November 2-3 – Toronto to Kathmandu

Our plane left Toronto at 10:00am and landed in Hong Kong almost 16 hours later – at 1:00pm local time.

Catherine was seated beside a kindred spirit – a young Indo-Canadian woman from Markham on her way to a yoga retreat in Thailand. She was a yoga teacher and psychologist who taught mindfulness meditation. They talked for hours! Synchronicity at work! In total contrast I watched endless action/disaster movies.

The plane flew north over Canada and the Arctic Ocean. It was interesting to view our progress on the in-flight map.

Not much going on down below!

We had a 5 hour layover in Hong Kong and amused ourselves with cups of coffee and tea that cost 40 Hong Kong dollars each ($7.00 CDN each) while watching the world literally go by. Where were all those planes going? We couldn’t see much of the city as it was very hazy.

We left Hong Kong at 7:00 pm and arrived in Kathmandu 5-1/2 hours later. The last 2 hours were the longest and the entertainment system in our seats didn’t work so we had to be content peeking over the seats to see what other people were watching.

It was pitch black when we landed at 10:00 pm so we couldn’t see much but probably just as well. The pilot had to really stand on the brakes because the runway was very short and the plane was very long! Whew! Made it!

We managed to stumble our way through the visa process in the chaotic arrivals hall. After claiming our checked luggage we went to the public arrivals area & looked for our airport transfer person. There were dozens of men standing across the road with arrival signs for various tour groups. After fending off several attempts by independent taxi drivers to relieve us of our luggage, I resorted to shouting “ g-Adventures!” and our hosts emerged from the crowd with a small sign bearing our names! Never have we been sooooo happy to have someone say “Namaste!” to us.

We had an interesting ride through dark, smokey & bumpy streets reminiscent of India. When we arrived at the hotel, the metal gates were closed and padlocked shut so the driver had to honk the horn and flash the lights several times to wake the guard up to let us in. After checking in, the porter hoisted our suitcase on his shoulder and took us to our room. It had a bed. We were happy!

Today we travelled all the way from London to a hotel near Toronto airport.

Tomorrow morning we depart from Toronto and fly to Kathmandu, Nepal via Hong Kong. We have a mid-morning flight so we decided it would be best if we came into Toronto the day before instead of getting up in the middle of the night.

Our journey began on Via Rail from London to Toronto. While we were waiting for the train Catherine was busy sorting out all the last minute details of the trip.

I guess I have lost a bit of my “travel savvy” since I retired. This afternoon we caught a shuttle bus from Pearson Airport to our hotel only to discover that we had gone to the wrong location! Unfortunately I did not bother to ask the shuttle bus driver the address of the hotel. I saw “Sandman Hotel” written on the side of the shuttle bus & told Catherine “that’s the one for us!”

When we got to the hotel front desk we were told that we had no reservation there. The desk clerk looked at my reservation papers & politely informed us that our reservation was at the Sandman on Dixie Road – about 10km further away. Bummer!

Back on the shuttle bus to the airport to wait for the “other” shuttle bus to take us to the right hotel. That was almost two hours wasted.

Oh well, we finally got checked in to a very nice room. The hotel had a bar/lounge where a glass of wine, a large draft beer & a big plate of chicken wings helped us forget our little misadventure.

It will be a super long day tomorrow. Our flight from Toronto to Hong Kong is almost 16 hours. Then we have a 5 1/2 hour layover in Hong Kong before we board our (5 1/2 hour) flight to Kathmandu.

Thankfully we have a full day to ourselves in Kathmandu before we join up with the rest of our tour group. I think we will be sleeping in the first day there.

Cheers!