My bags have bags

We arrived in Kathmandu on Sunday afternoon. The flight was fairly short but even so, we were fed a meal on the plane. I had the veggie meal which was Dahl, rice and cauliflower curry with cahpati. Not bad for $100 flight. Once we got into the airport we had to get our visas and, apparently, so did everyone else. Perhaps we should have sent those passports to Ottawa. 

We filled out our arrival cards, our visa forms and then an older gentleman came through and stapled on our photos. We waited about one and a half hours to get the visas. After that we needed to get our phone SIM and a taxi. A porter sort of attached himself to us and despite a decent tip we could not shake him loose. I realized that I inadvertently pulled out our rupees so he was going to try his damndest to shake loose some more cash. 

We piled in the taxi with me taking the front seat. I learned, in short order,that there are no lights, lanes are nonexistent and they definitely play chicken. Not surprisingly, there are many traffic accidents and such here.

We went out for a nice dinner at Le Sherpa restaurant down the street. Temperatures have increased so we were able to sit outside comfortably without sweaters. We were a bit tired so came back to Sam's apartment to chat.

The next morning, I crashed, sleeping almost the whole day. Suzanne and David, troopers that they are, walked down to Durbar Square and took in the sights. I'll just have to do it another day

More of the temples

They have amazingly detailed carvings inside and out

We found this little shrine in a neighbourhood courtyard.  Note the (blessed) dog.

One of the stylized dogs (dragons?) guarding a temple.  The red orange dab on the forehead is a blessing that I have seen on many statues, people and the occasional stray dog.

Monday in Kathmandu

In the city, temples like this one sit at intersections on the street and have a continuous stream of visitors who line up to spend a moment or two before the shrine at the front door then go on with their day.

Sunday Morning (cont'd)

Since we were up early, we went down to breakfast in the hotel restaurant. I didn't realize just how big the language barrier is between northamerican English and Indian English. There were lots of smiles and repeats back and forth and a few tries before our waiter could understand our order and we could understand his repeating our order back to us. Then he brought out mostly what we asked for. I won best breakfast by getting toast and Aloo Paratha. Had no idea what it was until it showed up: two chickpea flour "tortillas" with a lentil filling inside delicious but accompanied by the worst coffee of my life (tasted like water, chicory, sugar and milk).  Had we not been told it was coffee we would have guessed Ovaltine.  The waiter talked us into some fesh fruit and mango juice too. It was all covered in the cost of the room. At the end he made sure we we're full and happy.  Then he wrote his name on a card and asked us to give him a good review on Tripadvisor. 

It being 8:30 and with nothing to do until our flight, we left the hotel for a stroll. Our hotel was on a crazy street beside the main road to the airport and an onramp to an elevated highway. It was a raucous mix of city buses three wheeled bikes and cars continually laying on their horns.  At the first opportunity, we turned way from the main road and into the neighbourhood behind our hotel. 

The first thing that I noticed was that I was underdressed. All the men in western clothes had shirts with collars. Pretty quickly, Barb took off her scarf to use it as a shawl to cover her sleeveless shoulders.  The roads were unpaved, and until I saw the first cow, I had no idea why there were poop piles to be dodged.  The streets were more like narrow alleys that snaked around with no grid plan. Wire were strung back and forth overhead. There were 4-5 storeys  and built one against the other.  There were fruit stalls and businesses and small shrines to Vishnu and Hanuman at some intersections. 

 I was surprised by the wide variations in wealth that I saw in such a small area. I wouldn't say that I saw rich people, but there were a few late model cars that were solidly middle class. Some of the apartment buildings had nice looking balconies and security guards sitting at the entrances. There's an awful lot of private security ( or people dressed as private security) walking around the neighbourhood. 

Eye contact was ... awkward. I smiled and said hello and got more than a few stares. 

I get stared at a lot in places like this. As a 6'2" XXL foreigner, I don't take it personally, and hope that my freakish appearance is at least a mildly amusing event In their day. I wonder though if they saw me as a gawker or wondered if I was comparing what they had to what I have at home. For that reason, I didn't take photos (except for the first cow that we met).   

But then, there was one moment that I gawked. I was walking towards two very young girls, the oldest maybe 10 dressed in deep red traditional clothes with a very old looking face for her age and obviously very poor. She held a two foot stick that had been made into some sort of tool with cotton batting at the end and a piece of tin can. The tool interested me and then I saw her hand that gripped it: it looked old, older than my hands, like 70 years old. And I couldn't not look as we walked towards each other. As she saw me staring, she held out her other hand for money. 

