I’m a big fan of Yeti Airlines.
Our visit to Bhalam village pretty much marked the end of our adventures in India and Nepal but we still had to get home. That left us with the flights from Pokhara to Kathmandu, Kathmandu to Delhi and Delhi to London and a final boat ride.
Pokhara to Delhi
Yeti Airlines offers a great service. Plenty of flights and a very flexible attitude to ticketing. We were booked for the afternoon, decided to try for an earlier flight and got on board without problem and at no additional charge.
Then we saw the plane. It was much smaller than the one we’d flown down in and there was black smoke coming from one of the engines as we went to get on. No-one else seemed particular bothered by that and well, you don’t like to make a fuss, so on we got.
The smoke was because the plane had just landed. We boarded as soon as the last passenger was off and the plane was back in the air inside half an hour.
There was none of the usual nonsense about putting stuff in the overhead lockers as there weren’t any. The stewardess even managed to do a ‘sweet and cotton wool’ service and a water service during the twenty-five minute flight. That’s efficient.
They even did a tour of the Himalayas for us as a bonus.
Kathmandu to Delhi
Getting out of Kathmandu was a lot easier than getting in. It looked at one point like there was going to be a problem with our India visas but once I’d explained the concepts of multiple entries and expiry dates to the Nepal Immigration Officer all was well.
Because of flight times we then had an overnight stay at the Radisson Airport Hotel in Delhi. The service they provided was great including a complimentary airport pick-up and drop-off service, but the architects need a bit of a talking to.
Even when you’ve been together for nigh on forty years, there are still some things you just don’t need to see.
Delhi to London
After a night of keeping everything crossed we were up bright and early and left the hotel at 07:30 for our 11am flight to London. Given that we were only twenty minutes from the airport that might seem a tad early but not a bit of it.
It took us the best part of three hours to get through security to get into the airport terminal, check in, get through the security checks, do the forced route march through Duty Free and get to the gate.
London Heathrow – Terminal
If you’ve never been to Terminal 5 at Heathrow, it’s a big place. We needed to get a transit train just to get to immigration. High praise though for the electronic passport scanning system which meant that we, and pretty much everyone else was through immigration in less than five minutes.
The baggage handlers could learn a lesson or two from Yeti Airlines though.
The Last Leg
And so to the final leg, and a special thank you to number two daughter, Megan, for picking us up from the airport and taking us down to Southampton for the ferry home. That gave us the full set of perfect connections.
Dave and Annette in India and Nepal 