The flight arrived in Delhi at 1 AM, where it was very warm and humid. The terminal was new, but somewhat decayed looking in places, perhaps due to shoddy construction or the climate. The airport is very confusing. As I left the plane, it was not clear what to do, since the only place to go is customs. All other ways out were blocked by police. However, I was not supposed to go through customs, since I was in transit and do not have an Indian visa. A customs officer directed me to some seats off to the side, and told me to wait there until someone brought me my baggage. Several other people from other flights eventually showed up, all going to Nepal. I talked to a German who was doing a two week solo trek in the Everest region, where I was going as well. His trek begins a day later than mine, but we could meet in Namche Bazaar, since I have an extra day there. The others were a couple from Holland, who had no detailed plans yet. The German had done a previous solo trek to the Annapurna Sanctuary, and recommended it, especially for the view you get from Ghorepani by taking a short detour on the way back to Pokhara.
After about an hour, an Indian Airlines representative appeared, and escorted me upstairs to the main terminal area, where someone brought me my suitcase. I still had an eleven hour wait ahead for my flight to Kathmandu. There were a lot of police around, and the terminal was open only to travelers, so I decided it was safe enough to try to get some sleep. I got a little. The terminal was full of people waiting for Nepal connections, many with huge stacks of baggage. Cats roamed around the airport, and some birds flew about, around the ceiling and through the doors. A cat took a drink from the water fountain, which was dripping. I didn't see any rats, whose fleas carry the plague.
After a while, I got out my plane ticket to check the departure time, and noticed that my tickets for the flights from Kathmandu to Lukla and back were missing. (Lukla is where I would begin my trek in the Everest region.) I searched my luggage a several times for them, but could not find them, and I began to suspect that these tickets, which were not stapled to the others, had been left on the plane on one of my flights. I still had the photocopies, and would have to see if I could use these, since they seemed to be all I had.
The German and the Dutch couple eventually showed up as well. When time finally came to check our baggage for the flight to Kathmandu, the German man woke me up, and I followed his lead, since there were no signs saying where to check baggage, and there were no airline representatives in sight. The only officials were police, who didn't all speak English, at least apparently. Then we went through security, which is very tight in the Delhi airport. The guard tried to tell me the X-ray was safe for film, as a sign there claimed, but I persisted, and he passed it through by hand. I was carrying the forty rolls of film I brought in a mesh bag to facilitate inspections. No one ever looked at my passport in India, however, as they did before I boarded the other international flights.
There was a horde of Nepalese U.N. troops on our flight, returning from Somalia. One sat next to me. I had the window seat on the Himalayan side, for excellent mountain views. The Nepalese soldier pointed out peaks for me, and I let him lean over to take some pictures out the window. I asked which was Mt. Everest, but he insisted that you couldn't see it from here.
When we arrived at the impressive, new brick and glass international terminal in Kathmandu, I first exchanged $50 for rupees at the bank window, to have some spending money. Then I filled out a short arrival card to go through immigration, and a card asking questions about whether I was at risk for the plague. It listed symptoms and gave instructions for treatment. After having my visa stamped, I went downstairs to go through customs. There, I was simply asked whether I had a video or movie camera, and when I said no, they marked my bags with chalk. They have a fee for video cameras.
The departure area was full of people promoting their hotels, and taxi drivers trying to solicit passengers. When I went to the tourist information desk, a representative of Hotel Manang offered me a deluxe mini-suite for $30, a large discount from the published rate of $65. I checked my guide book, and it said that this hotel ``had it all'', and that his claim that the room should cost $65 a night was true, so I went with him. I had not included such expensive hotels on the list I made on the airplane, but for $30, it sounded like a good deal. A child tried to get some money to carry my suitcase, but I ignored him, and we drove to the hotel.
The Nepalese drive on the left, but most roads in Kathmandu barely have one lane, and are really chaotic, full of pedestrians and animals such as dogs and cows. People drive like crazy and blow their horns a lot to clear the way. It was an exciting ride, watching pedestrians jump out of our way (an important survival skill here), and narrowly avoiding on-coming vehicles. The big multi-lane roads are just as chaotic, but without pedestrians and at higher speed. We drove by the Royal Palace and stopped at the northern end of Thamel, the tourist district.