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

Last night after we checked in, we decided to leave the hotel and look for a place with some food and a beer.  There were narrow store fronts serving food, but none of them served alcohol so we walked a bit further.  Since it was getting late (10:30 pm) I suggested that we would probably need to go to a hotel that had a bar.  Then we saw the Radisson just down the road.  The driveway had a barrier and armed guards but they welcomed us through to the (Very swanky) main entrance where we went through a metal detector. Inside, it was beautiful, no different from the high end conference hotels I see in my work.  We had wonderful murgh tikka chicken and snacks with Kingfisher beer.  The swankiness was highlighted by the cloth towels for drying your hands beside the sink.

Our hotel by comparison (though clean and safe with friendly staff) would be on par with the old family run motels from my childhood. The price was also in line with a family run motel which is why I chose it.  

5 am, New Delhi

The flight was not so bad considering that it was 13 hours from Newark to Delhi.  In those 13 hours we flew through an entire day just about, boarding the plane just after sunset in New Jersey, hitting a sunrise as we were flying over Greenland and then making our approach to Delhi just as the sun was setting again.  It's also really strange to me to grasp that we fly so far north (We flew north of Iceland) to  make the straightest route between New Jersey and New Delhi.

I am up because I am jet-lagged.  I count myself lucky because this is when I awoke without an alarm and it's not an unreasonable time to get up. With luck I'll have an okay day (not too bleary, not to headachey) and go to sleep at a normal local time.  I've been fighting a cold for days before I left and it didn't cause me too much difficulty during the flight.

After we arrived last night , we needed to confirm the flight time of our plane to Kathmandu. It has changed 4 times since we booked in February and has been a real hassle as Sam, our wonderful host and friend has been trying to arrange for a driver to pick us up from Kathmandu airport.  Finding out last night that it had moved again from 6:00 am to 1:35 pm, we have declared defeat and will hire a cab.  At any rate, we figured we'd could just grab our bags and go from the arrivals level to departures and confirm at the ticket counter.  That's when we discovered just how tight the security is here.  I'd read that you needed to have a printed airline ticket to even enter the airport in New Delhi and sure enough, as we walked towards an elevator to departures we had to stop at a checkpoint and have our (outdated) printed tickets compared to our passports.  They pointed out that our tickets were valid for the following day and we were able to explain our siltation and get approval to go upstairs, where we explained it again to another set of guards with automatic weapons. They pointed us out the doors so that we walked outside the length of the ticket area to get to a non-secured area separate from where people with valid tickets check in. This is where we could speak to a ticket agent and get new printed tickets.  All very polite, but lots and lots of guns.  The threat of terrorism here is very real, and they have done a pretty good job of managing the threat while dealing huge crowds coming and going.  I guess it only gets complicated when people like us show up and have to do things out of the ordinary.

Walking outdoors to get to the ticketing area was our first chance to be outdoors and breathe the air.  There is a strong base note of burning spice-wood in the air. Fragrant and exotic to my stuffy nose.  The temperature is in the low 80's (29 c).  

Time to grab a shower and start my day.

New Delhi at dawn.

View from our window out past the fire escape. 

Drinks at the Radisson, Aerocity

We decided we needed a drink and ended up at the Radisson.

Indira Gandhi Airport

Delhi Aerocity

Arrival in Delhi was pretty uneventful except the landing was a bit hard. Short runway? The airport was quiet and customs, a breeze. Got a cab to the hotel and understand why it was only $45. On the other hand, there are shops and things to explore before we head back to the airport.

Arrival in Delhi

Surprisingly, this flight was not too bad. Slept, courtesy of my new inflatable pillow. We are nearing Delhi and the sun is setting. Local time is 1900h.

Leaving Newark

Sunset over Newark. A short flight to Newark and then we changed terminals for our flight to Delhi. Had to laugh at Suzanne who said we were certainly seeing the seemier parts of the airport. Plane to India was fairly large so boarding started early. According to pilot we will arrive early. 

Getting ready

David has a solution for all of our electronics

All the last minute things to do

David has posted a lovely picture of his visit to Michigan. I would post a photo but you don't want to see my workplace. With 12 days to go, I still have to get my application in to the Indian Visa Service. Tomorrow, bright and early, I will submit it. I'll post a photo while I am waiting.

Test post: 2 weeks to go

In Michigan with the family. Picked up two more batteries for the camera.