At the Little Rock airport, I requested that my checked luggage be sent directly to Kathmandu but was informed that it could not be done because I was flying in two different airlines…
After heartbreaking farewells, I embarked on my first flight from Little Rock to Houston. Arriving in Houston, I found out that my checked luggage was missing… not a good start…
Fortunately, I am always positive and I chose to interpret it as sign that what had to go wrong had already gone wrong, so from that point on no more problems would come up…
After registering the missing item complaint and having tons of trouble explaining how addresses in Nepal work, I concluded that the best way to retrieve my luggage as soon as it would get to KTM was to go to the airport and pick it up myself…
Being persistent, I decided to wait a little longer and see if my luggage would come on the following flight from Little Rock, the Continental attendant discouraged me saying that the system indicated that my luggage had been load to the flight that I had come in. I decided that the inconvenience of waiting some additional 30 min at Baggage Claim area far outweighed the benefits of having clothes to wear while in Kathmandu. My persistency paid of and to my relief and great joy, my luggage has finally arrived. I was late for my check in at Qatar Airways but very, very happy!
Off I went to the Qatar terminal and without any more problems safely boarded my flight from Houston to Doha, Qatar.
The 15+ hour flight was really good, besides an excellent service, it was only half full, so I had extra seats to stretch and comfortably sleep.
The lay over at Doha airport was also uneventful, although for some reason the internet connection was less reliable that I hoped for. Doha Airport is nice and spacious and with many amneties.
From Doha to Kathmandhu the flighted was packed, not one seat empty. Thankfully this flight was much shorter and I was seated beside a 24 year old nepalese that attends college in Minnesota. So I took the opportunity to learn more about nepalese culture and history. It was a very good and interesting conversation. The food was again great, although by that point I wasn't sure if it was breakfast, lunch or dinner... three different time zones can really be confusing..
The descent in KTM is so, so beautiful!! The mountains, the fields the buildings is a very pretty combination.
At the airport, I was scanned and interviewed by health officials, thankfully I had no fever and they only asked me to get in touch in case I developed any sintomes while in Nepal.
Pushpa, from READ, was waiting me at the airport and we took a taxi to go home. I will be staying at READ office. So I am working from home! :-)
Traffic in Nepal is crazy and I hope to blog about it in the future... it was a fun trip home.
READ office is very pretty and my room is very confortable with two windows for a really pretty garden.
Life is really good!
I am missing Raquel and Flavio in every step of the way, it is the first time that stay more than three days away from Raquel and when I think about her I have a really hard time figuring out how I am going to manage this aspect of an otherwise very exciting endeavor.
Yay! Glad your bag got through ok. Emily was not so lucky of course! Looking forward to hearing more about Nepal culture.
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