Getting to Kathmandu

We hadn't done much international travel since Egypt so this blog has been pretty inactive.  We did go to the Philippines for an awesome family reunion in December of 2011, but I guess I was too busy to blog.

Anyway, the story of our trip to Nepal starts out like all good tales, a long time ago....
Once upon a time, back when Gavin was in preschool, there were four sweet boys that were friends: Gavin, Nico, Navin and Myron.

This picture from the first day of 'Pre-4' has (from left to right), Gavin, Nico and Navin....Myron didn't make it into this shot, but if you look to the left of Gavin's head it looks like his lunch did :)

So over the years the boys ended up going to different elementary and then middle schools.  But among other events, every year for his birthday Nico has been gathering the fabulous four for an overnight fishing trip.  Nico is a boy scout and when he turns 12 years old he is ready to do his Eagle Scout project.  It's pretty young for a scout, but his troop encourages boys to do it on the early side.  He decides that with his project he wants to help kids and he hears about the earthquake in Nepal in April 2015. Through his uncle who has trekked several times in Nepal, Nico's able to make a connection with a non-governmental organization in Nepal that has a connection to a school that was devastated by the earthquake.  He asks his 3 besties to join him on the trip for Spring Break 2016.

Here's a photo of when Gavin arrived in Kathmandu with Navin (red shirt) and Nico (green shirt) and Chet Bhatta (and I think Myron is behind Chet).  Chet is with the Foundation and facilitated every aspect of our trip. 

And here's a picture of all four (finally) at the school in Nepal - Navin, Nico, Myron and Gavin.

When Nico asked Gavin to go, we planned for just Greg to accompany him, while I manned the fort at home with Connor and Cici.  Greg called Turkish Airlines to book the same itinerary as Nico and company, but on the day that Greg called there was only one seat available on their itinerary.  Greg realized he had a school board meeting the night after that flight left, so he arranged with Leela, Nico's mom, for Gavin to go with everyone on that flight.  Greg would coordinate to fly out after his board meeting, 2 days later.  When Greg searched for tickets to Nepal he found tickets for a little over $600, about half of the price of the good deal on Turkish airlines.  It was a little bit of an annoying itinerary with an overnight layover each way in China, but these days sometimes you can barely get to Philly for $500.  It was too good a of deal to pass up... for all of us.

Our flight went from SFO to Shanghai, then to Kunming down in the southern part of China then into Kathmandu.  Yeah, we had never heard of Kunming either.   (You can ignore most of the other things on the map.)  With Greg's mandarin-speaking ability we weren't too daunted by the overnights.  It was a good excuse for him to brush up... and basically it was the only way the 3 of us would get to go.

With our crazy itinerary Greg, Connor, Cici, and I actually leave on April 5th, a day before Nico, Gavin and crew take off.  We fly 12 hours and arrive in Shanghai in the early evening.  By the time we get to a hotel it's dark and drizzly.  Greg asks the hotel for a dinner recommendation.  I kid you not, they suggest KFC.  Really?  Okay, it is the closest restaurant, but I downright refuse to not eat Chinese food for our night in Shanghai.  Greg perseveres and finds a hot pot restaurant, still on the same block.  Good hubby!

After dinner (delicious), we head straight to bed.  We need to make the 6 am shuttle to the airport, since our flight out is at 8 am.  Brutal!

Amazingly enough we make it on the 5 am shuttle and to airport (honestly that might be the most impressive thing I document in this blog!).  We find the world's most expensive lattes and have a breakfast of pork buns before our 4-hour flight to Kunming.

Kunming is a third tier Chinese city of over 6 million people.  That's bigger than each of the cities in California, with the exception of the Los Angeles area.  Looks like it got it's always been a transportation hub, as it lies on the trade route to Southeast Asia, Tibet and India.  Anyway, the airport is beautiful:

In Kunming we retrieve and deposit bags, find more expensive coffee and then locate our flight to Nepal.  We're finding in China that few planes get to park at the gate.  For the most part we need to take a shuttle bus from the gate out to the airplane.  Once the bus ride was something like 10 minutes!  And they are packed like you imagine a Chinese bus would be... think MUNI in SF Chinatown or 6 train at rush hour in NYC. 

Kunming to Kathmandu is a shorter flight, with no view of the Himalayas, but then we're there... Nepal!

The airport is on the smaller side, we find our luggage and press our way outside.  Almost immediately Greg spots someone with a sign for us, so there's no need to deal with any of the other folks offering rides.  They greet us with leis of marigolds and usher us to 2 cars.  Greg insists we can squeeze into one, not wanting our family to get split up.  They acquiesce, and we start off to the hotel.