We were packed and ready in plenty of time, but had no serious expectation that we would be leaving on time. There was breakfast to eat, which included some delicious, freshly-laid farm eggs. These had to be located elsewhere by Yogi, and boiled there too, for his mother is a very strict vegan, and will not allow such an activity to take place inside the house.
Before we left, we were presented with two presents: one a beautiful brass water jug, made in the village; the other, the walking stick; both of these we were honoured to receive. And then there was a small procession, carrying all the bags up to the main road, and loaded into the back of a jeep. Because of the holiday, jeeps were in short supply, and for at least part of the journey we – that is, Val and me, Yogi, Manos and Dibyata – would be sharing it with other passengers needing a ride: a few n the back for just a short way (like a sort of bus service really – and two young women who were coming with s as far as Baglung. With the driver, this meant four along the front seats, and four of us in the back. It did mean that the driver was barely in his seat at all, but this did not seem to bother him at all; he steered with just one hand, leaving his other free for the various phone calls he took during the journey (nothing new there, then.)
It did seem to take an age to get even a few miles (again, nothing new) and very quickly we seemed to be taking a most circuitous route, diverting down some lanes that were scarcely more than farm tracks. But we had been promised we would get to the airport in good time; Val and I had a flight booked from Pokhara to Kathmandu at 4.40; all a tad awkward since Yogi and family would be making the same journey by minibus, only slightly compensated by the fact that we were paying for the jeep. But our driver, despite the off-road nature of much of the route, was making good progress, and overtook practically everything. On one occasion, we were involved in a virtual race with another, newer jeep, accelerating past it at high speed, but clearly its driver resented this audacity, and managed to speed past us shortly after. But this was, to my recollection, the only occasion anyone else went past us; whenever he could, our driver accelerated to breakneck speed.
At Baglung, the two women got out, and there was rather more room, Val and I sharing the back seat with Dibyata, her and me passing some of the time with a game of My Grandma’s Cat, a game I had taught her the evening before, before she eventually lost interest, and absorbed herself in the more technological delights of the games on her mother’s phone.
We stopped briefly for a coffee break (only because it was lunchtime and the place was busy, this meant no coffee) and as we left the rain began to fall. Particularly unfortunate as we had to make a detour at this point; at the Korean guest house we had stayed at before Baglung, I had managed to leave my jacket behind, and as it was my only smart jacket, and we were loath to lose it, and as we were going more or less past the place, we had asked if we could collect it. But by the time we got there, the rain had turned into a tremendous downpour. Val had agreed to race up the hundred or so stairs to collect it, taking an umbrella with her, (and interrupting a party of twenty or so startled Koreans up there), in the torrential rain, and eventually locating the owner, and making it back down, only partially soaked. The umbrella had helped, but only partially – she was soaked from the knees down.
And the rain was getting worse, with thunder and lightning adding to the excitement. Judging by the close proximity of thunder and lightning, we were pretty much on the heart of the storm, and this was proved when a bolt of lightning struck the ground just a few yards from the jeep; even our normally unflappable driver nearly jumped through the roof. Val and I have only ever experienced such a near miss twice in our lives, and the other time was also Pokhara, some forty years ago. A place to avoid, clearly.
It did not take long to descend into Pokhara, but it was a bit of a nightmare, with water streaming across the road, and the windscreen largely misted up, manos frantically wiping at it to improve our, and the driver’s, vision. And Pokhara itself was even worse, with the town rapidly flooding, the roads becoming rivers – I was amazed not to see any cars breaking down as they ploughed through. Our driver proved remarkably determined not to be held up by any other traffic, with some nightmare overtaking, and grabbing any glimpse of road, (at one time not just on the other side of the road, but beyond it. It was thee sort of deplorable road behaviour I have so often witnessed in other drivers, but since, on this occasion, we were the beneficiaries, we were duly grateful for his aggression.
Dibyata was gleefully announcing at regular intervals that there was n way we would be flying today, and we thought she was probably right, but had no real alternative to going to the airport anyway. The airport road was almost deserted, making us think it was probably shut, but no, we soon found ourselves the astonishingly huge and modern Pokhara International airport. Was this the right place, we wondered. It appeared that Pokhara had built this brand new edifice only very recently, and was now waiting for international flights to start to come; in the meantime, domestic flights operated out of a small section at one end.
We said farewell to them all, and were let in, past the queue of local hopefuls, without question. It seemed there was at least some hope; when Val asked at the check-in desk, the man there declared that miracles might happen. All flights were delayed by two or three hours because of the weather, and Yeti Airlines (our carrier today) seemed worse than the others – they had had a fatal crash last year, so were perhaps being extra cautious; all we could do was find a pair of seats, and wait. It was some consolation that, in common with the rest of the (more or less abandoned and cordoned off) international section, everything was spanking new; the toilets were modern and clean, there was cappuccino available at the small coffee shop – things could be worse.
Though not too much worse, actually, as it looked more and more obvious we would not be going anywhere. Whether that meant sleeping somewhere on the floor, or kicked ot and forced to find some refuge in a flooded Pokhara we had no idea.
There were glimmers of hope: some flights were being called, and people admitted into and through security. But our own flight was fourth in the list of Yeti’s own planes, and Val was able to check, through the miracle of modern IT, that there were only a couple of flights coming out from Kathmandu. I suggested we might as well try to see if there were any cancellations, and as soon as Val got clear knowledge (before it was announced in the airport) that our flight was definitely cancelled, she rushed to the desk, where they were just checking in the flight two before ours, to see. The man said one, or two; we had prepared for just Val getting one, as she had the greatest deadline, needing to catch the flight to London tomorrow morning, but she chanced her arm, said two. The bloke checked with a supervisor, there was a nod, and we were on – we ran to get our bags over there and checked in.
It still was not absolutely certain; we would be on almost the last flight out, and it might yet be cancelled because of the weather, but at least we were now in the departure lounge. But even then, there was chaos; our gate made no mention of our flight being called, but then we heard our names being called over the intercom. We raced to the gate, were hurried through, and ran across the tarmac to the plane. It did not seem full as we made our way to our seats, but n a couple of minutes, we were taxiing down the runway, and on our way. Phew, phew, and phew again.
Val had managed, in our few minutes in the departure lounge, to find a hotel close to the airport, at a cheap rate; she had thought it was a few kms away, but that turned out to be wrong, and the taxi had us there in no time, we were checked in, had found our very clean and comfortable room, and were enjoying a beet before you k new it. It had been a long, long day, but all’s well and all that.
