A sleep-in and some rest would have been in order after the busy and tiring week building a house in Nepal, but now that I am back in Kathmandu I have the travel urge to get out and explore this town some more.
I had to check out of the hotel this morning. It was a challenge packing my bag with all the stuff I bought so far. There was one more thing I wanted to purchase, a custom t-shirt to be made for my business – topendsports.
While I waited for it to be made, I walked around the Thamel tourist part of town, drooling at coffeeshops with freshly baked bread, I obviously had missed that.
For lunch though I found a local café and had chowmein. Nepal borders India to the south, and Tibet and China to the north, and has many influences from them all.
In the afternoon I took a rickshaw to the Garden of Dreams, I did not know too much about what it actually was but it sounded like a perfect spot to relax from this hectic town. It was ideal, an oasis of green patches of grass, ponds and old pavillions to stroll around and enjoy. It did not feel like Kathmandu at all.
I pickup up my bags and headed out to the airport at 9pm. My flight was originally delayed by half an hour, then later we were told it had been cancelled altogether. Oh well. I have not had a good experience with China Southern Airways. Of all the travelling I have done, this was the first time I have had my flight cancelled. Luckily I was not urgently required at home, so I tried to relax and make the most of it.
The airline was very good at communicating what was happening (maybe this happens quite a lot for them!). We collected our luggage and then the airline organised a nice hotel for the night. Here’s hoping I can get a flight tomorrow morning.
I thought my flight to get to Nepal was a long one, but my return flight was even longer. After my flight was cancelled yesterday, I was put in a comfortable hotel, which was a nice treat. However, my original flights included a 12-hour stopover in Guangzhou which I had planned to use exploring that city. However, the cancelled flight out of Kathmandu had put me back about that amount of time, so I lost my stopover time but was able to board my scheduled flight back to Perth.
I arrived back in Perth at 5am, the family came out to pick me up. Everyone was tired, but after two weeks away it was so good to be back together again.