Just kidding Mum! Actually if anything I arrived way too early. Dad had told me that its always better to arrive early, that way you can sit in comfort as opposed to the hectic rush if you leave it to the last minute. I find this to be true, but Dad also said that airports are very interesting. Liar! Despite knowing there was no way i could miss the plane, my comfort was lost to the ever-so-boring wait that is the airport. To make things worse, I had virtually no hong kong money left to afford any of the overpriced items duty free had to offer.
My english teaching career started today as whilst i was having fresh mango pancakes (yes, those mango pancakes) in the walled city park a chinese man wearing a suit approached me, asking for help with his english. At first i was pretty damn skeptical, as it was the same thing the hooker had said to me the other night, but it turned out to be genuine as the guy read from a book about changing american culture and i corrected his pronounciation. After a while a conversation started and it turns out he was pretty rich, owning a restaurant franchise. It made the whole event pretty odd, as it was hard to take him seriously with the really bad english yet he was an accomplished businessman. He kept trying to use really big words and cliches. When i told him what I was doing overseas, he said "that is huge benefit for you as you open your brain and absorb nutrition". Ok pal.
Well my flight to nepal was nowhere near as fancy as the qantas flight, with no tvs, not even a radio. But i did get the whole row to myself as noone else seems keen to go to Kathmandu. And the views of hong kong as we took off were spectacular as i could see all the tall city lights circling the mountains. About halfway through the flight, I realised i hadn't double checked what was going to happen once i got off the plane. I had no contact with Ravi or Amadablam Adventures and hadn't emailed dad for days. It is pretty freaky not knowing if you will be catered for arriving in one of the world's poorest countries at 10:30 at night.
Touching down, the view of Kathmandu was in stark contrast to Hong Kong. No high rise apartments or oversized advertising. The airport itself reminded me of a bus terminal out at Dubbo, though dodgier. The one ATM was out of order, so i had no rupees. Thankfully there was a little guy named Pippa waiting for me otherwise it would have been a rough night. Speeding off through Kathmandu, I chatted to Pippa whilst checking out the neighbourhood. It was dark, with feral dogs roaming through rubbish dumped on the road. Occasionally we would pass groups of people crowding around fires or army personnel with automatic weapons at hand. Scary stuff as I imagined trying to find my way around if Pippa hadn't shown.
I told Pippa that William started university last week to which he enthusiastically replied "yeah yeah yeah... Is William working?".
When we pulled over, Pippa led me through a back alley to my hostel. He banged on the door, waking up the four or five people huddled together under the one blanket on the floor. One got up and led me through to my room as Pippa said "goodbye, pick you up tomorrow. take you to office". My room was much bigger than any id stayed in at hong kong. Tired and freezing i crawled into bed. But the flourescent light wouldnt go off properly, so it was like trying to go to sleep in a fridge with a strobe light.
Im absorbing much nutrition already.
