First day in Kathmandu

Note that I am writing this blog entry on Monday night (June 4) at 7:45pm local time. I just got incredibly jet-lagged after feeling good all day, so I’m gonna get goofy before too long. Also, I couldn’t upload this onto the blog until now because of the sporadic nature of the WiFi access here.

The family I am staying with is very nice. They are a Sherpa family with what is a nice big house by Nepali standards. I am staying in a little apartment on the top floor. There is even a toilet (bonus). This family is acquainted with Dr. Geoff Tabin (see http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/2009/12/best-of-adventure/geoff-tabin) from when he climbed Mt. Everest. The son, Ongyel, lives in Vermont and arranges for trekking adventures to Nepal for foreign clients, a lot of whom end up staying right here in Kathmandu with his parents Nima and Pemba, who just happen to be the nicest, cutest little Nepali couple I have ever met (I’ve only met one so far but they’ll probably retain the title when I meet more). So, when visiting doctors from Utah come to Nepal (via Geoff Tabin), we stay with the Sherpas.

As a bonus, this house is not too far from Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology, where I’ll be working starting tomorrow. I decided to walk today to see how far it was. It wasn’t far, but the combination of altitude (not that much of a factor since the altitude is similar to Salt Lake City), incredible air pollution, dense heat and humidity, crazy non-stop-honking drivers, and trash (literally) on the streets made the walk…interesting. I had to stop once to allow a bull to cross the sidewalk. He was slow, but I couldn’t complain since he’s got a higher social standing here than I do. 

Speaking of driving, all I can say is wow. The ride from the airport to the house was a short but terrifying one. I was riding shotgun in a tiny car with the window rolled down because it was beating hot and there was no AC. There were also no street lines, traffic rules, manners, or separation of vehicles/pedestrians/animals. There was also no “oh-shit handle.” Excuse the language, and blame my Dad who told me that’s what it’s called. 

Not that I wasn’t excited to be in a car, on solid earth, in the first place given what had transpired over the preceding 60-ish hours. I left Salt Lake City on Friday morning June 1, with the plan to fly SLCàWashington DullesàDoha, QataràKathmandu, arriving Sunday June 3. Well, lightning struck the plane that was supposed to carry me from DC to Doha, reportedly causing $20 million in damage. The airline finally cancelled the flight and decided to put us (all of us) up in a hotel for the night, with the plan to have the flight leave at 9:00pm the following day. The problems were, 1) they sent us all to the same hotel without notifying the hotel (see below), and 2) I think they knew the plane wouldn’t be ready to go the following day, but probably didn’t want to take the time to have to re-route 300 customers at 12:30am. 

So, I sense the brewing bottleneck, grab my bags, and start jogging toward ground transportation while the instructions are still being given in the terminal. I grabbed the shuttle/hotel voucher and hop on the first shuttle bus. We get there at about 1:20am, and 30-40 of us pile off the shuttle and into the hotel lobby, where the front desk clerk immediately poops her pants. Nobody from the airline gave the hotel notice, and this poor lady had no clue what to do or how to do it. While she was trying to figure it out (by calling her boss and waking him up), another shuttle bus arrived, with its occupants further cramming an already crammed lobby…and thereby starting to destroy any semblance of an orderly single file line the first-shuttle occupants had tried to form.

While the front desk clerk stalled, another shuttle arrived. And another. And another, etc. I lost count, but that hotel lobby started to get crowded, balmy, and stinky (which, in hindsight, was good training for Kathmandu). I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt since it was now 3am and they too had been traveling all day, but the other plane passengers were so rude and cut in line…then lied about it…then invited their friends. I was too tired to argue. I got to bed around 4:00am, and woke up at 7:00 to try to figure out the re-routing mess.

I won’t belabor the details of figuring out the flight rerouting, but it involved talking on the phone for many hours that morning (both myself and the travel agent who booked these tickets). She got me rerouted from DC to London, then to Doha, then to Kathmandu. All with only losing 24 hours. She did this by talking with Qatar Airways, who booked the first leg of my flight with their partner United. But someone forgot to tell United, because when I went to check in at their counter they had no record of my rerouting. So I called Qatar Airways (myself, because the United rep refused to), and she told me that she fixed the problem and it should now be visible to United. I went back to the counter, more confident…same result. Then I flipped out and indiscriminately verbally assaulted several employees behind the United counter. That didn’t help anything either. 

Somehow we got it figured out, but I couldn’t get my bag off of the lightning-struck plane to re-check with the United folks. Qatar Airways (who I was still flying the now-3^rd –and-4^th-legs of my journey) promised that they would put it on the next flight to Doha, where it would catch up with me and be there when I landed in Kathmandu. We all know how that turned out. It’s cool, I just will wear my one outfit and tennis shoes to the eye hospital tomorrow. I went to a local market and bought some toiletries. I’m sure the bag will show up at some point (actually I’m not sure at all at this point, but trying to keep a positive attitude about it). Until then, the next leg of my journey (to Geta, Nepal) is on hold since I need that bag to go to Geta. I had originally planned to leave tomorrow. I’ll just stay in Kathmandu until the bag shows up.

I was going to tell you about the Kathmandu airport in this post, but it’s already way too long and I’m tired. So I’ll save that for another post.