ENTHUSIAST ’ S CORNER Rhino Safari with Buddha Air my suitcase had been waiting for three hours . I still wanted to make it to the Chitwan National Park before the end of the day . The park lies only 170km ( 105 miles ) southwest of Kathmandu but , if you decide to take the bus , you have to get up early . At best , it will take around eight hours of driving on bumpy roads .
Buddha Air ’ s ( U4 ) offer of covering the same distance in a short 20-minute flight sounded much better . But how would one get from the international arrival hall to the domestic terminal , which was within sight ? Hundreds of people and dozens of vehicles honking their horns constantly blocked the route from all sides . For a European , the situation looked totally chaotic . Nevertheless , the actors never seemed to lose track of what was going on . Fortunately , Buddha Air ’ s only ticket counter was right the entrance to the terminal , which seemed no different from a market hall . An agent quickly dealt with my request at the hatch without windows , secured by thick metal bars . The crowd was limited because , in Nepal , as anywhere in the world , flight tickets can be booked easily using a smart phone .
The only problem was my dollar bills , which were checked for the smallest damage . I still had plenty of them but , over the next days , it would be increasingly difficult to get rid of the dwindling amount .
And , even though it would have been easy to make a flight reservation by cell phone , there was no way to avoid the confusing crowds on the way to the plane .
www . airwaysmag . com AIRWAYS MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2024 17