Three Days in Kathmandu

Sameer and I had to reach Kathmandu on the 27th of May to start the journey on 30th. Our reservation was on Air India flight. We were met by Nitesh at Kathmandu airport. He put us up in Vaishali hotel in the Thamel district. Nice hotel in a nice location. He took us out for lunch, but he still would not tell us anything about the program. We were in Kathmandu for three days out of which two of them were a complete waste of time. One day we rested but the next day we were ready to move around but could not go anywhere as we were waiting for our group to arrive.

(photo by Sameer)

Uncle and the rest of the group arrived that second day and came to see us. He wanted to ask Nitesh about what the program was and Nitesh was equally non committal to him also. We did go out that evening for a few hours but again it was very poorly planned. We should have left earlier in the day to enjoy the sights in both daytime and nighttime. The other problem of traveling in a big group is that one person’s tardiness can delay the entire group!

The third day was spent sightseeing in Kathmandu. In the morning (5 am) we took the Yeti flight to see Mt. Everest and then to Pashupathinath temple, Swayambu temple and a couple other places.

(Pashupatinath temple. Photo by Sapna)

The same evening there was a briefing by Satyam, in Vaishali hotel, on the travel plans starting next day for the 14 day yatra. It was not too informative. We knew we would get duffle bags, we were told we would get two liters of drinking water (which really was not true – there was plenty of drinking water available) etc. What was a little shocking for some of our group members was the increased price of hiring a yak and porter during the parikrama. We were told something else by Nitesh and the Satyam employees were quoting some other price.

Later as we were talking to Uncle privately about Nitesh and his program, it seemed like we had some common problems – one main was lack of communication between Nitesh and us. So Uncle called Nitesh to his room to clear some misunderstandings. But not much got resolved even then. Nitesh kept saying “You have nothing to worry about, I will compensate for whatever losses you incur.” I was losing confidence in Nitesh completely. He had also said he would accompany us during the yatra but that program also got cancelled.

And suddenly Nitesh drops another bomb on us. The entire group was leaving at 6 am but Sameer and I were to leave at 4 am. We were to travel with the foreigners while the Indian passport holders were traveling separately. We were under the assumption that we would meet up with Uncle and group once we were in China. (As we would find out later it was another humungous lack of communication!!!!!)

So in reality we were going on a trip of which we had no set program, we had no set group and we did not know who was going to be our trip leader (as Nitesh was not going with us), we of course had no idea of what the hotels/rooms would be like. It was all a big Mystery!!! Again, I had my faith. What else can one do?

That night we repacked. Our luggage was to be left at the hotel and what we needed was to go in the duffle bag provided. Not a problem. But since we had our future program to also plan there was just too much going on that night and we slept at 12 am only to get up at 3 am!!