Quite unusually, I didn’t get a good night sleep. For a start, being Friday night, the clubs were pounding out music and even though it wasn’t loud, it was enough to disturb me. Then it was a little milder tonight. My sleep was light and short, waking up at 0400. Perhaps it was the beer I had with dinner. I lay till 0600 before having a shower.
I had my breakfast downstairs and settled the breakfast for the last four days. The hotels.com site had said it was included but it wasn’t when I checked; at USD9.60 per room night, I couldn’t push it to hard. Breakfast normally costs USD2.50 and their was not any different, so I decided to let it go.
Today is a big day. I bus to Kathmandu wait a few hours, fly to Hong Kong arriving the next day. Tomorrow’s a big day too as I’d wait most of the day in Hong Kong before flying to Auckland. All flights on standby.
I had opted for the 0800 bus instead of the 0730; half hour makes a big difference in the early hours. The earlier buses left about 15 mins late but we pulled out on time; so we not far behind them.
Leaving Pokhara, we saw the petrol queues (for motorbikes) in full swing. This is the queue for legal petrol at normal prices rather than black market petrol at higher rates. Yesterday, we had seen people parked up (queued up) in preparation for today but we saw it for real now. The queues were orderly and people appeared calm, I’m sure it would be more chaotic in other countries.
The journey today only had 2 rest stops. The lunch stop proved more expensive than that on the outbound journey. We arrived in Kathmandu near Thamel around 1500. I was told it was only 10 minutes to the heart of Thamel. It seemed longer than that as I probably took the longer route which had less unfamiliar alleys.
After holding on for a while, I was bursting to go, and went into the first ground floor café to use their loo. I killed about an hour of my 4 hours till I had to go to the airport.
Next was Yang Ling Tibetan Momo shop which I loved from last time. Unfortunately it closed early being the weekend I guess. I wandered around with my pack, making myself more susceptible to hotel touts, until I found a place I liked for dinner.
It was getting rather cold around 1700, so I sat indoors for a leisurely vege curry and rice, followed by cake and Nepali tea.
I headed to the airport soon after 1900, a little earlier than I had planned, because the flight load looked OK. I got to the check-in counter a little more than 3h prior to departure. The signage wasn’t up yet but they were processing people. Unfortunately, they couldn’t give me a boarding pass immediately but was given it about 1h20 before scheduled departure.
Then came the delay of initially 25 mins then 1h25 mins. I don’t know how the flight could have left Hong Kong 20 mins late and got to Dhaka an hour late (and then it gets further delayed). I managed to get 30 mins in the lounge courtesy of my credit card . It was nearly closing time (aligned with the scheduled departure of my flight somewhat), so most of the good food had just be put away. I got some tea, cake and brushed my teeth in the posher bathroom instead of the commoner’s version.
I headed to the public gate area where it would be more than another hour’s waiting till boarding and nearly 2 hours till departure. Blurred vision and yawns were starting to set in.