Kat-man-doo

10-19-08

A leisurely breakfast at KC’s restaurant was followed by quickly arranging a tour of the city and flights to see Everest.

The tour was money well spent as we had a guide and a driver and it felt good to let someone else fight with the traffic. On our 8 hours away from the hotel we saw Swayambhunath (aka The Monkey Temple because of the monkeys that abound there) a large Buddhist temple set on a steep hill overlooking the city, Bodhnath (Boudha) one of the world’s largest stupas (a bell-shaped Buddhist religious structure), Pashupatinath Nepal’s most important Hindu temple and the location of the burning ghats (cremations) on the Bagmati River, and Bhaktapur a step back in time to see a traditionally important small city.

The trip back to the hotel was slow with traffic being gridlocked most of the way. We saw several young women traffic police trying to make order out of the chaos--we did not envy them inhaling all those fumes and dust.

10-20-08

Away at 0600 for the airport and our flight to see Everest. Buddha Air was our host with a petite female first-officer who did all the flying. I gave her an A as she knew how to fly smoothly and not ruffle any feathers in the passenger compartment. After take-off we did a couple of climbing circles to gain altitude out of the Kathmandu Valley. The Himalayas were nice and clear and the flight attendant went up and down the aisle to each seat and told us what peaks we were looking at. We all took turns going forward to get a look out of the cockpit windows. I chatted a bit with the captain and discovered that he had done his flight training in Texas. The aircraft was a Beechcraft 1900D with nearly 20000 hours on the airframe; at one time these were a workhorse on the American commuter scene. We got a great view of Everest towering about 3000 feet above our aircraft.

In the afternoon, some of us took a leisurely stroll down to the Durbar Square chock-a-block full of temples and other historical structures. We also saw Freak Street (Jochne) where the “enlightened” foreigners hung out before Kathmandu grew to be the metropolis it is today.