The hotel was set back in a courtyard and looked impressive. There was an intricate Newari wood carving in the center of the elaborately decorated wood and brass lobby. As we took the elevator to the top floor to see the room, the hotel representative told me he was a Buddhist. The room was not exactly a suite, but a large room with a living-room section with a couch and chair, and a bedroom section with two beds, a chair and a dresser. It also had a private bath with a tub and shower, a phone, satellite TV, a wet-bar with alcoholic and soft drinks (at reasonable prices), and heating and air-conditioning. These features make it a luxury room by Nepalese standards, and the price reflects this, since it is not unusual to find decent but basic rooms, with shared bath, in Kathmandu for around $5 a night. It would be impossible to find a room this nice in America for $30. I signed up for two nights, the maximum available. This hotel was often filled by tour groups, I was told.
The hotel representative who brought me here took me to meet a trekking agent, who turned out to be his younger brother, the owner of Himalayan Waves Trekking, a short walk down the street. He said I could hire a guide/porter for $30 a day, which would include all of my and his expenses, except the bar bill, which includes any cold drinks purchased on the trek. My guide would handle all of the arrangements for me. I had only two days to set things up, so I had to make a decision quickly. It was already after 5 PM, and offices would be closed in an hour, at dusk. I had to give the agent a $100 deposit to cover the cost of getting a plane ticket for my guide and a trekking permit for me, and paying the entrance fee for Sagarmatha National Park, which contains Mt. Everest. (Sagarmatha is the local name for Mt. Everest.) The agency would also see if they could take care of my lost plane ticket, and I left the photocopies with them.
I went back to my room with a boy from the agency, and gave him a traveler's check, my passport, and two passport photos, which were needed to complete the trekking arrangements. I could decide later whether to actually hire the guide, when I interviewed him. If I chose not to hire him, I would lose the cost of his ticket, but this was only about $50, since the Nepalese pay less than foreigners for airline tickets. Hiring a guide through an agency increases the safety of the trek, and can simplify lodging and meal arrangements, since they should know good places. However, it triples the cost of the trek, and can limit one's flexibility, since the guide may have definite ideas about where he wants to stop each day.
When I returned to the hotel, it was already dusk. Inside the hotel, the electricity had just gone off, and the staff was lighting candles. I became suspicious about my choice of hotel, until I learned that this was a scheduled power outage which affected the whole area, except for people with generators. Apparently a hydro-electric dam was low on water, and there were two-hour power outages every Tuesday and Friday evening to conserve electricity. This hotel turned out to have a generator, but it took them a while to get it working. Once it was on, I took my valuables down to the safety deposit locker and checked them.
By the time I went out to dinner, it was dark. I walked down into the center of Thamel looking for Indian food. The street was unusually dark due to the power outage, but by the time I settled on a restaurant around 8 PM, the lights had come on again. I chose The Third Eye, which was supposed to be good and had an Indian menu. It was crowded and I had a long wait. I was eventually seated at a table with two other parties. One was another solo trekker, who had just done most of the Annapurna Circuit before cutting it short in Jomsom due to an ankle injury. He advised against hiring a guide because ``they can't tell you anything anyway, they are inflexible, and just get in the way.'' He said he never once felt unsafe hiking alone, but that he hired a porter for the Thorung La pass, the most difficult part. He said he had heard of people being robbed by their porter, so he was most concerned about this part. In fact, hiking alone seems to be especially popular with German trekkers, who value their solitude. Since he couldn't walk anymore, this German was preparing for a rafting trip on the Sunkosi.
The meal, tandoori chicken tikka masala, was fairly bland for Indian food, and the serving was small. I also ordered some naans. At about $5, the meal was rather expensive by Kathmandu standards. When I finished dinner, it was already 10 PM. We had been talking a long time. Almost nothing in Kathmandu is open at this hour, so I returned to the hotel. Since it was only 11:15 AM back home, I was not very sleepy, and spent a few hours practicing packing my backpack for the trek. It was somewhat heavier than I hoped it would be. I adjusted the aluminum stay in the pack to make it more comfortable. This is a difficult adjustment, involving bending the metal to fit the shape of my back, which I had never managed to do properly until now. When I went to bed, sleeping was somewhat difficult, partly because it was daytime back home, and partly because Nepalese beds have no springs, just a mattress on a wooden platform, so they are rather hard.
Scott A. Yost, 1994. All rights reserved.