Nepal Trip Day 0.75 - Guangzhao to Kathmandu (Sunday December 23*, 2018)
*From this point on until we return to the US, the blog date/time will be based on the date/time of the local location
Despite that we have travelled to Asia countless times, we have never flown through Guangzhao before. The terminal 2 looked very similar to the terminal of the Pudong Airport in Shanghai. It is clean, bright, and very large. We saw numerous China Southern flights parked at various gates and at least one other A380. Terminal 2 is a new terminal just opened up in April 2018. We followed the signs easily to the transiting location where all passengers have to be scanned through a health screening terminal. We proceeded through the health screening terminal in single file. The transiting ticketing counter is just to the right of the health screening terminal. We got our boarding pass for the second leg of our trip to Kathmandu and proceeded to the upstairs China Southern Business class lounge after passing through security check one more time.
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| Guangzhao Baiyun Terminal 2 |
China Souther's lounge in Guangzhou is an extremely impressive lounge. Since Guangzhao is the hub for China Southern, we expected that the hub lounge to be nice. It did not disappoint. It is very spacious, bright with very comfortable seating. It has showers, business center, a library, a kids play area, and two full buffet lines. We were really impressed with the food at the lounge. We were in China after all! The buffet even included a full service noodle bar which served beef noodle soup, wonton noodle soup, and other great dishes. We had about only 1 hour or so to re-charge our phones and stuff our faces before we catch our next leg to Kathmandu.
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| China Southern Lounge |
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| China Southern Lounge |
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| Catching up on wifi within the Great China firewall (Wechat!) |
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| Beginning of the buffet line |
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| Yam and wonton chips |
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| Chow Mein and veggies |
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| Sausages and beans |
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| Cha-Shu-Bao |
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| Shau-Mai |
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| Tofu |
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| The buffet line |
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| Full plate |
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| Beef noodle soup, wonton soup, and millet congee |
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| Infinite supply of Ferrero Rocher, which we stocked up for the year! |
After resting for about an hour, we made our way to the gate to board the next leg to Kathmandu. The walk to the gate was nice. We noticed the KFC on the way to the gate. Later on KFC would take on a different meaning in Nepal. We arrived at the gate and it was already boarding. We quickly snapped a photo and was on our way.
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| Gate A161 to Kathmandu |
We were able to fly business class again on this leg. We sat at the very front of the plane. This leg of the trip was about 5 hours. We would fly from Southern China to the Himalayas. We have selected seats on the right side of the airplane to ensure good views of mountain.
We boarded CZ6067. China Southern used the single aisle A319, part of the A320 single aisle family of airplanes. It would be one of the many interesting planes that we would take on this trip.
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| Business class on A319 to Kathmandu |
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| Flying the A319 |
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| Backpacks on the A319. The flight attendants later took them and stored them for us. For some reasons our packs were weighing heavy probably because we had the two 1L water bottles loaded with drinking water from the lounge. The flight attendant seemed to have a hard time lifting the pack |
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| Leaving Guangzhao, still relatively early in the morning around 9:30 am |
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| Reaching cruising altitude for the A319. Not sure what altitude it was but we were able to see the ground the entire flight |
The menu had distinctly changed from the LAX-CAN leg to the CAN-KTM leg. The Chinese dish was fish with Sichuan sauce. It featured two South Asia dishes and one of them was vegetarian. We tried all three dishes and they were all great. We had tasted vegetarian South Asia cuisine on other Airlines and it did not taste right. The vegetarian Indian Rice dish on this flight tasted authentic to us. It was distinctively more spicy and pungent. We did not feel that it was an attempt to make a South Asian dish. It was an actual South Asia dish on the plane. At this point we knew we were on our way to South Asia. We had begun to smell and taste it.
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| CAN-KTM menu |
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| Mixed nuts |
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| Rice and Masala |
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| Fish with Sichuan Sauce |
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| Chicken Curry |
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| Enjoying the lunch en-route to Kathmandu |
Jo and I discussed our upcoming trek on this flight. I was still quite concerned about the potential weather that we may run into during the trek. We were almost convinced that once we did the Kathmandu cultural day that we would skip the trek to head somewhere else in Asia.
After dozing off for maybe an hour or so from the high pitch noise of the engine, we were coming closer to Nepal. I began to see low clouds covering mountainous valleys. Soon, we were greeted by this massive ridge of mountains, and we knew we were seeing the Himalayan Mountain Range for the first time.
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| Low clouds in mountainous valleys |
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| First view of the Himalayan Mountain Range in distance |
We (at least I was, the kids were still napping) were getting excited to the Himalayan mountains for the first time in our lives. I was most interested in finding out which peak was Mount Everest, the tallest peak in the world. I continued to snap pictures. When I got up to use the restroom, the flight attendants were saying that a group of peaks that were coming into view was Everest in Chinese. They were fairly certain. They fly this route so I trust them. I went to back my seat and I took my pictures. I studied the pictures that I took after this trip. From my research, below are some of the peaks that I was able to capture during this flight.
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| Kumbhakarna and Kenchenjunga |
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| Everest, Lhotse, and Makalu |
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| Cho Oyu, Gyanchung Kang, Mount Everest, Lhotse, and Makalu |
As I was writing about this blog, I realized that I could spend infinite amount of time staring at all the pictures that I took on this plane ride into Kathmandu to identify all the peaks in the pictures. This was not a realistic effort. I therefore had to stop myself.
As we were approaching Kathmandu, the villages perched on top of the hills were becoming more prominent.
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| View of the hilltops with Himalaya Peaks in the background |
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| Villages on the hilltop |
After a few bumps and turns, we finally landed in Kathmandu just before noon local time. Just to note that the time difference between Los Angeles and Kathmandu is LA Time + 13 hours and 45 minutes.
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