Traveling to Nepal

I'll be the first to admit that traveling halfway around the world is a marathon and isn't for the weak at heart. We began our trip on Sunday May 5th by driving to Billings for the night since we had to be at the airport by about 4 am on Monday morning. Monday definitely started early, but checking our bags went rather smoothly. It was a pretty routine flight to Seattle and then we settled in for a 7 hour layover for our flight to Tokyo. We filled our time with scavenger hunts, pushup contests, and shuttle-train rides.

Hanging in the Seattle airport. If you've been to the SEA-TAC airport you know the giant double-curved glass window that is on the right.

The flight to Tokyo was our longest at about 10 hours. I watched a couple of movies and had a nap. Our food seemed good for plane fare: curried chicken and rice for dinner then a fruit cup and egg english muffin sandwich for a pre-arrival meal. It was two hour stop in Tokyo before flying to Bangkok (7 hour flight). Airports in countries other than the US are very funny: you have to go through security when you get off the plane before you enter the airport, then you have to get your bags checked again right before you get on the plane. I feel bad for people that try and buy duty-free items and then have to throw them away before getting on their next flight.

Scott modeling some Japanese candies in the airport.

Sleeping in the airport. Our group just kind of took over...

We then slept in the Bangkok airport on various cushions, couches, and chairs, having taken blankets and pillows from our last flight. Some of us had our backpacking sleeping pads with us to sleep on too. Then it was off to Nepal, another long flight of 4+ hours. So what does one do? Well, you write in your journal, you read a little of your Bible, and you watch another movie. Oh, and did I mention gawk at Everest out the window? We all had seats on the right (north) side of the aircraft and got to see the Himalayas as we came into Kathmandu. After all that we were very happy to be on the ground in another country again rather than in the limbo of an airport.

The airport architecture was really interesting. I think it's the largest single terminal airport in the world (by area).