Day 2 and 3 - From Kathmandu to Pokhara

Hooray - some heated discussions with the airline later we finally could board a plane heading for Pokhara!
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My grandmother used to say that a day on which you didn't learn anything new was a wasted day; seen from that point of view we started very early not to waste this Saturday, September 23rd, 2006... Alex from the Tashi Delek had booked the flights for us from Kathmandu to Pokhara as we had arranged via email beforehand. So the night before we had been pleasantly surprised to indeed find all the details taken care of - when Alex handed us the tickets and they showed the right time and date.

The small planes have room for about 25 passengers. Quite a change to the big planes we usually fly in China
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The pleasant feeling, however, was only meant to last until the following morning; upon arrival at Kathmandu (domestic) airport we were still very cheerful. This was too cool - one big hall with dozens of tourists, big boxes with beer, trekking backpacks, huge expedition equipment boxes, and everybody running around like an army of ants. The fun vanished rapidly, however, when we discovered that the tickets we had in our hands did not match any flight on the "outgoing flights" table. And sure enough: at the check-in counter we were told, politely but also unmistakably, that this airline had never been operating flights to Pokhara at this time of day. We should get back in touch with our travel agency about the error; hummmm???

Flying in over Pokhara. The weather still did not look too promising...
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Well, we obviously looked helpless and lost enough - so the clerk took us to the office of the airline to check, when we could possibly get onto another flight. 10 minutes later we had no more tickets, but boarding passes for Yeti Air; different airline, but a flight going only half an hour after our original schedule. And the tickets? Well, the Yeti Air official kept them and told us, that we'd get the tickets for the flight back at the Yeti counter in Pokhara. Well, We never quite believed in miracles, and also this one was never meant to happen... But we DID get to Pokhara alright, and easily found the Noble Inn.

One of the first bags to be unloaded was my orange backpack
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The owner showed up shortly after we had checked in, and promised to take care of porter guide, trekking permit and bus tickets. All you real trekkers out there, forgive us! It surely would have been much more authentic to look out for all the details by ourselves; but hey, it was much easier that way! ;-) We decided to spend Sunday in Pokhara as well, do a little sightseeing, some more shopping, meet our guide-to-be and run whatever errands came to our minds. Monday moring 6:30 we'd be off to Besisahar, the starting point for our hike around Annapurna... After all the stress at work during the last couple of weeks I finally also started to feel the excitement of a real special vacation coming up!

Welcome to Pokhara Airport!
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The following morning Barat Pajuli (the owner) introduced Chakra to us: we had asked him to look out for someone more experienced and at least some command of English, and Chakra sure fit our expectations. He was in his mid-forties, very sympathetic with his beaming smile, and spoke excellent English. Deal! The permits and bus tickets were also available a little time later - so all we needed to do now was wait until the hike would actually start. We packed our backpacks together with Chakra, so each of us had about the same weight to carry (okay, my backpack was lighter, but I had been foolish enough to also bring along 2 Kilograms of photographic equipment on that trip; a decision I should learn to regret soon enough...). Since Monday would mean an early start, we went to bed very early, but the excitement kept us awake until quite late at night.