Tag: Kathmandu

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Day Eleven: Kathmandu To Cochin Via Bangalore, Trivandrum & Mr Sharma, 17 April 2002

There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:

Rose 4 o’clock-ish because flight has been brought forward 1 1/2 hours. I get irritated when we see the old flight time still on the board but Mangal gets the obsequious and ubiquitous Mr Sharma to explain that we really do have to leave at 7:15, not 8:45.

Mr Sharma pops up everywhere to make sure we are happy – including, hilariously, even on the plane.

That really is not an exaggeration. Mr Sharma came over to ask if we were OK and if we wanted anything so many times. When he disappeared from the boarding lounge, I said to Daisy, as a joke, “I bet he even pops onto the plane to make sure we are OK”…which he did! We had trouble containing our laughter, while telling him that we were still OK and didn’t need anything else.

We arrived at Bangalore and I sniff a chance of accelerating at arrival in Cochin by switching to the Cochin flight, but I’m 10 minutes too late. Dejected, will retire to the dreariest to business class lounge for Pepsis and waiting.

Arrived [Trivandrum] early (20 minutes) and even set off 10 minutes before we were due to land.

Sharji our driver is a pleasure, but the route seems so hazardous we cannot rest. I invent mosques and cricket matches game. From 3- 3 to 8-3 [in favour of] mosques, to 21-11 [in favour of] cricket matches, when we declared the winner.

Arrive [at Malabar House] late and knackered but switch rooms to a better suite and have dinner in room. I had seerfish in a delightful sauce, Daisy had a chicken dish.

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Day Ten: Lhasa To Kathmandu, 15 April 2002

There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:

Rose early – breakfasted in Hard Yak style, then driven to airport. Met Tse-Ten’s bosses coincidentally during 2 1/2 hour delay our flight.

Also met unfortunate Matt who was sent home home from Everest trek on account of a dog bite!

Got to Yak And Yeti around lunchtime – we have been upgraded to club which is nice. Yak And Yeti all we had hoped for – sunny and hot but not too sunny and not too hot.

Both had a club sandwich and a beer for lunch around the pool.

Enjoyed the afternoon. Briefly saw Sarah and her kids [friend from home, ex wife of Alan Cohen], then had a hard game of tennis.

Enjoyed the cocktail hour in club while observing Danish embassy party.

Excellent product placement on my part in that picture…
Janie also does some product placement – nice toes

Got ready to go out and went to Thamel House restaurant (once taxi driver could find it!) – Amazing mutton, chicken and wild boar – staff very friendly and even more so when we gave them the piece from Traveller through which we had found them.

Back to Yak And Yeti for an earlyish night.

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Day Three: Getting To Lhasa, 9 April 2002

There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:

Rise uncomfortably early (God alone knows why) and dumped at airport circa 6:50, more than an hour before check-in for our flight even opens – Mangal has a bit to answer for here!

Fly to Lhasa…

Mount Everest seen from that flight
Tibetean Plateau as seen from above

Searched on arrival and have my copy of Seven Years In Tibet confiscated by an utterly charming but firm official.

Have no fear, I read the book anyway!

Guide Tse-Ten and driver Chum-day rescue us and take us to the so-called four star Lhasa Hotel.

We enjoyed a snack of yak burger and chips in the Hard Yak Café (very good actually) only to find that the Hard Yak is the only one of the hotel’s five restaurants that is open at present.

This, together with no central heating (broke down 2 1/2 years ago) and no hot water (breaks down at regular hours as an economy measure each day) hacks us off.

We get a new room and eventually hot water and tolerate some nasi goreng in the Hard Yak determined to change our dining arrangements for subsequent meals.

We had expected a relatively low quality of hotel, but we had not expected basic ultilities such as heating and hot water to be inadequate. We were especially frustrated by the hot watre issue, as it became very obvious very quickly that thehotel was deliberately shutting down the hot water for several hours a day to save money, but the staff consistently denied this, claiming that there were daily unfortunate breakdowns.

I even offered them money to keep the hot water service going for us, but to no avail because the staff were insistent that the problem was mechanical not economic!

Altitude makes people tetchy when they are unused to it; his additional and seemingly unfair privation certainly added to our tetchiness; especially as Janie and I are both people who also get tetchy when we are cold!

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Days One & Two: Getting There, 7 & 8 April 2002

There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala, Placeholder & Links, 7 to 27 April 2002

Leave London late in day (7 pm) – hope the non-arrival of LA Cabs is not a bad omen! Park Royal cabs get us to airport with bags of time to spare.

We do our regular airport shopping and then enjoy Qatar Airways business class hospitality before and during flights.

Daisy weiring out in Doha hospitality lounge

All flights on time and event free – arrive Kathmandu late afternoon.

In stunning Dwarika Hotel – beautiful room and grounds…

…take a 12 course Nepalese feast in the Nepalese restaurant. Superb nibbles, mushroom and spinach with the roti, mutton kebabs, shredded chicken and rice pancakes and sticky sauce fish were the highlights. The late Mr Dwarika’s Mrs made an interesting interlude between courses.

Slept very well.