Nepal here I come

I wasn't sure how long it's going to take to get to the airport at 8 in the morning so I started early and stopped to fill up the car before returning it after 2070 km of Omani roads, dirt tracks, sand dunes and wadis. The are currently (apparently since 10 years) building a new Terminal at the Muscat Airport but all the flights still left from the old terminal. After a couple of scans of the luggage and myself I was finally in the departure hall.

Trying to use up a couple of Rial that were left on my card I made a few calls and went onto the plane to Doha in Qatar. There I found myself sitting next to a Nepali who was taking the same route as me to Kathmandu. He gave me a bit of advice and after only an hour and 20 minutes we already arrived at the brand new Doha Airport which only opened in April this year.

My stopover of 1 hour was not enough to go around and check out the intensive selection of Duty free products. I wanted to get a specific camera because of the fussy hairs that show up in the lens of my current camera every now and then (they usually show up on the nice shots :-().

So I am still on my fussy hair cam which means I am preferring to take photos with my mobile at the moment.
The decent into Kathmandu was a very unique one. It was dark already but it was really dark... barely any lights of the city showed outside. The entire valley was dark with only a few small bulbs here and there. It looked nearly like a ghost town. I had never seen anything like it before and it got even more unusual when we parked right next to a white United Nations 737 and took the buses over to the one story brick terminal building.

Now I knew Nepal was going to be interesting. The Immigration and Visa procedure was not as bad as expected with 30 min queuing but the waiting for the luggage at the belt (yes they do have a luggage belt) more than made up for that. It took at 90 minutes until my luggage arrived. During these 90 minutes every 3 to 5 minute one additional item appeared on the belt and most people were also still waiting for their items (which kind of made me think, my backpack is still on it's way). So it did indeed appear 2 hours after we landed.

The taxi ride from the airport to the hostel was also a bit of an adventure. By now it was nearly 11 and the streets were not very busy but the drive still drove wildly honking through the little streets made up mostly of potholes and random items just standing around in the way.

However we made it to the hostel eventually and I got my bed. Dropped my bag next to it and went up to the roof terrace craving for a nice cold Nepali Beer. Before I could take a sip from the bottle I already had a joint passed on to me (Which I of coursed passed on, Mom :-)).

I immediately got into a chat with a few guys around the table (kneeing on pillows around the low table). Everyone seemed so informed about treks you could do, which permits you needed and what you have to bring. I was not very well prepared and realized I will have to do a good bit of preparations over the next few days.