My trip to Nepal was at least hypothetically in the works for a number of years. After all, I promised Bishakha, my best friend in college, that I'd fly to Kathmandu for her wedding, and it was a promise I intended to follow through on. Of course, I hadn't expected the wedding to come so soon, in the middle of the term, or at such short notice, but a real traveller doesn't let such tiny details stand in the way! So I booked my ticket while in India, and on March 3rd hopped on a plane to start my travels.
When I arrange these flights, I am of course aware of the agonizing length of travels required - after all, my itinerary clearly said "Travel time: 30 hours" below the flight details - but it never really bothers me. And this time, I was even responsible enough to request window seats when booking my tickets, so the trip was already looking to be more comfortable than what I'm used to. But it didn't really sink in until I settled into my first cramped, economy-class seat what I had to look forward to.
The first leg of my trip, from Boston to London, wasn't too bad. It was my first trip on Virgin Atlantic, and I was pleasantly surprised by the food, the extra couple inches of legroom, and the complimentary toothbrush. Unfortunately, I was seated next to a man better suited for business class, and my already small seat was even further restricted by the inevitable armrest encroachment. Of course, I felt confident that, whatever my discomfort, his was likely ten times worse!
I landed in London at around 7:00 in the morning, and didn't fly out until 2:00 in the afternoon. I'm a horrible airport sleeper - always afraid I'll miss my flight, I generally just add to my exhaustion - and certainly didn't want to do any of the schoolwork I'd brought with me! I'd overheard someone in the row ahead of me talking about a long layover before his flight to South Africa, so struck up a friendship and proposed a trip into the city. The customs official advised me to return around 11:00 to check in for my 2:00 flight, so there wasn't much time to spend in town, but anything is better than an airport! So Adam (a software engineer from Boston) and I bought our "Tube" tickets and hopped on the next train.
Forty-five minutes later, we arrived in the heart of London, at the Parliament building, the home of Big Ben. Twenty minutes, a couple dozen pictures, and a bad cup of chai later, we headed right back down to catch the subway back to the airport. I'm not sure over 90 minutes of travel is justified by 20 minutes of sight-seeing, but knowing how long I had until I reached my final destination, I was grateful for a few minutes in the fresh air.
The rest of my travel would be done on Qatar Airways, an airline I hadn't heard much about. My cursory Internet searches turned up some positive comments, so I was optimistic, but my experience was decidedly mixed. From London to Doha, I had a window seat as requested, and settled in for a nice long nap before we even took off. But it turns out Qatar had, for some reason, seated my seatmate 10 aisles away from his wife, even though they checked in together. As she also was assigned a window seat, I agreed to switch with her - why not?
Because his wife happened to be seated by a crying 8-year-old girl, as it turns out. She was crying because she wasn't allowed to sit next to her cousin, who was seated the next row back, even though this was the first time both of them had flown. Certain I wouldn't get any sleep regardless, I switched seats with the girl, sacrificing my window seat for the aisle one row back. Unfortunately, across the aisle from me was the girl's 6-year-old sister. She was very smart, very cute, and very talkative - not only didn't I get a wink of sleep on the flight, it actually took me from London to Doha to watch one movie (I am intensely grateful to the new interactive in-seat entertainment systems, which allowed me to pause the movie every time she said, "Can I tell you a story?").
Upon arrival in Doha, I was looking forward to a much more manageable layover, so I spent some time browsing the duty-free shop (lest you think I'm a shop-a-holic, I needed to by Bishakha's wedding gift) and then sat down to do a bit of reading. Sadly, our scheduled 2:50 departure time changed to 5:30 on the departures screen without an ounce of explanation, stretching out the wait significantly and making me wish I wasn't afraid of sleeping through my flight, but finally we boarded.
At which point I found that my "window" seat (as requested by my travel agent, and affirmed by ground staff in London) was actually a center. The flight attendants, while sympathetic, could do nothing about the situation, and I was at around 24 hours without sleep of any kind - not in the mood to deal with this sort of glitch. Fortunately, the (apparently inept) Qatar ground staff came to my rescue, by again splitting up family members travelling together. This time, I was seated next to a young boy and his brother, while their father was seated some dozen seats back. The trade was a win-win: the man got to travel with his kids (although really, that should have been a given), and I got an aisle seat with no seat next to it, where I got in a two-hour nap.
I woke up just in time to see the first of the Himalayas breaking through the tops of the clouds. I'd read a newspaper article that described the breath-taking moment when the Kathmandu Valley appears among the mountains, and it was even better than I had anticipated. When my plane finally landed, I looked out the window and thought to myself, I'm in Nepal! And all of the travel was suddenly worth it.
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