Last day in Thailand. We got up early, said our goodbyes to the Thai girl at the River Guest House that never smile and lugged our bags to the Khao San Road. We were there, a minibus was there, but who knows where the driver was. When the travel agent - through which we'd booked our journey to the airport - opened, Oz went in and asked them what was happening. They seemed to have forgotten about us totally. They phoned up and ordered us a taxi. Our taxi driver got us to Don Muang in 40 minutes when it should take at least an hour on a good day and often 2 hours.His philosophy was simple; keep weaving from one lane to another and when everyone else's brake lights come on, accelerate. Yet another cardiac-inducing journey to hell in an Asian country. Asian drivers probably help to keep the population growth down a bit so it can't be all bad.
Don Muang was a big, new, busy airport and we had some baht left that we were going to turn into film and batteries. By the time we got to the departure lounge we felt very poor as the sky-high prices were 3 or 4 times the prices in the outside world. We changed our baht into US dollars so that we could change it into Nepalese Rupees when we landed. The flight was as unremarkable as all other flights that don't end in a hostage taking or a major crash landing but Thai are an airline to be recommended.
Once in Kathmandu we quickly cleared immigration as we already had our visas but I had to go through customs twice as they forgot to chalk my bag the first time. At the hotel desk we were being asked/offered rooms for $10 per night. I said "too much" and then we were offered $6 and a free lift. Bingo. The lift turned out to be in a minivan that conked out every few yards but we made it through the farmyard like streets to the Dhaulagiri guest house in Chhetrapati.
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We then raced through the labyrinthine streets to the GPO, which looked as if it should have been closed down 50 years earlier. No mail for either of us. We strolled around a bit more, checking what was available in the shops, avoiding the bikes, cars, pigs, cows, dogs and people and eventually made it back to the guest house.
In the evening we wandered to the Thamel area and went for a pizza at the San Francisco Pizza House (!). Pretty good and pretty cheap. Cow is replaced on the menu by buffalo, known to us locals as buff.
2012
Don Muang is not the main Bangkok airport any more - this is
Just over 2 months after we took this flight, this happened. Same flight number as us.
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