Goodbye Kathmandu

Today was my last day in Kathmandu. It's bittersweet to be leaving... I'm incredibly sad to be leaving all the wonderful people I've met behind, but I do know that I'll see them again one day! So it's only a temporary goodbye. And I am looking forward to seeing some new parts of Asia.

I spent the morning finalizing my packing and then went to FedEx to ship some things home. So expensive! But less expensive and less of a hassle than paying for an extra checked bags on all my next flights. A big disappointment was that I wasn't able to ship everything I wanted to home.. Couldn't ship the teas or spices that I have with me :/ So now they're in my pack but that means that my half full bag is now completely full and I don't have room for any Souvenirs from the rest of Asia... Maybe I'll try to ship those things home again when I get to Singapore, could be just a FedEx requirement? I don't know. But because today is Saturday they were the only company open and I didn't have an alternative to check out. I also had to leave my sleeping matt behind because to ship that alone would have been $150! No thanks! I can buy a new one for that price. This way someone here can get good use out of it too. Or as Sudarsan said, it'll be waiting for me when I come back lol. I hope they use it :)

When I was back from shipping my items I continued with the website for a while until the power decided to go out and I didn't have an internet connection anymore. I finished packing and am ready to leave at anytime! I also copied all of Sudarsan's Nepali Music onto my phone so now I have access to that! I'll share it with you all at home, it's definitely grown on me I quite like it :) When the power decided to turn back on I wrapped up the content that I was working on and went to have coffee with Sudarsan and Sarita in the shop one last time.. 7pm came far too quickly and the same taxi driver who took me to FedEx in the morning came to take me to the airport. But again, because I know they're temporary good byes they weren't as sad as they could have been!

When I got to the airport I exchanged the last of my rupees into US dollars before heading to check in. In the check in line I made a friend! A fellow named Daniel from the UK. We became fast friends and it really helped the time pass by quickly. Especially because our flight was delayed an hour and half.. He's been in Nepal for 3 months and is heading to Perth, Australia to work for a year. A true nomad. We talked about random things in a very easy, natural conversation. It was great. We were even seated next to one another, I suppose because we checked in one after the other. I manged to catch a few hours of sleep on the flight and when we arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for our 3+ hour layovers Daniel and I continued to visit and had coffee together before splitting up to our different gates. (The airport here is so nice! It's like a massive shopping mall, beautifully designed with a steel structure and wood ceiling, a very drastic change from Kathmandu. I definitely felt like a bit of a slob here even though I was wearing what I considered my nice clothing in Nepal haha) Anyway, Daniel is quite a nice guy, I'm sure we'll be in touch in the future!

My second flight to Singapore was also delayed.. We ended up departing 20 minutes after we were originally scheduled to arrive. But oh well, not like I'm in a huge rush to be anywhere! I'll write about Singapore in a separate post because technically it's a separate day.. This overnight travel business isn't as bad as I thought it would be!

I also think it's worth mentioning that the security screening is very different here than at home... There are separate lines for men and women because they physically pat you down in addition to going through the metal detector. Good thing I'm not a super sensitive person else I'd have felt quite violated. Full grabs of the breasts and even between the legs! To all the women! Thankfully by a woman at least... Sheesh. Anyway.. Another interesting observation was that when we arrived in Kuala Lumpur from Kathmandu a flight attendant went through the cabin twice spraying some sort of disinfectant. Apparently there's a law that requires this to prevent diseases spreading... Makes me wonder what kind of diseases they're worried about. Or do I really want to know?? Oh I love learning about new cultures <3Read more