Sunday, 19 October 2014

from kathmandu to kingston - posted on 6 july 2010


on 4th july baba and myself left kathmandu for a 6 week holiday to be with kripa and ravi in london and then ujwal and rehna in germany. yup cholu's left home alone!! : (
this post captures the first leg of our journey..from kathmandu to kingston.

the flight to delhi was fantastic thanks to ibrahim of afghanistan to let me have his window seat! then onwards to london we had non window seats.. imagine not being able to see the wonderful landscape unfolding 'neath you!!! i did manage to go to the back of the plane occasionally to see out of the little window.. especially when we were flying of uzbekistan and i was able to view the aral sea disintegrating even more into itsy bitsy lakes... sad!
so here goes...


due to the misprint of the TIA dotmatrix printer which missed a line of dots, i thought my seat was a D when it was actually a B, next to baba's A seat.. but seated i was on the other side and did sweet talk my way to the window, thanks to ibrahim, the afghani student of natural resource management at KU!

boy was i glad my sweet talking worked! what a view. clean air because of the monsoons meant crispy views

the view of patan....

kathmandu polka dotted with cloud shadows

trishuli at galchhi

more sand for kathmandu homes and apartments... at the cost of ecology outside of the valley

the himal tops were peeping above the clouds.. this is the ganesh himal range

manaslu...

himalchuli...

begnas tal near pokhara...

machhapuchhre plays mau hau with the clouds

pokhara and phewa tal.. notice the flooded ram ghat..the seti gorge must have been blocked by logjam

annapurna two and four.. draped in white

dhaulagiri's pyramid top

annapurna one and south

dhalagiri's neighbours (tukchey peak, perhaps?)

dhaulagiri again, from a different angle

kali gandaki flowing southwards between two 8000 metre massifs

a lake that seemed to have been formed after a landslide blocked a river? where? i couldn't figure out...

mahendranagarar and tanakapur.. and then we were in indian airspace

the plane dips south-westwards.. the winglets reaching for the deep blue skies

away from the mountains, the earth seemed drier

chequered fields

polluted river near delhi

a metro station... when will we get e-trains running the length of the terai?

trains.. flyovers and highways, india's pragati is so evident...

landing at indira gandhi airport.. the soon to be opened terminal three in the background


our 777's waiting

after a nine hour flight we reached heathrow... but had to wait in a serpentine line for nearly two hours at the immigration counter!!!

in kingston the next morning by four thirty the ghaam was jhalamala

we went walking by the river thames nearby.. saw ducks jostling for bread

the swan pretending it was not interested..

and pigeons pecking at bread on the side..

then we walked around the kingston market place

walked past the farmer's market.. where there were cherries galore.. cholu, stop drooling!

even bigger cherries! ghutukka!!

veggies galore...

into the bentall mall

near the tumbling telephone booths

petunias hanging from lamp posts

the apartment has a good view of automobiles on the bridge...

...boats on the river...

... and airplanes heading for heathrow...


the sun tries to call it a day after hanging around for 16 hours!!

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