Buddha Air
It was a relief to fly, rather than drive, the last 250km
from Jaynagar to Kathmandu: it’s been a fantastic trip, but the roads are definitely
worst in eastern Nepal, and we’ve been a long time driving in any case.
Our early impression of Jaynagar airport was of very high
security: the first of our cars (which had no locals in it) wasn’t permitted to
drive into the airport grounds. When our
turn came one of our local colleagues demanded, “They must drive in: they’re Australians!” and the barrier was
raised (I don't know what this says about us as a nation - we're indolent?). Unfortunately our luggage was in
the first car so we rather spoiled the effect by trooping back out to collect it.
From there things became much more casual: after “checking
in” my suitcase and receiving my boarding pass I had to unlock the bag so it
could be (very briefly!) searched. It then
went airside and I went into a curtained cubicle to have my hand luggage
examined: my (large) bottle of water was refused, and I had to dash airside to
my suitcase to tuck my umbrella into it.
From the cubicle (privacy seemed unnecessary to open my backpack and
purse) I went into the “departure lounge” (a warm room with little ventilation
and no air conditioning, which could also be accessed at any time from the
check in area via the lavatories which opened into both rooms) to wait the
arrival of our flight. It happened that
a couple of colleagues from Coochbehar (West Bengal) whom I’d met previously in
Nepal were also travelling to Kathmandu for a meeting – it was a lovely
surprise to run into them again!
The view from the back in 9C
In-flight catering
Our flight was short – around 20-30 minutes – but scenic, in
a cloudy sort of way! I had two very
brief glimpses of the high mountains; for the second half of the trip we were
low enough, or the cloud was high enough, for us to make out river valleys and
terraced hillsides in the mid mountains and the patchwork quilt of cultivated
land coming down the wide river valley into Kathmandu. The flight was also pretty smooth, for which I
was very grateful!
High mountains in the distance
Terraces
River valley
Two brick making kilns (and a third on the upper left)
Because of traffic it took about as long to do the ~10km
drive from the airport to our hotel as it did to fly to Kathmandu.
Agricultural patchwork butting up against the outskirts of Kathmandu
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