Nepal 9: Pokhara to Kathmandu to Doha to Dubai

First off: Happy Birthday Tessa!!!! (it's my older sister's birthday today) 
AND Happy New Year to everyone!!

Got to sleep in this morning!! Woke up in 2011 with the sorest muscles ever!! In order to get out of my bed I had to pull a Forrest Gump move and literally lift each leg over the side. We had breakfast at the Hotel Grand Holiday and then explored the town a little bit.

Steve getting a straight blade shave because he hadn't shaved the entire trip.

We shopped around Pokhara for a while. I got an awesome coat and some other random things. At 11:30 we caught a taxi to the airport. The airport was the tiniest thing ever. We waited for our flight on the roof of the airport where there were some tables and chairs and a little food shop. The roof was completely open so you could just watch the planes and helicopters take off and land on the single piece of runway. 

A plane taking off at the airport.

Our flight to Kathmandu was on Buddha Air. There were about 20 seats on the plane, it was a tiny one. There was a great view of the mountains as we flew over them. The flight was only about an hour long.

View of the mountains out of the plane window.

When we landed in Kathmandu, the "baggage claim" was just a guy handing out bags off of a truck. Our next flight wasn't until 11:15pm so we had some time to kill. The guard said we couldn't check in for the flight until 7:30pm so we were stuck with our bags.

"Baggage claim"

Steve's mom's friend had talked very highly of this one pizza place in Kathmandu called Fire and Ice. We figured we had time to get there and back so we lugged our bags along, caught a cab, and drove into the Thamel area. The taxi driver was a little confused but we showed him on the map and he asked a random guy on the street so we did eventually find Fire and Ice. We showed up with all our bags and asked for a table for two. It was kind of funny because we got a table for four but our bags took up two of the chairs anyways. The pizza was great. I got a hawaiin one and Steve got L'Americana. Finished our pizzas and had more time to kill so we ordered dessert. 

Me and Steve with our pizzas at Fire and Ice.

Made it back to the airport and waited around. Finally got into the airport. Eventually we were able to check our bags. We met a family from Norway that was in Nepal visiting their daughter. Apparently their daughter is living in Nepal with her boyfriend. The boyfriend is a parahawker. Parahawking is basically like paragliding but you have trained hawks that will find the best wind pockets for you. It sounds brilliantly fun. The family said they even got to try it. 

After checking in we had to wait in this huge room full of chairs until our flight was boarding. The room was half full of people and everyone was completely mesmerized by the low quality high volume Bollywood drama film that was playing on the tvs. We met a group of Americans from Colorado. They were a bunch of kids about our age that had been building irrigation systems for a remote town someplace in Nepal. They had been there for two weeks and had some pretty good stories. 

On the flight I looked around for empty seats and ended up being able to snag a whole row for myself. I slept most of the way back to Doha. We had a quick layover in Doha and then a short flight to Dubai. Passport stuff, customs, visas to get back into the country, baggage claim and then out to catch a taxi. The taxi ride seemed so tame compared to the ones that we experience in Nepal. Got back to Etisalat Academy around 6:00 AM. 

It's not home, but it's good to be back in Dubai.

The Nepal trip was a phenomenal adventure.