Pictures Ahoy!

Whenever I have something I need to wake up for, and am looking forward to waking up for, my body just kind of automatically makes sure I am awake when I need to be. I know this, but I'm always afraid that it won't work this time, so I end up setting an alarm just in case. In this case, I set two, seeing as how ridiculously early I needed to be getting up.

I woke up at 4:22, quickly got ready, grabbed my bags and headed out the door. When I got to the airport, I jumped in line and waited my turn. When I eventually got to talk to the lady at the check-in desk, at which point, she told me that I was missing my Entrance Visa form, and without it, I couldn't enter the country. I had no recollection of any receiving any Travel Visa. I had no cell phone, no internet connection, and was pretty sure I wasn't going to make my flight. I went back to the counter and asked here how I could get online, and luckily there was an internet cafe right by the desk.

I ran over, paid the 100 Baht for 20 minutes of use, and logged onto my email. There, in my inbox, sent only the day before, was the form I required. I suppose that's what I get for organizing this trip so late. I almost don't get into the country, and not have a flight home for 16 days.

Form in hand, I ran back over to the check-in counter and handed in my form. Excellent. I passed through Passport Control again, passed through security, grabbed something to eat, and headed to the gate. As soon as I got there, they were taking boarding passes. I glanced out the window, and couldn't see a plane nearby, or even a loading gate. No one else seemed to think this was strange, and the board clearly said this was my gate.

I too handed in my boarding pass and started following everyone else. We ended up going down an escalator and through some doors that led outside to a bunch of waiting buses. From there, we were driven in what seemed to me to be almost a complete circle of the airport. As we rounded the last corner, our plane came into view. It was sitting in the middle of the tarmac, right beside a runway.

We boarded via those stairs attached to the back of a truck, and I found out that I was sitting right beside an emergency exit. This was good because the seat in front of me had been taken out, meaning that I had nearly infinite legroom. It also meant that I wasn't allowed to keep my bag, and had to stow it, and by the time I was informed of this, the only spot left was practically on the other end of the plane. I've always found stowing your bag in the overhead compartments to be inconvenient, because you have to get up and squeeze past the other people in your row whenever you want to get something (I always pick the window seat). It also had my laptop in it, which contained my seasons of House. But it didn't appear that I had a choice. I put my bag above and returned to my seat.

A few minutes later they closed the doors, and I was pleased to see that the seat beside me was still empty. This would come in handy. It meant I could fetch my bag and then store it under Mr. Nonexistent's seat. Excellent.

As we taxied to the runway, which of course, couldn't be the one that we were parked right beside, the cabin crew announced that we would be stopping on Bagdogra on our way to Paro. By the time we reached Bagdogra, I had masterfully annexed the seat beside me, and had full access to my bag. As we landed, the cabin crew guy told us that taking pictures at Bagdogra was strictly not allowed. As I looked around, I saw nothing but fighter jets. I'm not even sure what country Bagdogra is in (Google Maps does not agree with the slow internet here), but whoever owns it is serious about no one knowing about their planes, I guess.

After refueling, we took off again, and we were told that it was a 25-minute flight to Paro. I know. Why bother landing when your destination is 25 minutes away. I will never know. Maybe the pilot really likes fighter jets.

About 10 minutes after takeoff, we began to see mountains. We could actually see Everest from the plane. As we crossed more and more of the mountains, we began to fly lower and lower, and all you could see anywhere was mountains so high that they passed above the clouds. Pictures very related. (for those less tech-savvy amongst us, you can click on the pictures to make them bigger)

We continued our descent, and flew past mountains that looked so close the wings almost touched them. We started to pass buildings that seemed so close that you could almost touch them.

After this coolest flight ever, we finally touched down, and people started cheering.

Almost 3 days after I had left home, I was finally in Bhutan.

ps. You guys totally owe me for throwing all those pictures in. Even after I reduced the size of the files, it still took me about half an hour to upload them. I am quickly gaining a great sense of appreciation for our half-second page load times back home.