Thursday : sunny

We got up at 4:30 for no reason this morning. After the 7/11 breaky, and the speedy taxi driver. We did the right thing and got to the airport almost 3hrs before our flight. But the stupid checking counters didn't open till 6:15am. So we waited first in line for 1.5hours, because at 6:15 they had to checkin 4 plane loads of people using three counters, and we didn't what to rush and wait in line when the counters finally opened. We had some sort of chinese idiot try and jump the queue. He pushed in front of us with like 30 passports, and stood at the counter all bothered. He was some sort of tour guide, when the counter opened we told him where to go muscled him out,
and we were first to be served. Think him still managed to push in front of the big line behind us though. What an idiot.

It was the silliest checkin procedure, we had to go behind the checkin counter and sort out our bags because they go stuck on the conveyer belt. The Chinese security guards are even lazy, they wouldn't fix up our bags. Ah poor security guard, are our bags too heavy for you, that's no good, how do you go moving people about. Then got given priority stickers, because our plane was the first to depart. But then had to wait for ages at the prority gate at customs, while other passengers went straight thought other gates. All because they weren't ready for us. Gwizz they really were not awake this morning. I though the chinese were early risers. Anyways we got through and went down to our gate and had a short wait till we boarded.

Our flight was a good flight, only 4-5hrs, buy had to be the most scenic flights ever. Nothing but snow capped peaks and blue sky above the clouds. We even flew past the big one Mt Everest, we had a stop at Lhasa and Tibet looked incredible. The valleys and mountains surrounded the airport. We had to redo the custom procedures again, no real problems this time, they didn't like my passport and it got taken away to get a second opinion. Didn't get given a reason, just an ok nod and off I went.

We boarded again and the plane was empty, most of the passengers must of hopped off at Lhasa. The mountains got bigger after Tibet, and that's when we saw Everest. It was a real buzz, we weren't expecting that, it was a great surprise.

We eventually arrived in Kathmandu after we had to abort our first landing attempt. Must of been another aircraft on the runway. We arrived at 10am local time, and had to apply for our visas. It was one of the most laid back international airports ever. I was able to go through customs and get my passport photos from my pack at baggage claim, run backwards up the escalator and attach it to the visa form. We got waved through every security checkpoint too point, so funny. Must of been smoko.

We hopped in a cab and got taken to our hotel. We had cable tv and that's were we stayed for a few hours watching some movies Jason Borne and Ace Ventura were on, nice.

After a rest we went for a walk to get some late lunch. We found a great little garden restaurant. Brilliant food to for a great price, might be cheaper than Vietnam here.

We did a snack food shop at a supermarket, and then went back hotel and did some more relaxing watching movies and snacking.

We are in a noisy room, the outside noise and dogs barking kept us up a bit. See how we go.