There were so many Nepali men on the flights that, as we waited at the gate, I wondered whether we had accidentally bought tickets for a male-only flight.
As the plane landed, everyone scrambled to their feet in such a hurry that you could barely hear the poor cabin crews’s polite requests to “sit down and wait for the captain to switch off the seatbelt sign”.
We stood outside shivering until a shuttle bus arrived and the crowd stampeded on. A friendly man granted us a 30 day visa and we went in search of our bags but couldn’t even see the carousel for the crowds.
Outside it felt like closing time outside a nightclub. Crowds of people were gathered in the car park, chatting and shouting whilst taxis attempted to weave their way through the bodies, beeping as they went.
Amongst the many faces greeting us, we found a man from our guesthouse who greeted us with a friendly ‘Namaste!’ and wrapped scarves round our necks. A toothless old fella helped take our bags and asked for a tip.
Climbing into the minibus, a fellow tourist (and experienced Nepal traveller) said to us “Welcome to Nepal; it’s like this all the time.”
Our minivan squeezed it’s way through the streets of Thamel dodging bikes, pedestrians, taxis and dogs until it found a place close to our hotel where it was practical for us to get out and walk the final few yards down a narrow alley.
Our hosts offered us tea and coffee, they told us to sit down, relax and then slowly checked us in one by one. When we hopefully enquired about food, they smiled and said they could get us a sandwich. We assumed they meant from the kitchen. After taking our order, one of them popped out to a sandwich shop, still open at 2230, and fetched us two sandwiches.
They shyly apologised for moving us up to a (far nicer) top floor room and packed us off to bed tired, but satisfied, and absolutely buzzing for the coming two weeks in Nepal.
I woke to watch the sun rise over the rooftops of Kathmandu and brimming with excitement, set off to catch our 7am coach to Pokhara. We navigated our way through the bustling morning alleys, grabbed a breakfast wrap from a guy on the street, sucked down a cup of milk tea as we waited for the bus to leave, and left Kathmandu really excited to come back later in the trip.
A few hours later, an Earthquake smashed Central and Eastern Nepal.
It would be unfair to judge Nepal on the two weeks we spent there after the Earthquake. But our first impressions of the country – those mad, exciting, but actually really simple few hours will always stick with us.
