"This customer service is amazing," I remember thinking as I joined two cleaners, one bin man and one sharp-suited Tala Air check-in official in a frantic rummage through a small rubbish tip just off the runway, "there's no way you'd ever get this in England!"
Let's rewind a little.
Our 7am flight to Lukla was rescheduled to 9.15, but as Yalamber said, "it's not hard and fast 9.15...."
No kidding. Lukla is one of the most difficult and dangerous landings in the world, and what we didn't find in any guidebook was that flights frequently get delayed or cancelled as they close the airstrip whenever the wind or cloud picks up.
Apparently there had been unusually windy weather up there, and we met several people in the airport who had been trying to get there for days already.
A word here about the internal airport - it's chaos. None of the orderly queues that we Brits seem to default to whenever we see someone behind a counter, here it's good old fashioned Asian Crush. The staff, however, are helpful in a way that if seen at Heathrow would surely be grounds for an instant sacking (and no doubt followed by a strike vote from the union.) When our local helper left us saying "wait here, I'll tell you when to check in" yet an hour later had still not returned, an airline employee tapped me on the shoulder and said "to Lukla? Mr Davidson? We have been looking for you!" (More of him later)
It took until 11am to board the bus for our plane - a tiny twin-prop 20-seater, which we were just starting to board when the walkie-talkie squawked and the cry went up - "Lukla airport closed!"
Cue everybody off, and a further 20mins standing around the tarmac chatting to the others, one of which turned out be Lucie Dumont of Karavaniers, a Canadian guide who gave us some great tips about where to stay in Namche. Two Japanese lads said this was their second day of trying to get a flight, the third for a German group who now only had 6 days left.
Eventually the airport re-opened, we boarded the plane on tenterhooks, and to a palpable sense of nervous excitement we finally took off.
I'd studied the map beforehand, and figured that the best views would be on the left side of the plane - I wasn't disappointed. As our tiny plane rocked and swayed over the foothills, mammoth peaks aplenty came into view, including a spectacular sight of Everest over the monstrous Lhotse-Nuptse wall, tailing its signature plume of cloud in the jet stream. I got several good photos, but they're all on the decent camera so you'll have to wait until I get back and upload them.
The plane was being buffeted by the wind and banking heavily, and also didn't seem to be pressurised. I felt light-headed and got the hot flushes in waves that I've learned signal an imminent digestive revolt against too much altitude too quickly. A glance around the plane at the other faces in various shades of ashen green told me I was far from alone.
Then just as we flew over the airstrip, and we all looked down and thought "oh my God, it's TINY! You can't land on THAT.. and there's a sodding great mountain right at the start of the runway!", the announcement came back from the front - "sorry, too windy, we're heading back to Kathmandu."
The disappointment was only slightly tempered by relief that we wouldn't be going through the legendarily scary landing this time, together with surprise that they had managed to squeeze an air hostess into a plane this tiny.
On arrival back at Kathmandu - the captain signing off with "bad luck gentlemen - such is Lukla!" - at around 12:45, we were told that there might be one more flight today, and we should wait until 2pm, by which point they would either fly or cancel, and we could re-use our boarding passes.
At this point I checked my pocket for my boarding pass, and with a sinking feeling realised it wasn't there.... or in the top of my bag. Oh shit. Not in any of my other pockets either. Shitshitshit! ....and it was with our airport tax receipts and return tickets as well! Oh shit, shite and shinola...
I sheepishly explained the situation to Lise, feeling like a naughty schoolboy sent to the Headmaster and asked "so, why have you been sent to me?" She was remarkably calm and level-headed in contrast to my rising panic, and after a couple more exhaustive searches of my backpack, sent me to throw myself upon the mercy of the nearby gaggle of airport staff, clearly sharing a girly gossip session (although speaking Nepali, the body language of a group of young, same-sex employees on a break was unmistakable).
After just about managing to explain the situation - their English was limited, and my Nepali covers all of about 10 phrases - one of them ran off to speak to someone else, and returned saying "there is no problem, you can come speak to the ticket desk," then walked me back through security to the front.
As they explained in Nepali to the check-in person at Yeti Air, whose expressions of concern and occasional gasps were straight out of a silent movie and should have been accompanied by a tinkling piano, I was trying to explain that I couldn't prove I had been on the flight as I'd lost all of my stubs, when the guy who'd come to find us earlier walked past.
"This gentleman!" I cried, "he knows I was on that flight!"
Although already wearing the expression of someone just trying to get to the end of a long day, he listened intently to the two women, then turned decisively to me and said "come with me!"
He led me at pace back through security and out through a side door onto the tarmac, flagged down a passing bus and diverted it to our plane, and led me onto it where the captain and hostess were hanging out and chatting. "It's already been cleaned," said the captain, "but please, go ahead!"
I searched to no avail, and re-emerged onto the tarmac to see the check-in guy in conversation with two cleaners carrying full bin bags from other planes. He turned to me again, and said "the rubbish has already gone - this way!"
So we marched determinedly over to a small dump of bin bags just off the side of the main runway, and began tearing open the bags.
Which is where we came in.
I shall truncate the rest of the tale - the search was fruitless, and in the end we concluded that the tickets and stubs were irretrievably lost. The last Lukla flight was now cancelled, so the check-in guy took me back inside and up to the main back-office of the airline where some more explaining to the airline manager eventually resulted in an offer to provide replacement tickets for 500 rupees each (a bit less than a fiver) on the condition that our guides wrote a letter promising that they would be responsible if the original tickets were ever used by somebody.
I thanked him copiously, and set off to find Lise, who I now realised I hadnt spoken to in over an hour and must still be sitting by the departure gate wondering where I'd gone.
Practical as ever, she'd retrieved our baggage once the flight was cancelled and was waiting for me by the check-in desk.
"There you are!" she cried, "where did you go?"
"Well..."
We called Yalamber, who arrived half an hour later and, after some intense discussuions with the airline, eventually said that we could get new tickets for tomorrow for nothing. However, the conditions on the return ticket offer were too onerous, and we would have to pay the full cost of one new return ticket, and one nights accommodation for the sirdar still waiting for us in Lukla. He took us back to the Explore Himalaya office where we paid on card and adjusted paperwork, then back to the hotel, where we, frankly, zonked out and slept for three hours.
Fingers crossed for a flight tomorrow!
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