Life of Wry

Trip Day #22

A low-key travel day ahead.  Woke early, took a normal person shower, used normal person hair care products and appliances, donned a skirt and sandals, and sashayed into the dining room (not really) to consume the standard fare of an international hotel buffet breakfast. With bottomless masala tea, if you please.  I was already aching to return to the challenge of a subsistent lifestyle in the frigid, remote Himalayan high country.

Ate some custom-made omelets and caught up with Emily and Rie, yet again, who filled us in on their flying mishaps out of Lukla the day before.

Returned to the internet cafe down the road for a final round of catching up and Facebook postings, then headed down that same boulevard–which turned out to have a lot of wonderful shops–for some final shopping and gift acquisition.  Spent most of my time in a three-story folk crafts store where proceeds benefit a number of women’s organizations in the region.  Wonderful place. Got lots of stuff there.

Returned to the hotel, picked up a couple more items from their gift shop, carefully stuffed new purchases into already bulging luggage which was then moved into the lobby, and retired, for the final time, to the garden to join Laura for two luxurious hours of conversation and spiced peanuts. Fabulously interesting girl, that Laura.

Finally, we were shuttled to the Kathmandu airport for a late afternoon flight to Abu Dhabi.  We boarded Etihad (with no additional baggage fees, wow) and settled into the finest airplane seats I’d ever sat (and lain) upon!

Note that my private little cubby here has seats that, when fully extended, create a bed.

The flight could not be long enough.

I did manage to get vertical long enough to shoot a couple parting shots of Kathmandu and Nepal before the sun set.

And with that, the Nepal portion of our trip was over.

The five-hour flight landed in Abu Dhabi at about 9:00pm local time (there is a one-hour and forty-five minute time difference between Nepal and the UAE).  Perfect for getting a good night’s sleep before our final day of adventure.  Here’s a shot of our airplane on the runway: