My Travel Adventures

As I mentioned previously, our second arrival in Nepal was accompanied by unforeseen difficulties. The officials at the airport refused to acknowledge our visa extension forms, leaving us with two options: overstay and pay a fee of fifty dollars or extend our visas at the immigration office. On our very first day in Nepal, my dad and I happened to walk past the immigration office and did not form an overly favourable impression of it. Practically besieged by crowds of desperate looking South Asian migrant workers both inside and outside in the blistering sun, it seemed a realm of understaffed chaos.

This morning we finally had a more reasonable starting time than on previous days: we were supposed to wake up at a leisurely seven o’clock and leave at nine. I say “supposed to,” as I woke up before six; my body rightly distrusts our tour guide’s newfound lenience.

I will not dwell much on day 0 of this adventure: my dad and I left Prague on a Sunday afternoon, transferred in Istanbul, and touched down in Kathmandu shortly after dawn on Monday. There were two highlights to the journey. First, we found all the alcohol at Istanbul Airport had labels warning customers of a three-litre purchasing limit – but these were, hilariously, only in Russian. The second highlight was seeing the sun rise over the Himalayas. There was also a lowlight: we encountered strong turbulence on our flight from Istanbul to Kathmandu. As I am sure is true for many people, this was an opportunity for me to revisit most of the religious hymns I know.