment. Peak season is October, November, and December, but this is supposed to be the second-best time to be here.
A few facts of life in Kathmandu have already made appearances here. Rolling blackouts happen every day of the week. About 8 hours on and 8 hours off. The streets go dark, but most hotels and shops run on generated or stored solar power, so things go on as usual. Also, there are frequent strikes here, and you are advised not to leave your hotel. My guest house manager told me one is planned for tomorrow, but I haven’t been able to confirm it online, so I guess I’ll have to play it by ear.
