Life of Wry

Trip Day #4

* People say rhymy things about Kathmandu all the time here..  heard this one a lot.

Day 4 was a simple travel day, with lots of time for talking with my travel pals… and many fun and interesting conversations were had.

After all the rejuvenation of the previous day, we’d pretty much adjusted to the time zone, so the 6:00am get up and hustle to the Abu Dhabi airport wasn’t so bad.  We were kind of late, but frazzled nerves were easily soothed by Coffee Costa (the UAE’s version of Starbucks).

Etihad, the airline of the UAE is great–great service, great food  (maybe I’ve mentioned that already).  I’d unfortunately gotten stuck on an aisle in a row that didn’t even have a window, so viewing the creatively shaped man-made islands of Dubai was not an option (have you heard of these?).  Instead, I made great progress in my book (but I’d end up ditching it before our trek because it was too big and heavy to carry).

This was memorable: Landing in Kathmandu, Nepal.  It was very cool to walk down the steps onto the tarmac and 1) feel the warm, humid air, 2) smell the spicy foreign-ness, and, 3) see the foothills of the Himalayas against a brilliant blue sky.  Actually teared up.  It was just such a rush on all senses, we had finally arrived, and it was too magnificent for words.

We spent the rest of the afternoon, it seemed, dealing with third world airport bureaucratic inefficiency.  First, after deplaning, we were directed onto several buses that shuttled us all of 50 yards (I kid you not) to a big brick building with ancient tile floors.  We, and several flights-worth of other passengers, sort of milled about aimlessly before realizing we had some Official Business to tend to.  We crowded a bunch of tall round tables to fill out scrappy immigration forms using dysfunctional ballpoints, then found our way to the back of one of a dozen barely discernible lines, clutching our forms, passports and extra passport photos.  Two hours later (yes), when finally at the front of the line, our forms and passports were processed, we were issued entrance visas (very cool looking), and were then summarily dismissed by surly immigration officers and told to hurry out the door and into the baggage claim area where we would roam the floor looking for our own–among a million–bags.  I’m pretty sure my luggage wasn’t checked (grateful, as I’d anticipated issues with the macadamia pods I was carrying for later delivery to Bill Cavins’ former Peace Corps friend) .

Then, at last, back out to the daylight where an eager crowd awaited, waving signs with people’s names on them.  Such the cacophony of yelling, whistling, and horn honking!  We found the sign with our names, and our guy, Homnath Bhatta, briskly led us through the swarm and across the parking lot to our van.  Homnath hung fresh floral leis around our necks (who knew?) and was all smiles, but also all business.

Then we drove off.

Our driver drove crazily through busy streets (on the wrong side, incidentally) crammed with cars, motorcycles, bikes, carts, people, cows, goats, chickens and even monkeys.  It was exhilarating.

We stopped at an ATM with a guard out front (we would return to this particular ATM numerous times while in Kathmandu) to change some money (rupees), and then checked into the Hotel Shanker–a colonial looking former palace with lovely gardens and impressively attentive staff.

Here’s a fun thing: Traveling half way across the world, checking into your hotel, and acting all cool when the desk clerk says, “Hello Ms. Peterson, welcome. There is a message waiting for you.”

It was from Hari Thapa.  Hari is a friend of my Davis friend Bill Cavins who served in the Peace Corp in Nepal 40 years ago.  Bill has kept in touch with Hari all these years and let him know I’d be visiting.  Further, Bill asked me to deliver a box of macadamia pods for Hari, who will likely become Nepal’s first macadamia grower.  More on Hari later.   In any case, it is nice to have a connection to the local scene.

Leslie and I again shared a room–fancy schmancy– with a granite bathroom and a western toilet (score).  We read a bit of newspaper in the lobby (this is when we learned that the newly married British royal couple was planning to honeymoon at the Everest View Hotel… a place we would visit a few days later), listened to excited people in the bar watching the finals of some cricket tournament (I think a big world event, actually), and after a while had a hotel buffet dinner… not that good, but loved the beer.

So far, so very good!

