Kathmandu Guest House - Breakfast of...

... the breakfast of "OMG I NEED TO CARB UP".

Sitting at the buffet breakfast working out best food I should be eating to give me the energy needs I will have.  Whilst today isn't a real trek day, this mini trek is a good indicator.

The Kathmandu Guest House is a beautiful place, it was significantly damaged in the Nepal earthquake but they have rebuilt it impressively. It's more a mansion than a hotel, indeed that is its origins. Whilst it's almost opulent on the outsides, the rooms are small but adequate. I'm not complaining, this will be the nicest accomodation for the next 24 or so days.

Breakfast of carbs

Kathmandu - 4200ft (1300m)

Finally arrived in Kathmandu, there were a few delays! As previously mentioned the flight was late pushing back from the gate, due to bags being loaded at the last minute, then it was a storm cell, and then the storm changed the wind directions, so all the planes on the ground had to taxi to a new runway.

Once we got to Kathmandu, the airport had no room for us, so we circled for about 20mins before they found a place for us to park. An amusing start.

I got a prepaid taxi from the airport (700rupes later, about NZD$9, but it's easier just to work in USD, of which it's $7). The taxi came with a guide who of course had his own travel shop. 

We spoke and negotiated a trek for tomorrow, I honestly don't know where it is to, he told me and I know it involves a gondola going up, and a walk going down, start at 8:30am and be back by 5pm. Once we had a business relationship established, I also had him lend me a person to act as my negotiator to handle currency exchange, data SIM card, and getting me to the hotel. It's possible I'm getting ripped off, but if I am, I feel good about it.

The currency is proving a problem. I shall use US dollars here, because it makes it easier, but I'll note the Rupees as Rs). I need around USD600 (60,000rs) all up, and the preferred denominations is less than USD10 (less than 1000Rs notes).

The problem is all the currency places offer 1000Rs notes at those amounts, so I've tried (and mostly failed) to get lower denominations. Even the shops in Kathamandu don't like 1000Rs notes. As an example of pricing, a 1.5litre water bottle is 200Rs near the hotel (usual tourist markup I assume), but the guy at the checkout had to send someone off to make change.

Tomorrow I have the gondola trek and I'll talk to my new friend Deepak about where I can change these notes. Imagine a wad of USD600, made up of $1, $2 and $5 bills.... in an ideal world I'd not carry all that — but Everest doesn't have ATMs yet.

I found out why the Internet is slow.

Almost at Kathmandu (~30,000ft)

• Location: About an hour out from Kathmandu.
• Altitude: Midair. Guessing around 30,000ft (9100m)

A brief flashback: On the flight from Auckland to Singapore, the inflight entertainment was kind enough enough to keep me informed, in very specific detail, my exact altitude, location, and outside temperature. Presumably so in the event I wish to step outside, I'd know how to dress.

What struck me was as we made our way down from our cruising altitude, we passed by an interested height:

Yup, that is approximately the height that, in about two weeks, I'll be standing (and if you look closely at the top of the screen, you'll see the temperature it will probably be too).

When I'm up there, I'll have an annoying view-blocking mountain range underneath me, stopping me looking at sea level, so I took the opportunity to snap a photo of what I definitely won't see later on.

(Just in case I've not been totally obvious - that's just the ground in the photo, no mountain or anything)

Silk Air, flight from Singapore to Kathmandu

Singapore Airport do the security screening at the gate itself, and I'm not sure if it's just inexperienced travellers, or by design, but the boarding process was quite interesting. People were not allowed in the lounge (and hence past security) until about 15 minutes before boarding, but the slowness of the security processing meant the lounge was never particularly busy. The line to board was continuous but never long or slow. The security line, mostly, flowed.

I will say that I found it amusing how many people experienced problems. Walking up to the Metal Detector wheeling their bag, holding their shoes. Yup, they knew (incorrectly) to take their shoes off, but didn't know they had to put the bag on the X-ray machine.

People turning up with full on luggage or 3 or 4 carry on items, and having to have them checked at the gate. People who had to repack their bag for whatever reason post security, I suspect they had some forgotten item.

It amused me to no end. :D

I'm sitting here now at the beginning of this 4h30m flight, waiting for pushback from the gate.

Doh, lightning warning just occurred, so now we have to wait to push back for a few more minutes.

And it turns out that the lightning warning was for a storm cell that just passed right over the airport, changing the resulting wind direction, so now all the planes are going for a little drive to the other runways, we are now in that queue...