Mar 3, 2015
Guangzhou Airport – 12 hours Tues, March 3: This 12 hour layover in Guangzhou was by far a lot better than the ones I had at Shanghai. The airport was just better in every way.
Going through immigration and customs was a breeze. Also I was surprised to know that the airline was putting me in a hotel! How’s that for customer service! I was all ready to sleep the night away at the airport but who can say no to a free hotel room? And I didn’t have to pick up my check-in. Perfect! There were a few people being shuttled to the hotel so we had to wait for about 30 mins. Then we boarded the shuttle bus and drove for 30 mins before we arrived at this fancy schmancy hotel. I don’t know what it was called but the lobby was beautiful.
Checked-in and got my room card. They put me on the 4th floor. I can’t even remember the last time I was in such a nice hotel, the last time I took a bath or the last time I wore a bathrobe. Regardless I took a 2 hour bath and watched Broad City. Then roamed around my room in my bathrobe and drank some drinks from the fridge until midnight when I figured it was time to get some sleep. Pillows galore! The hotel woke me up at 4:30am for the 5am shuttle to the airport. While turning in my key card, they gave us a bagged breakfast that consisted of eggs, tangerines, a croissant and chocolate milk. Huzzah for the chocolate milk! Absolutely perfect!
Wed, March 4: At the airport I found out that my flight was 2 hours delayed due to the weather in Kathmandu. Instead of taking off at 8:15am, it wouldn’t be til 10:15am. This isn’t too bad other than the fact that someone was going to be waiting for me at the airport and the only way to contact them was through gmail. China has facebook and google blocked. Great… worry about that later. I had to get a new ticket printed because the lady at the hotel ripped my ticket stub. Then queued up for the security scans and immigration. No worries there. Everything was still closed except this little café so I went to get some coffee to keep me awake for the next few hours. The café had free wifi so I kakaoed my sister to email the hostel for me. Hopefully they can still have someone pick me up. If not, I guess it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. There’s 30 mins left til they start boarding. Let’s hope the flight doesn’t get delayed any longer… it doesn’t. We take off and all is well.
2 hours into the flight and after we’ve been fed and majority of the people are sleeping, the captain goes on the speaker to announce that he was going to turn the plane around and head back to Guangzhou. OMG! The reason: Kathmandu airport is closed because of an accident. At this point, I feel like I’m never going to get to Nepal… I just hope the person waiting for me at the airport will still come and fetch me when I do eventually get there. The only upside to this is that there’s no one sitting in the middle seat. Not that great of a news since I don’t need the extra space but it’s still something.
China: We get back to the airport and thank goodness the person sitting next to me was foreign. We sorta stick together and find out that we both taught in Korea and in the same province! Small world! His name is Paul and we end up traveling in Kathmandu together. Turns out there were only 3 other foreigners on our flight. We stayed together of course. As luck would have it, I am the only girl and only Asian foreigner. Spoiler alert: I get completely ignored the entire time I’m in China. We sit around and wait for some news. Then they take the 3 foreigners and leave Paul and I alone. We don’t know why they did this. Later when we met up with them again, the 3 just got escorted to where we eventually met up again. Which was at the front of check-in. They shuttle everyone on our flight to a different hotel than the one I had the night before. This hotel is called New Century Hotel and it is literally like the hotel in The Shining. There's also some sort of bondage show (?) next door... They fed dinner which was alright. Nothing fancy. Us 5 talked about our upcoming trips and what not and then we went to bed eager to get to Nepal.
While in Nepal: Turkish Airlines had an accident while attempting to land at Kathmandu Airport. They had been circling for a few hours trying to get a clear view but no luck. They were running out of fuel so the captain decided to land. The captain overshot the landing and the front landing gear broke. The plane bounced a few times before coming to a skidding halt.
Thursday, March 5:
China: The hotel didn’t give me a wake up call but I had set my alarm anyways. I knew I was going to be forgotten. Haha Got uop at 430am. Breakfast was alright. There was no new flight info. The front desk doesn’t seem to know much of anything. They just kept saying maybe. Maybe in the afternoon. Maybe tonight. So being the restless person that I am and apparently Jimmy is the same way, we ended up walking around while the others went back to sleep. We walked to the market which was ok until we saw the caged animals. We literally walked around the entire city/town and saw nothing. Then in some random back alley we came across some Transformers. How random! There were 3. This was the best thing to have happened so far.
