Day 12: Lukla to Kathmandu.
We were up at dawn as usual. It was odd to eat breakfast among other tourists. The Mountain Lodge was getting set up for a visit by VIPs, with tables out on the patio.
Bala and Mila were both happy that morning, which we hoped meant that they’d been pleased with their gratuities.
We walked out to the airport at 8:00 to catch our 9:00 a.m. flight.
The Lukla airport is alarmingly chaotic, with a polyglot crowd of tourists and locals all anxious to land seats on flights back to Kathmandu. Everyone is first supposed to go through a security check to enter the airport, though people seem to cut around it all the time. There are no signs or announcements of departures. It looks like lots of people just show up there hoping to fly out that day without existing reservations. We were very happy to have Bala to navigate the logistics for us.
The airport was running flights to Ramenchap first. Bala told us to settle in and wait; we were clearly not departing at 9:00!
We sat at a table in the “coffee shop” area and watched the same Twin Otters take off and land repeatedly. It took them about an hour to do a round trip, and at least two rounds of this happened before our flight was called to go through the actual security check, along with getting our names checked off on a handwritten list.
We then sat in the gate area for another half hour or so. When our flight seemed to be getting close, Bala had us walk up to the door to the tarmac and form the beginning of a line. He was keen on our landing seats on the right side of the plane, which look north toward the mountains we’d just walked through. (There are no assigned seats on these flights. It’s every man for himself.)
We finally boarded our plane at 11:20. Everyone crowded in; they fit in as many seats as possible, and there’s no storage for hand luggage. I just stuffed my backpack on the floor in front of my feet.
The takeoff went quickly–we’d watched a bunch of planes use this runway, and they all achieved liftoff well before the end of it. The pilots made this all look easy.
The beautiful views of the mountains didn’t materialize; the clouds had rolled in again, so we mostly saw mist. But we could still see the mountains (foothills?) close to us, with their red rhododendrons and dirt roads winding up the steep sides.
We had to circle Kathmandu before landing. This is common; the Kathmandu airport has too much traffic. This is one reason most domestic flights take off and land from Ramenchap. We were very fortunate to have a direct flight to Kathmandu. Even with a delay of more than two hours, we got into town much earlier than we would have flying to Ramenchap and then driving to Kathmandu, which would’ve taken all afternoon.
Pankaj met us at the baggage claim. He’d already been at the airport at dawn to collect my sister, brother, and nephew, who’d all flown in for the upcoming wedding. He reported that everything had gone well and that he’d handed Madeleine the dress I’d bought for her two weeks earlier.
We said goodbye to Bala, who was off to see his mother and daughters. Then we climbed into our taxi and headed off to the Ramada. We reached the hotel by 12:45, in time to meet the gang for lunch nearby.
And with that, our Everest Lodge-to-Lodge experience came to an end! It was time to do a hard pivot to a South Asian wedding!