Change In Plans

Greetings, unexpectedly, from Kathmandu.  This short post is about the disruption of today’s trip to the Maldives, and what we plan to do next.

Our plan was to fly from Kathmandu to Delhi, from Delhi to Colombo, Sri Lanka, and from Colombo to Male, the capital of the Maldives.  Connections were tight, and it would be a long day (four separate countries), but it seemed feasible.  

When we arrived at the dreary Kathmandu airport early this morning, somehow all of our flight reservations had been cancelled.  Our local travel agent and our U.S. travel agent (who we woke up in Houston) had the reservations confirmed on their screens, but the screens in Kathmandu said “VOID.”  We were at an impasse.

India (the person) and I had been having a lot of second thoughts about our trip to the Maldives anyway.  It is tremendously expensive (eyepopping) to gt there and stay there, and we would only have three full days on the islands.  It also required three additional flights in obscure countries, and yesterday’s post-bird-collision emergency landing in Nepal left us a little rattled.

We decided to change our plans, and to go to Cape Town early.  We are on a late afternoon flight to Abu Dhabi on something called “Etihad Airways.”  It is the official airline of the UAE, so we assume it will be fine.  There are so many Nepalis working as laborers in the Gulf States that it is incredibly easy and cheap to fly there from Kathmandu. 

We have a flight to Johannesburg at 2:30 am, and should be on the beach in Cape Town by tomorrow afternoon.  

Back in June, we decided to refer to the overall trip  ”a change in plans.”  Goodbye Nepal, sorry to miss you Maldives, hello South Africa (by way of Abu Dhabi).