Wed, March 4: At the airport I found out that my flight was 2 hours delayed due to the weather in Kathmandu. Instead of taking off at 8:15am, it wouldn’t be til 10:15am. This isn’t too bad other than the fact that someone was going to be waiting for me at the airport and the only way to contact them was through gmail. China has facebook and google blocked. Great… worry about that later. I had to get a new ticket printed because the lady at the hotel ripped my ticket stub. Then queued up for the security scans and immigration. No worries there. Everything was still closed except this little café so I went to get some coffee to keep me awake for the next few hours. The café had free wifi so I kakaoed my sister to email the hostel for me. Hopefully they can still have someone pick me up. If not, I guess it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. There’s 30 mins left til they start boarding. Let’s hope the flight doesn’t get delayed any longer… it doesn’t. We take off and all is well.
2 hours into the flight and after we’ve been fed and majority of the people are sleeping, the captain goes on the speaker to announce that he was going to turn the plane around and head back to Guangzhou. OMG! The reason: Kathmandu airport is closed because of an accident. At this point, I feel like I’m never going to get to Nepal… I just hope the person waiting for me at the airport will still come and fetch me when I do eventually get there. The only upside to this is that there’s no one sitting in the middle seat. Not that great of a news since I don’t need the extra space but it’s still something.
China: We get back to the airport and thank goodness the person sitting next to me was foreign. We sorta stick together and find out that we both taught in Korea and in the same province! Small world! His name is Paul and we end up traveling in Kathmandu together. Turns out there were only 3 other foreigners on our flight. We stayed together of course. As luck would have it, I am the only girl and only Asian foreigner. Spoiler alert: I get completely ignored the entire time I’m in China. We sit around and wait for some news. Then they take the 3 foreigners and leave Paul and I alone. We don’t know why they did this. Later when we met up with them again, the 3 just got escorted to where we eventually met up again. Which was at the front of check-in. They shuttle everyone on our flight to a different hotel than the one I had the night before. This hotel is called New Century Hotel and it is literally like the hotel in The Shining. There's also some sort of bondage show (?) next door... They fed dinner which was alright. Nothing fancy. Us 5 talked about our upcoming trips and what not and then we went to bed eager to get to Nepal.
While in Nepal: Turkish Airlines had an accident while attempting to land at Kathmandu Airport. They had been circling for a few hours trying to get a clear view but no luck. They were running out of fuel so the captain decided to land. The captain overshot the landing and the front landing gear broke. The plane bounced a few times before coming to a skidding halt.
China: The hotel didn’t give me a wake up call but I had set my alarm anyways. I knew I was going to be forgotten. Haha Got uop at 430am. Breakfast was alright. There was no new flight info. The front desk doesn’t seem to know much of anything. They just kept saying maybe. Maybe in the afternoon. Maybe tonight. So being the restless person that I am and apparently Jimmy is the same way, we ended up walking around while the others went back to sleep. We walked to the market which was ok until we saw the caged animals. We literally walked around the entire city/town and saw nothing. Then in some random back alley we came across some Transformers. How random! There were 3. This was the best thing to have happened so far.
We couldn’t find a café so we went to McD's and I had the best green tea latte ever. We just chilled there until the mall (across the street) was open. At the mall, there was some sort of show going on. It was mainly old people doing some traditional dancing. Jimmy and I went all the way up the top floor and basically looked around each floor. There wasn’t much. The best floor was the grocery floor where we saw some women making dumplings. There was this one particular women who was making them so fast. Jimmy time-lapsed her making dumplings and when we were watching it, she came over to see it and we all were just laughing so hard. Good times.
We had a good feeling our luck would change. We headed back to the hotel and chilled at the lobby bar. Paul eventually joined us. Thank goodness for kakao and whatsapp because that was our only form of communication. We chatted for a bit and later went to McD's. This time for dinner. We were trying to make the most out of this situation but it was just getting us down. There was no news and no flight info. At least nothing that they were telling us. I only had 10 days in Nepal and Jimmy only 4. So after McD’s, we decided that we would actually go into the city by taxi. The only thing to see in Guangzhou is the Tower. We literally went there, saw the tower, took some photos, walked around the harbor and taxied back. Miserable again. Sleep.
While in Nepal: Kathmandu Airport (KTM) is the only international airport in Nepal. They didn’t have the equipment to move a plane out of the runway. Instead of cranes they have bulldozers. What do you do when the bull dozers are bigger than your gates? You bull doze the gates to get the bull dozers in. KTM was going to bull doze the plane out of the runway so flights could take off and land. But Turkish Airlines didn’t want that. So what do you do when you have a plane stuck on the runway and you’ve got no equipment to move it with? You call the Indian Air force to help you out.
