If I hadn’t read this on a .gov website, I would have thought it satire.
September 11th Security Fee: A September 11th Security Fee of $2.50 USD applies per flight segment.
So here’s a security fee bearing the name of security failure.
Reality as satire.
While in Kathmandu, I met a number of Binita’s family for the first time. Maybe 50 people. Lots of characters and a lot of khana.
Outside of family, we also managed to meet Prashant Tamang. Binita was happy.
My return to Nepal began with a night in Karkarbhitta. So after emigration in Naxalgiri, West Bengal, I crossed the border and was in Nepal, but more importantly, back in the Terai.
The Terai is the southern flatlands of Nepal. I like to think of it as the heartlands, as this is where the majority of population lives. I had spent the two years of my Peace Corps experience in a more similar to Karkarbhitta than Kathmandu.
I had come to Karkarbhitta by myself and with a jeep stuffed full of Binita’s father’s possessions: linens, curtains, blankets, small appliances, et cetera, et cetera. I was responsible for moving them from point A to point B, from Karkarbhitta to Kathmandu.
The cost of shipping them by air was prohibitive as was renting a private car to transport them. The 700 kilometers separating the two points would take 15 hours by land and less than an hour by air.
The eleven bags would have to be transported by bus. I had come on the main tikka day of Dashain, so most everything was closed. I had lunch in about the dankest dhabba I had ever been in.
The morning after we arrived in Kathmandu, I went to Kalanki to pick up the bags, which were arriving on the Makalu night bus. I have always been impressed with the effeciency with Makalu buses given somewhat impossible operating conditions.
Less than an hour after we were told the bus would arrived, sure enough it rolled in to the dusty Kalanki lot. The bags were visible, stowed atop the bus.
Bus parks, dank dhabbas, and mass transit. Felt good to be back in Nepal.
Our flight from Delhi to Bagdogra was uneventful as I prefer my flights to be. The road up to Darjeeling was as bad as it ever is, which means everyone complains its worse. I love feeling the wall of coolness hit as we ascended from the flatlands.
The most measurable difference was in all the Prashant Tamang signs and murals. (Tamang was the winner of the 2007 Indian Idol TV show.)
Every half kilometer there was some sign reminding people to vote for Tamang. And if that wasn’t enough, our driver played a CD of songs Tamang sung on Indian Idol, which included a local song to help promote Tamang:
Vote for Prashant!
It’s your duty!
SMS P-R-A-S-H-A-N-T to 52525!
Madness—but only because Tamang had won Indian Idol a month back. But it’s nice to see the folks around here enjoying Tamang’s victory and a Nepali’s success in India.
Anyhow, it’s on the Kathmandu on October 22.
I arrived at the Taj Mahal with an empty wallet. That morning I had paid the driver a few thousand rupees and then paid the hotel another couple thousand.
Our driver loaned me enough money to buy a ticket. So the trip to Delhi has been a success.
Scott is an editor living in Queens, New York, who enjoys language (specifically English). He is strangely fascinated with Web typesetting, if such a thing exists. Scott is married to Binita, for whom he once ghost wrote a blog about court reporting for almost two years. They have been married four.