Sunday/Monday November 27/28, 2022

It was only a trip back home but I there were some interesting moments.

We got up at sunrise, packed our bags, had some breakfast and waited for the taxi to pick us up. He showed up at 8:30 instead of 8 am which was a little late, but he got us to the Pokhara terminal in plenty of time. The road was still bumpy but he drove a little faster than the taxi driver that brought us to our hotel.

Not all of the roads in Pokhara were rough. It was just the ones we needed to use because they were rebuilding them. I saw other roads that were smoother.

The small taxicab was packed so tight with our luggage that he had to tie one of the bags on top of the car.

We arrived around 9 am for our 9:45 flight, checked in, got our boarding passes and with a little delay, we were on the tarmac by 10 am.

By 10:30 we were in Kathmandu, where Prat & Bijaya had to pick up their checked luggage. We took the free shuttle to the international terminal obtained our boarding passes, cleared immigration and then sat in the airport lounge for a few hours thanks to Prat’s Priority Pass that he has with his Amex card.

We were able to relax and feast on a variety of foods and drinks while we waited for our plane to arrive.

At 12:45 pm, I said my goodbyes to Prat & Bijaya, cleared security and waited to board my plane. After a slight delay in departure, we were airborne and I had a good view of the mountain range below for the entire flight.

I arrived in Delhi at 3:45 pm and proceeded to “International Transfers” , where they told me I would have to wait until the Air France desk opened, which would probably be around midnight. My flight was scheduled to leave at 1:10 am in the morning ( Monday ), but I got an email shortly after I arrived that it had been delayed until 1:40 am, which was 10 hours after I had arrived in Delhi. I felt better about waiting when I found out that some of the passengers in the transfer area would have to wait 20 hrs.

Shortly after 10 pm, I checked with the desk to see if the Air France attendants had arrived yet. There was a new group of staff servicing all of the people who were transferring to other locations. One of the attendants asked me which airline I had been on. When I explained that I had bought return tickets from Toronto to Delhi, had travelled to Nepal with a tour group and then procured a flight back to Delhi in order to catch my return flight to Toronto, she finally understood. She told me that I should have gone to baggage check/exit, even though I didn’t have any checked luggage. I then should have re-entered the terminal in ‘ Arrivals ‘ and obtained my boarding pass from the Air France attendant, when they arrived. I would then have to go through, security, customs and immigration again. However, she told me that I couldn’t do that now because I had been there for 6 hours and my incoming flight had cleared baggage control, etc. The people I had spoken with when I reached the transfer location must have assumed that I was on a continuation of the flight from Kathmandu. Unfortunately, even if I had exited the airport, I would have had to wait at the airport entrance for an Air France representative, and they didn’t arrive until 11 pm.

The agent at the transfer counter eventually contacted an Air France representative around 11 pm. It took another hour, but I received my boarding pass, went through a security scan and I was at my gate in plenty of time to catch my 10 hr flight to Paris.

Our plane to Paris was delayed by 40 minutes, so we left Delhi at 2 am local time and arrived in Paris at 7:15 am local time, a little later than scheduled. From my Paris arrival gate in section M of terminal 2E, I had to walk to the transfer train and take it to section K of terminal 2E. When I arrived in section K, I had to get in line to go through a stringent security check, which took about 20 minutes, but I made it through by 8:30 am.

My flight for Toronto didn’t leave until 14:20 and the flight took 8.5 hours to get to Toronto.

I arrived at Terminal 3 in Toronto at 5 pm. It took a while to walk to the customs desk, however, clearing customs went quickly. I didn’t have any checked baggage, so I quickly took the shuttle to Terminal 1 and caught the GO Transit bus to Burlington at 6:10 pm.

When the bus arrived at the Burlington transfer station, I had a 30 minute wait for the St. Catharines bus to arrive. When I went into the bus shelter to wait for my next bus, I was disappointed to see that there was as much garbage in the shelter as I had seen in India. I made at least 3 trips to the nearby garbage can to dispose of leftover specialty coffees, food, food containers, soft drink cans, and a lot of paper ( mostly bus tickets and receipts ). After the bus picked me up, I checked other shelters and I noticed that several had similar garbage in them.

I arrived in St. Catharines at 8:45 pm, where my brother was waiting to take me home.

By the time I got home it was shortly after 9 pm, which would be 7:30 am Tuesday in Nepal, 47 hours after I had left. It was a very nice trip, but it was also good to be home again.