Friday, March 6:
China: Since I haven’t been getting any wake up calls, this time I get a series of messages from Jimmy at 630am asking why I’m not on the shuttle. WHAT?! I literally jump outta bed, dress, pack and run downstairs. Seriously thought I was gonna be left behind. I get downstairs and there’s no one. Luckily Paul was still in the building bc I had messaged him the moment I got Jimmy’s messages. He gets down and we both ask the front desk what the hell is happening. They assure us that there is another shuttle leaving in 30mins. Shoot! So breakfast it is. We eventually make it to the shuttle bus. Then the airport. And: no flight. We meet up with the other 3 and try to figure out what is happening. We head for the coffee shop and just talk. We are so miserable. We’ve been in the same clothes, woken up before dawn, no news, wasting away precious time that we could be having in Nepal. No afternoon flight. At this point, I start to lose it and I end up crying a bit. I’m so miserable that I don’t even know what to do with myself or how to feel.
While in Nepal: Kathmandu Airport (KTM) is the only international airport in Nepal. They didn’t have the equipment to move a plane out of the runway. Instead of cranes they have bulldozers. What do you do when the bull dozers are bigger than your gates? You bull doze the gates to get the bull dozers in. KTM was going to bull doze the plane out of the runway so flights could take off and land. But Turkish Airlines didn’t want that. So what do you do when you have a plane stuck on the runway and you’ve got no equipment to move it with? You call the Indian Air force to help you out.
Friday, March 6:
China: Since I haven’t been getting any wake up calls, this time I get a series of messages from Jimmy at 630am asking why I’m not on the shuttle. WHAT?! I literally jump outta bed, dress, pack and run downstairs. Seriously thought I was gonna be left behind. I get downstairs and there’s no one. Luckily Paul was still in the building bc I had messaged him the moment I got Jimmy’s messages. He gets down and we both ask the front desk what the hell is happening. They assure us that there is another shuttle leaving in 30mins. Shoot! So breakfast it is. We eventually make it to the shuttle bus. Then the airport. And: no flight. We meet up with the other 3 and try to figure out what is happening. We head for the coffee shop and just talk. We are so miserable. We’ve been in the same clothes, woken up before dawn, no news, wasting away precious time that we could be having in Nepal. No afternoon flight. At this point, I start to lose it and I end up crying a bit. I’m so miserable that I don’t even know what to do with myself or how to feel.
So Jimmy and Paul walk me out of the airport and into the Pullman hotel. Jimmy ends up booking a suite for the night and we all head up to the room. As luck would have it, our phones all start going nuts! There is Facebook and Google in this hotel! For the next 30-40mins we are all quiet and on our phones messaging everyone and feeling connected with the world once more! With everything sorted out on the internet side, we head to where happy hour is being served. What’s better than happy hour? FREE happy hour! Courtesy of Jimmy and his suite. So for the next few hours we drank Jack and ginger. I think I had 3 doubles and a single. To which we walked back to the airport and found McD's. After stuffing our faces we all went up to the suite and the 3 of us slept on the bed. Guess which one was in the middle? haha
While in Nepal: The Indian Air Force successfully landed at Kathmandu airport with the requested and required materials to move to Turkish airlines out of the runway. Tires were changed and the front of the plane was lifted from the ground. All that was needed was to move it out to the side of the runway. As bad luck would have it, the moment the plane touched the grassy area, the ground started to sink. The ground was still damp from the previous rainfall. So moving the plane to the grassy area was not going to be as easy. They manage to move most of the plane out of the runway but not enough for it to be cleared safe for other planes to land and take off.
Sat, March 7:
China: Jimmy and I went to have breakfast at 8 while Paul slept in. We were worried about not being informed so we walked to the airport and checked the flight info. Nothing new. So we walked back to the hotel and finished our breakfast. Went back up to the room and talked. By 3pm we went back to the airport. No new flight info. Ate at a Japanese restaurant and it was the best food we had since being stranded. Jimmy ended up canceling his flight because it was pointless to go to Nepal for just a day. So he booked his flight to Malaysia (?). We got our check ins. I had to visit 3 other rooms to find my check-in bag. Then went to the same coffee shop where we talked and hung out. There were no new night flight info. We said goodbye to Jimmy and Paul and I went back to the crap hotel again. As we were getting off the shuttle bus to the hotel, the same people that were on our flight were boarding another shuttle bus for the airport. Of course no one told us that there was an ACTUAL flight leaving that night. Within a few minutes of getting wifi, I get a serious of messages from Jimmy. Basically 3mins after we said goodbye to Jimmy, the nice guy at the counter (who had been the only helpful person to us) came running towards Jimmy and said he could get us 3 on the flight to Nepal that night. Oh well.. Jimmy had another flight book. Paul and I had already left the airport by then. So we went to 711 and bought some ramen, snacks and drinks. Then went to bed.
