The nap helped. The departure from Lukla was a hoot save for an overly careful hand-security inspection of everyone’s small backpacks. Three twin-otters landed within several minutes of each other, and the first one was taxiing, fully loaded again, back out onto to the iconic inclined, abbreviated runway just as the third plane was taxiing onto the tarmac – our plane. An airport never to be forgotten.
Haze in Kathmandu was relatively unchanged. Thunder and lightning was the afternoon norm for the next three days with a soaking deluge of rainfall – at last – on the afternoon of the 16th. The drawback: weather delayed our 787 arriving from Calcutta to Kathmandu and we were left largely in the dark for 4.5 hours. Instead of leaving for Doha at 8:25pm, the doors closed just shy of 1:00am. Of note, the only component of CV19 safety observed at the airport hinged on the presumption of negative PCR tests examined twice in the process of checking in. Social distancing was completely ignored in queues and stuffed busses as, occasionally, were the use of masks.
Wednesday the 14th we did a little shopping, having arrived from Lukla around 7:30am, but mostly relaxed. Thursday, we shopped a bit more visiting a large shopping district, Thamel, within walking distance of the Yak and Yeti Hotel. Then we explored an historic district south of the YnY with Martha Draves. After that, she went northwest in town, and we went northeast returning to the circular Boudanath Buddhist circular ‘mall’ where we got a few more things. The first wave of departures happened Thursday afternoon: Conan Bliss, Martha Draves, Polly Epstein, Steve Lesniak, and Helen Berenyi. We enjoyed dinner at YnY with Madisons, Mikki, and Astrid Hajjar and Amalia Carrillo-Batalla Mattar.
Friday morning, we set off with Astrid and Amalia to visit the Dwariki Hotel, a phased architectural restoration project funded by a Nepalese philanthropist over the past nearly 50 years. The signature feature of the three different buildings is stunning 15-16th century ornately carved wood window and entryway framing. An objective is to maintain the skills to produce such beautiful work in perpetuity.
All three days we ‘enjoyed’ liquid and noisy traffic flow with scooters and motorcycles generally outpacing cabs on both sides, all vehicles venturing frequently into oncoming lanes, all of which was being crisscrossed at intervals by trusting pedestrians. Should any want a queasy experience, I have two 1-minute back-seat videos to share.
Stewart Travels 