14 Oct 2019
I woke up before my 5am alarm, took a shower, completed my packing and brought everything downstairs in two loads, The guy at the desk was very helpful--he’d been on-duty all night--and took care of our checked common bag for trekking. Debra was already in the dining area having coffee, so I joined her and the others came down shortly after. As promised the food was ready, everyone showed up on time and (somewhat to my surprise) we were loaded, in the van, and moving at 6:18.
Traffic was very light as we made the 15 minute trip to the airport. We drove to the domestic terminal on the north side of the airport and our driver just let us out. He got some nice tips for his help with the luggage, though, especially from Deb and Sue who had three very large bags filled mostly with things they planned to give away during our time in Lamahi.
We walked towards the terminal--whose first line of security seemed to be the many monkeys in the trees and on the power lines at the entrance of the terminal--and found the Buddha Airlines front desk. I asked about our tickets and tried to pull up the PDF versions of each on my mobile phone when one of Dinesh’s helpers showed up, followed shortly thereafter by Dinesh himself, who had paper copies of our tickets and led us through the first screening. It was a short walk from there to the Buddha Airlines check-in and Dinesh handled all of that expertly after getting our passports. Within ten minutes we were headed to the final screening and the terminal.
As usual in Nepal, I set off the metal detector despite having emptied all of my pockets due to my steel hip, but they barely batted an eye, patted me about twice and moved me along.
Frankly, the domestic terminal at Tribhuvan is better than the international terminal. They’ve done rennovations in the bathrooms and there are a few little shops. Wifi was good while we waited and the flow to buses that carried passengeres to their planes seemed to work well. We were in the terminal by 7am and flights for Buddha Air to places like Pokhara were boarding. We waited about a half-hour for our flight to be called with most of us sitting around checking in with wifi, using the clean bathrooms, and perusing the maps on the walls or the trekking maps Hoot bought in Thamel that showed both Bardiya National Park and the Annapurna Region.
At about 7:30am our flight was called and we went through check-in to the bus. I sat next to what I thought was a Nepali family only to find out that they were from Fairfax County, Virginia and the two kids (ages 9 and 13) were born in the US. They were on our flight, visiting relatives in the Lumbini area--where the parents had been born.
The bus arried quickly at the ATR-72 twin engine plane that looked to be very well-maintained. We boarded through the rear entrance and took our seats. Dinesh was kind enough to get us all seats on the right side of the plane so that we’d have good views of the Himalayas as we headed east towards our destination.
The plane was about 80% full at take-off. We climbed quickly out of the KAthmandu Valley and above the hazy inversion. The pilot said we were flying at 12,500 feet, though it seemed higher. Once above the smoky haze, the views of the Himalayas were spectacular and the flight passed quickly as most everyone was crowding to the right side to take cell phone photos. Despite the short duration of the flight, the attendants served water and small bags of peanuts. They were very well-dressed and courteous and I was surprised to see that Buddha Air had its own in-flight magazine and was now even flying internationally to Kolkata, India.
We descended into the haze on our approach to Buddha International Airport and landed headed west. We did a u-turn at the end of the runway and proceeded back up the main runway to park at the terminal. Bags were unloaded and brought to a rather simple baggage claim area--there is only one terminal there--and we quickly got out bags. There was security, though, as Dinesh had to show claim tags for each bag as it was handed over the low concrete wall to us.
The parking lot was dirt and rocks, but we managed to get our bags over to the Tata bus and our driver that awaited us. Two teenage boys were also on the bus for the duration of our travels, friends of the driver who were helping him with the bags as well as with transporting some other goods that we later picked up.
Over the next three-plus hours of driving, we really had a chance to see the southern Nepal countryside. The roads were largely terrible with big potholes that required the driver to come to a near complete stop, interrupted by stretches of good asphalt that allowed for very high speeds. The bus had no air-conditioning or seatbelts, but plenty of rust and reasonably good tires and suspension. Our driver was VERY good and as safe as could be given the rules of the Nepali roads which seem to be: just don’t have a head-on collision; honk frequently to let others know you’re coming; pass other vehicles at every possible opportunity.
Our first stop was the Buddha Birthplace Shrine near Lumbini, a World Heritage Site. We parked off of the main road and walked about a kilometer into the main entrance, accompanied by many pilgrims that looked like they were bused in from India as well as many others. The complex is huge and resembles a nature park with a few large buildings.
I bought my entrance and photography ticket first and then waited adjacent to the ticket office for the others, taking some photos of flowers and plants in the area. A few minutes later, I turned to see Kevin and Mark had joined me and we started walking north to what we thought was the main destination, a large golden Buddha statue about a quarter mile up the wide walkway that was filled with pilgrims and others. We didn’t see the rest of the group.
We continued walking to the Buddha, took some pictures and, along the way, Mark and Kevin said that the others must be well ahead of us since they (Mark and Kevin) were last in line for tickets.
We walked another quarter mile or so and followed the pilgrims to the large Chinese shrine to Buddha, took photos and bought some water. We still didn’t see the others. By this point we were getting worried, so I checked email and found that the others were on their way back of the bus despite Dinesh telling us that we would be here for two hours--at this point we hadn’t been there for an hour yet.
We realized that we had gone the wrong way and that the main attractions (Buddha’s birthplace and temple) were actually BEHIND the ticket office--we’d passed it coming in--and that we were a good half-mile away.