While in Nepal: Gravel was moved to the grassy unstable ground so the plane would be able to get out of the runway. Eventually the plane was moved and flights were able to take off and land that night.
Sun, March 8:
China: Woke up at 430am. Had some breakfast. Went on a shuttle bus. Checked in. We almost got the evening flight. Luckily I checked the time otherwise we would’ve had to spend the day at the airport again. So we went back to the counter and asked to be on the next flight. All seemed well. I also asked about our visas since we were only allowed 72 hours and well we were way past that. So the nice guy at the counter wrote up something in Mandarin/Cantonese explaining our stranded-ness and we showed that to the person at immigration. That and our visa stamps was just insane to look at. Everything went the way it was supposed to. We were fed the same meal as well.
FINALLY in Nepal: it wasn’t as chaotic as I thought it would be. Immigration went pretty smoothly and the person I had was really nice. When we got to the baggage claim, that was a different story. There were bags everywhere. We didn’t have too much trouble finding our bags. My guy from my hostel wasn’t there. I don’t blame them. I couldn’t e-mail them so Paul and I shared a taxi. After checking in to our different hostels, we met up and had some good Nepalese food!
While in Nepal: The Indian Air Force successfully landed at Kathmandu airport with the requested and required materials to move to Turkish airlines out of the runway. Tires were changed and the front of the plane was lifted from the ground. All that was needed was to move it out to the side of the runway. As bad luck would have it, the moment the plane touched the grassy area, the ground started to sink. The ground was still damp from the previous rainfall. So moving the plane to the grassy area was not going to be as easy. They manage to move most of the plane out of the runway but not enough for it to be cleared safe for other planes to land and take off.
Sat, March 7:
China: Jimmy and I went to have breakfast at 8 while Paul slept in. We were worried about not being informed so we walked to the airport and checked the flight info. Nothing new. So we walked back to the hotel and finished our breakfast. Went back up to the room and talked. By 3pm we went back to the airport. No new flight info. Ate at a Japanese restaurant and it was the best food we had since being stranded. Jimmy ended up canceling his flight because it was pointless to go to Nepal for just a day. So he booked his flight to Malaysia (?). We got our check ins. I had to visit 3 other rooms to find my check-in bag. Then went to the same coffee shop where we talked and hung out. There were no new night flight info. We said goodbye to Jimmy and Paul and I went back to the crap hotel again. As we were getting off the shuttle bus to the hotel, the same people that were on our flight were boarding another shuttle bus for the airport. Of course no one told us that there was an ACTUAL flight leaving that night. Within a few minutes of getting wifi, I get a serious of messages from Jimmy. Basically 3mins after we said goodbye to Jimmy, the nice guy at the counter (who had been the only helpful person to us) came running towards Jimmy and said he could get us 3 on the flight to Nepal that night. Oh well.. Jimmy had another flight book. Paul and I had already left the airport by then. So we went to 711 and bought some ramen, snacks and drinks. Then went to bed.
While in Nepal: Gravel was moved to the grassy unstable ground so the plane would be able to get out of the runway. Eventually the plane was moved and flights were able to take off and land that night.
Sun, March 8:
China: Woke up at 430am. Had some breakfast. Went on a shuttle bus. Checked in. We almost got the evening flight. Luckily I checked the time otherwise we would’ve had to spend the day at the airport again. So we went back to the counter and asked to be on the next flight. All seemed well. I also asked about our visas since we were only allowed 72 hours and well we were way past that. So the nice guy at the counter wrote up something in Mandarin/Cantonese explaining our stranded-ness and we showed that to the person at immigration. That and our visa stamps was just insane to look at. Everything went the way it was supposed to. We were fed the same meal as well.
FINALLY in Nepal: it wasn’t as chaotic as I thought it would be. Immigration went pretty smoothly and the person I had was really nice. When we got to the baggage claim, that was a different story. There were bags everywhere. We didn’t have too much trouble finding our bags. My guy from my hostel wasn’t there. I don’t blame them. I couldn’t e-mail them so Paul and I shared a taxi. After checking in to our different hostels, we met up and had some good Nepalese food!
