Nepal Calling

After fulfilling my father's wish to visit Inner Mongolia, I asked him where else would he liked to go next. He thought for a while. I already had an answer - Tibet. The answer came : Nepal would be nice. Huh? I didn't expect that. Well, I didn't mind, since I had only been to Lumbini which is near the border of India. It would be interesting to visit the bigger cities for a change.

Initially, it was planned for March 2013. But with the public holidays in November, I was able to plan my leaves around them. Besides, better get it out of the way too! Who knows what will happened on 21 December 2012. *wink* So, Ed and I got down to work... Since we have senior citizens in our group, so this was more of a sight seeing trip.

I have my college friend, Surej to thank. He cut short a lot of my researching. He introduced me to a travel agent in Nepal - Nature Trail Travels & Tours. There started our correspondence with Bishnu. We did check out the itineraries from our local travel agents. I didn't quite like the standard itineraries. Worse still, they took almost 3 weeks to come back with a revised itinerary. During the wait, we had almost finalized the itinerary with Bishnu, including proposed hotels and negotiated the cost of the tour! In fact, I am really amazed with Bishnu's efficiency in answering emails. Not to mention his patience in meeting our tiny requests here and there. Highly recommended! Email address: info@allnepal.com

With our kiasu-ism, we bought out flight tickets early via Thai Airways. It was 2 hours from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok and then another 3 hours or so from Bangkok to Kathmandu. But few months down the road, Air Asia and Malaysia Airlines offered a direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Kathmandu. Too bad... we have arranged everything and didn't want to go through the hassle of cancelling and re-booking the tickets, and re-arranging the hotels, etc...Here's the list of airlines to Kathmandu.

Temperature in Kathmandu for the year. Source: Nepal Vista

Went in November and weather was great! Blue skies every day!

Month	Minimum Temperature	Maximum Temperature	Rainfall in Millimeter
01 Jan	03C / 37F	17C / 62F	47mm
02 Feb	02C / 35F	21C / 70F	11mm
03 Mar	07C / 44F	25C / 77F	05mm
04 Apr	09C / 48F	30C / 86F	05mm
05 May	15C / 59F	29C / 84F	146mm
06 Jun	19C / 66F	29C / 84F	135mm
07 Jul	19C / 66F	28C / 82F	327mm
08 Aug	19C / 66F	29C / 84F	206mm
09 Sep	18C / 64F	28C / 82F	199mm
10 Oct	13C / 55F	29C / 82F	42mm
11 Nov	06C / 42F	24C / 75F	00mm
12 Dec	02C / 35F	21C / 70F	01mm

My initial plan was to have a group of 8. Then, there were some requests that I didnt have the heart to say no to, ie my friend wanted to bring her 77 year old father and her sister as well. So, it became 10. And the final request that I absolutely cannot turn down - mum wanted to go too! Ok, all this while, she wasn't in the picture since we all know how terrified she is of flying. Since she braved herself to join us, we warmly welcomed her. And so there were 11 and not a person more please...