We started walking quickly and communicated with the group that had to already be back at the bus and frustrated with our absence--and their wait in the heat. We did a quick loop through the shrine to see the birthplace and went back as quickly as we could. We probably should’ve taken one of the rickshaws or tuck-tucks to make it an even quicker trip, in retrospect.
Finally, we made it back to the bus (just over 1:45 after we’d left) and met up with the group. Dinesh was very happy to see us, not wanting to lose members of his group on the very first full day. We boarded the bus after many apologies and headed towards lunch and then Lamahi.
We passed through a broad valley covered with rice fields, occasional home and small villages. The roads had plenty of bicycles, motorcycles, pedestrians, large transport trucks, and a few passenger cars on them, as well as goats, dogs, and cows. We passed through one forested area from which many bicyclists were bringing bundles of firewood to villages and to small stands at which they sold the wood for cooking. The forest looked healthy and not overharvested, the wood being sold mostly being branches, not full logs.
We stopped for lunch at a small hotel called Pauwa and relaxed on the couches with cold water and the food we now know is not just typical, but standard for just about every meal in Nepal: a mound of rice, a bowl of daal, and then small surrounding bowls of spinach, mustard greens, fish or chicken in sauce, a smaller bowl of some spicey sauce, and then either soft roti or a very thin, crispy and peppery cracker bread--all very good and pretty much all you can eat.
We boarded the bus and drove the remaining 79 kilometers to Lamahi, a trip that took almost two hours. The most harrowing part of this segment was going over a mountain pass with many twists, turns, and narrow bridges. We miraculously avoided about a dozen head-on collisions with large trucks, motorcycles, and cows as we and others continually passed other vehicles on blind curves and hair-pin turns depending upon the brakes of oncoming vehicles, last-second swerving, and other evasive maneuvers.
We finally arrived in Lamahi shortly after 3pm and checked into the Hotel Classic. We’re apparently the only people staying here in the family run establishment that has eight rooms on two levels. Mike and Grace share a room as do Deb and Sue, and Kevin and Hoot. Mark, Dinesh, Hal, and I are in single rooms. The air conditioning works well in each room, wifi is pretty good on the first level where our rooms are (but very weak, strangely, in the lobby), and there’s really nowhere to put clothes other than a coat rack in each room. The carpet is like low-pile astroturf and the beds range from soft to plywood in firmness. The bath/shower is exactly that--a toilet room with a shower head coming out of the wall. It’s tiled to about a meter up from the floor with two floor drains. Hot water is merely an aspiration. We have a couple of plugs that seem to work well. The curtains don’t block out much light.
After checking in and getting the rooming arrangements set, we were told to meet for dinner at 7pm. Several of us decided to go for a walk and I used WhatsApp to announce the activity as well as to pass along the room numbers of the whole team.
We walked the mostly dirt streets of Lamahi for about an hour: Debra, Deb, Sue, Kevin, Mark, Hoot, Grace, and I. We asked about the price of the 650ml beer bottles in the shops (ranging from 270 NPR to 450 NPR), scouted any potential restaurants, and managed to get some cash out of an ATM on our second try. The locals seemed curious by our presence as this is clearly not a tourist town and we did not see any other non-locals during our walk. The west side of the town, where we’re located, is dominated by a large cricket pitch and we saw some teenagers practicing in batting cages upon our return. We walked through the dusty bus depot and MArk avoided becoming our first serious casualty by stepping out of the way of a bus that was turning (careening?) from the main highway into the gravely bus staging area. Along the way, we also saw plenty of water buffalo walking the streets on what looked like a regular evening stroll back to their home, a couple of rather large and impressive multi-story building construction sites, and plenty of agricultural machinery. The primary means of paid transportation in town seems to be tuck-tucks and we discussed taking a larger tour of the area via tuck-tuck on a future evening.
We were back at the hotel shortly after 5:30pm and everyone relaxed before dinner. Mark, Hoot, and I asked about beer in the lobby and were told that it was 500 NPR for Tuborg and 550 NPR for Carlsberg per bottle. They also had “Dragon” high alcohol beer for 400 NPR but we passed on that.
We ordered two bottles, three glasses and sat down to cool off. Shortly thereafter, Hal joined us and the so did Dinesh. We ordered more beer as Dinesh said that they would just run a group tab for the beer and charge us at the end of our stay--I can’t wait to see how big that bill is.
Deepah, one of the local reps stopped by to say “hi” but couldn’t stay. Sam and Hemaj introduced themselves as the construction experts for our trip and I opened up photos from my Cambodia latrine building trip to compare notes and better understand what we’d be doing over the next two weeks. They explained that the latrines would be similar to what we’d done near Kep, Cambodia, but that we wouldn’t be making brick walls. Instead, we would be adding rebar and other structural supports vertically from the poured foundation and then constructing steel walls in each latrine along with a corrugated steel roof. That should make the whole process go much quicker.
Dinner arrived shortly after 7pm and it was the standard plate, much like we’d had at lunch. The beer continued to flow, too. We finally adjourned at about 8:30 pm with the plan for the next day to have coffee and tea available starting at 6:30am, breakfast served at about 7:30am and then a departure at or near 8:20. I returned to my room, took a quick shower, plugged in things that needed recharging, inserted by earplugs, put on my eye mask and went to sleep.