Trip Day #3

Karen and I had flown all day Wednesday, and through the night, and into Thursday.  The approximately 12-hr clock change messed with our sense of time, so I pretty much lost track of what day it was and how long we’d been up and whether it was a good idea to sleep or not.  In fact, I hadn’t had much, if any, sleep.  It was dark and stormy in Frankfort, making it hard to appreciate that it was, in fact, morning. (Side note: while most time changes across the globe happen in hour-increments, that is not the case in Nepal, which advances time in increments of 15 minutes. I might have thought that was against some global time rule…but it isn’t. So the time difference between Abu Dhabi and Kathmandu is something like 2 hours and 15 minutes.)

The layover in Frankfort was short and, after some snacks, we boarded Etihad Airlines for a 6-hour flight to the United Arab Emirates.  They are an extremely classy airline with great food and service and it seemed a good idea to stay awake.  It was interesting as we flew over places like Bagdad, Tehran, Kuwait, and Bahrain, and dark again as we flew into the UAE.  It looked beautiful at night: orderly, well-lit, modern, developed.  We got through immigration pretty quickly and were greeted with excitement by Laura and Leslie (Leslie had come in from Norway a few hours earlier).

Wuhoo! Now we were four.

It was awesome walking out of the airport and into the very warm night air.  The exhaustion made it all the more surreal.  Laura took us on an informal tour of the city on our way to her place.

On the way, we stopped for a quick look at the Emirates Palace Hotel (oh my), and saw our first gold vending machine.

Laura lives in an apartment suite in a high rise luxury hotel in downtown Abu Dhabi (this shot is from the following day):

When we got to her place, she set out some olives, dates, bread and cheese with thyme, and champagne.

But of course.

And after being up for Ican’tevencountthehours, we finally crashed. Leslie and I had our own room down the hall, gorgeous and modern, and pretty soon were buried under our respective piles of down for what would be an indescribable, lusciously deep sleep.

This is what we woke up to on Friday morning (their Friday morning; we were still twelve hours behind).

Sunrise over an inlet on the Arabian Gulf (we call it the Persian Gulf).  Note lots and lots of construction.
Laura said the sky is never a pure blue, even though it’s always cloudless (last year’s rainfall: zero).  Sand is everywhere… there is a light haze to the air caused by the constant presence of sand.. though I didn’t feel it.

And it’s warm: temps in early April were high 80s and 90s.

I stepped out on the balcony and shot these…  an early morning pair of cricket games in progress on the desert sands.

A bit to the left was an expansive view of oil wells and tanks. That is, afterall, their source of significant wealth.

The country unified its 7 disparate emirates in the late 60s after oil was discovered. Pretty much all of the development seen today is new since the 70s.   Amazing.  Abu Dhabi and Dubai, UAE’s two largest emirates (and cities) are built on oil money.

We had a great breakfast buffet downstairs that included pita bread, hummus, olives, salmon, cafe latte, and a veggie omelet–heaven–then walked over to Laura’s health club where we hung out on lounge chairs under swaying palms, read and talked, had lemon/mint drinks, and were treated to jetlag-fixing, pre-trek massages, sauna, steam, jacuzzi… the works.  Kind of amazing, really.  We also learned that nudity is forbidden, even in the women’s locker room.

For lunch, had more of this: pita and hummus, tabouli, kibbeh, eggplant.. lovely beyond words, and even some rose wine. Not bad!

That evening, we taxi’d to the largest mosque in the UAE–the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque–which is named for the founder and first president of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, for whom countless things are named, and who is also buried next to the mosque. The whole mosque was finished and opened for worship just 4 years ago.

It’s the 8th largest mosque in the world (it has 4 minarets and 57 domes, and can accommodate up to 40,000 worshipers!) and has the world’s largest single slab o’ carpet (this was an impressive worship room; it alone holds 9,000 folks).

It was quite beautiful, and a treat at night because of the lighting. We saw lots of marble tile work (from Italy) and some incredible chandeliers (from Germany).

Much pretty floral tile work, gold columns, expansive plazas, and more. Walking around required appropriate cover, which they provide.

Afterward, we went to dinner with some of Laura’s expat friends (90% of population of UAE is expats) in a casual local restaurant.. another great middle eastern meal (more cuisine happiness for me).

We’ll take off for Nepal in the morning.