18th May - Kathmandu to Hong Kong

It was my last day in Nepal today. I have spent nearly 1 month here and I actually wish that I had some more time in the country. I am in the middle of writing country summaries for every country I have visited but here are my thoughts on Nepal:

The other countries I have visited so far are all fantastic and I have enjoyed every single one. However, at the end of my time there I have felt "tick". I am happy not to rush back for 20 years i.e. until the country changes significantly. Nepal is different. I really feel like I would love to come back here on holiday and could spend a long time here and see it in far more depth. It really is a beautiful country, easy to travel and the people are extremely friendly. It is also very good value for money. Even though it is a developing country it is very much cleaner and more hygienic than India.

I listened to a podcast this morning about poverty in Nepal. The report was about the mountainous regions where there is no road access. Having traveled though various areas of the country I can now understand the problems that these areas experience. One area that the documentary was covering was a region that takes 7 days to trek to. I would love to explore more....

I was up at 8 to take my bike to Everest Mountain Bikes to get it fixed and get a box. They said that they could possibly weld my frame so to fix the pannier problem but they were not sure if they would get time. They would definitely have time to fix my wheels though.

I spent the morning faffing to prepare for my flight. I had to go through all of my things and throw out any thing that I can buy for less than the not very much money in Hong Kong. I spent ages trying to check in online with Kingfisher (an failing) and also printing out my electronic ticket info etc. I also printed out the info about the golf equipment charges in the hope that Kingfisher would count my bike as golf equipment so that I would have lower baggage charges.
I was really worried about the charges for the excess. I am only allowed 20kg with Kingfisher. That is pretty much how much my bike weighs with empty bags. On top of that I have about 10kg of stuff. At £20 GBP per extra kg that is £200 in excess charges! The flight itself was only £120!.

It was really lovely that I met Ang by chance at the Northfield cafe and could catch up with her before I headed off for my flight. She was still in Kathmandu and I thought that she had left days ago. She is actually flying home to the UK tomorrow instead of going to Thailand. We had lunch together.

I was in a real rush as the guys at the bike shop had said that they could not complete fixing the bike until 1.30 and I also could not pick up my laundry until 1.30 as well. Fortunately, the guys had managed to fix my pannier rack and wheels but they had not got the box ready etc and it took 30 mins to get it all boxed up and then another 20 mins to go via the other hotel I had stayed at to pick up my other bags and so I was short of time when I got to the airport.

I arrived at the airport all hot and sweaty. It took me a while to re-organise my stuff in the best way to put everything heavy in my hand luggage and put everything in the bike box. I was very stressed by the time I got to the check in desk. I was fortunate again that they let me on without excess baggage! It was brilliant as it would have eaten into my budget considerably. At least I have a flight for Hong Kong and did not have to pay through the noise to get through Tibet.

The flight to Delhi was fine and I watched a silly movie. I drank coffee and wrote my blog entries for the 6 hour stop over and caught my flight to HK at 11.30pm. I hate faffing, waste of time travel days...... Oh well part of traveling.... I suppose I can't have awesome fun every single day ;-)