We headed to the domestic terminal at the airport which was an experience itself (we were not allowed to take pictures) and found the Buddha Air ticket office who confirmed that we had tickets and just needed to go into the main hall and wait. We went through security and waited in this large room with so many other nationals and tourists heading off to different parts of Nepal to trek. We waited and waited and finally our ticket counter opened up, it was all done by hand with paper so it took awhile and our bags were then loaded onto wagons and pulled away. We then went through another security gate and waited to board....and waited....and waited....and waited. Turns out that although we kept hearing other flights leaving for Pokhara, ours wasn't. What we determined is that Buddha Air does so many runs back and forth and they got delayed in the morning and never caught up so we waited close to four hours to finally leave!
We headed out to the tarmac on a bus and then boarded our really small airplane to Pokhara. At that point I got a little nervous about taking a domestic Nepal flight but said a prayer and remembered all the research I did on which airline had better safety ratings and off we went.
The views were beautiful! It was such a quick flight and I wish we could have just kept flying around to see the mountains.
We landed in a small airport, walked into a small room to collect our bags which essentially two guys behind a desk and them lifting each bag up one by one until someone claims one....very inefficient.
And we headed out to find our driver.....who was not there. We figured as much since we were four hours plus late but we had hoped someone would be there. No problem, we will find a taxi. Found one, asked several times if they knew our hotel, yes, no problem, are you sure, yes, no problem....well.....it was a problem because they had no idea where our hotel was! We drove around and around and around. Finally we stopped and begged to use a hotels internet and figured out where it was only to find out it was way up on top of a hill/mountain and now had to argue with the taxi driver to take us without charging us a whole lot more. We negotiated a price and off we went. We had no idea where we were going, and was going up this random hill with very rough and not safe looking roads and we had no idea if this was even the right way....not comforting. Finally we get to a parking lot and some guys are there to meet us and carry our bags to the hotel which is another five minute walk. We finally arrive and it is dark so we have no idea the view we would see in the morning. We decided to eat dinner by candle light and then talked to the hotel owner about arranging a trek for the next day and then headed to bed after a long travel day!
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