After returning from Ankara to Switzerland, I just had a few days to relax at home before starting a new travel to Nepal. Just enough time to wait for my lost suitcase (I just hardly catched my connecting flight in Munich), go back home to Balgach and go to all the doctors appointments I organized for this short stay at home. Spending my last night with packing, I was right on time on wednesday to go to Doha, where I had an overnight stay at the airport. I didn’t want to do all the paperwork to get a visa so I could leave the airport and stay at some hotel for a few hours, so I decided to look for a comfortable place right at the departure zone. In internet forums, I read about the Oryx lounge, where one could stay for six hours, but unfortunatelly I was not the only one who was informed about this, and they told me all three times I went there, that the lounge is already full. So in the end I just arranged some chairs and tried to get some sleep.
Leaving Doha at 4 am I continued to Kathmandu. Basically for me this meant just another 4 hours of sleep, before getting once again a complete new culture shock. For the first time I was confronted with applying for a visa, which went surprisingly well (just remember to bring cash). But outside waited a completely new world for me. After I got rid of all the people asking me if I want a taxi, I finally found my people taking me to the “Finnmap Mansion”. On the way there, I was already informed, that I was about to continue directly to Nepalganj, where our project started. So I just had time for a quick nepalese lunch, repacking my stuff and off I went to the airport again. This time to the domestic terminals, which again was something new for me…
At the airport, we met our chopper team, and guess what? The pilot is from Switzerland as well :-) When we arrived in Nepalganj, I was informed by our navigator, that there might be a problem with the system. He had tried to boot it up during flight and noticed some error message. After organizing some ground power and taking a look at the system, it was clear, that we had to contact Leica and do some further analyzing the next morning. But first we went to our hotel, the “best in town” as we were told. Although from the outside, with all the pink lights, it appeared more like a brothel then a professional place to stay, it was quite new and at least looked good in the inside. Of course the internet was really bad, and the water for the toilet and the shower was only running if the tank on the roof was not empty, but still, at least the rooms looked clean.
The next day, we did some more tests, but soon it became obvious, that some more complicated fixing was required. So it was no big surprise, that we soon got the orders to come back to Kathmandu, where we have all the right equipment. Tomorrow will now be the day, where we’ll finally figure out where the problem is, and if everything goes well, we’ll soon be flying again. At least back in Kathmandu I’m now enjoying the comfort of some working internet and a real finnish sauna! Something I wouldn’t have expected to see here. What else does one need? …