I told the agent thanks, and I’d think on it. I folded up the piece of paper with his budget calculations on it, and stuffed it in the back pocket of my slacks. We shook hands and he must have committed my face to memory, because for the next week, every time I passed his office, he would call out to me and ask about my plans.
But today, we simply said goodbye. I left his office, and headed for the main streets of Thamel.
The sensory overload was immediate, and total.
I awoke to the sound of jackhammering outside, and a narrow beam of dusty sunlight waving me good morning.
My shoulder and hip hurt from where they had pushed through the thin mattress.
My first morning waking up alone in a foreign country. Ever.
Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu is universally recognized as one of the worst major airports in the world. It is little more than a large brick shack, dirty inside and out, and staffed by surly, unhelpful agents who aren’t much better than the TSA.
Apparently, if you arrive during the day, the visa hall can back up for hours, all chaos and cutting in line. Luckily for me, we had to be one of the last flights in that day, as the airport was deserted.
As my layover in Delhi drew to an end, I worked my way back to the gate. It had filled up significantly since I had last been here: full of hippies and fortune-seekers looking to find inner peace in the high mountain sanctuaries of Nepal. Backpackers, families, mountain climbers— these were my people. Still, the nervousness was starting to set in.
When I finally got to the counter, I told the agent I’d lost my ticket.
“What’s your name?” he asked, bored.
I told him, and he handed me my original boarding pass. Someone must have found it and turned it in.
“Try and hold on to it this time,” he told me without inflection.
I took it without further comment.
thisisyouth 