Post-trek re-entry into the “real” world started in Kathmandu, the wickedly over-crowded, hot, traffic-filled city of terrible roads, bad cars and worse pollution. At the moment I’m in Bangkok to complete the fulfillment of a lifetime’s dream of trekking in the Kingdom of Mustang. Bangkok, after Kathmandu, it’s looking like heaven. I’ve used this city as a convenient hub city for my Asia buying and travels, but we have never been good friends. I guess I’m just a country boy. I like lots of green, mountains, quiet, and open space.
It was not a gentle end to a three week trek of serenity and beauty in the “Last Forbidden Kingdom” on Earth. Truth in advertising. It is a kingdom at the end of the Earth and outsiders were forbidden until recently. However, the extraordinary sense of peace and freedom ended as we were unceremoniously dumped in the middle of Kathmandu after a mad dash from Mustang. The first flight was on an eighteen seat prop plane. The cowboy pilots took us on a twenty minute Disneyland-like ride from the high Himalayas to Pokhara. Long before the propellers stopped, we had grabbed our seven huge duffel bags filled with camping gear, clothes, and treasures from the luggage compartment of our plane and ran with them to the waiting plane parked 100′ away. We threw the bags through the small door in the back of the plane and ran up the steps.
Sweating profusely by this time from anxiety and exertion, we plopped into the last four seats at the back of the plane after bumping into every passenger along the narrow, low clearance isle with my large, old, Tibetan drum and dangerously overloaded backpack. The plane was full of Indian pilgrims returning home after the Muktinath pilgrimage. Some looked at us with mild irritation as we stumbled to our seats. I don’t know how long they held the flight for us, but the plane was hot and stuffy! We had no tickets for this second flight, our names were not on the list, and as we entered the small aircraft, they asked for our first names only. If the plane went down with the four of us aboard, there would be four unexpected, unidentified bodies in the wreckage.
We were taxiing to the runway before we reached our seats and in the air before our seat belts were buckled. These pairs of blue-jeaned cowboy pilots wearing signature white shirts are allowed only ten minutes to refuel and unload and reload all the people and their baggage between flights. There are not enough planes, so every minute counts. The flights are supposed to start at 6:00am. All flights to Kathmandu from Pokhara share the same flight number, after that it’s only Flight 1, Flight 2, Flight 3. Our flight, Flight 2, was delayed three hours because of a storm. We were originally scheduled on Flight 3 which never got off the ground today.
Hem and Mahesh must have cajoled and bribed our way on this flight, which was delayed until we arrived. The winds in this part of Himalayas come up about 10:00 am. canceling all subsequent flights. If we missed this flight we could only wait in Jomsom overnight and hope for better luck tomorrow.
