Mera Peak – Amphu Lapsta Pass – Imja Tse: Flight Change & Training Weekend

It feels like our flights for this year’s big trip are cursed.

I got a text on Wednesday from GoToGate, who we booked our new flights with back in April when Jet suspended their flight operations, advising that there had been a change to our flight schedule and to check my email for details.

Now, normally when I get these emails, the flights have moved by a matter of minutes, occasionally an hour or two.

Not so this time. Our outbound flight to Dubai has been cancelled and we’ve been offered the same flight 24 hours earlier. Not only that, but our onward flight from DXB to KTM had been moved from early morning to midday, arriving into KTM at 6pm. Thanks Emirates. Our choices were to accept the new flights and sort out accommodation in Dubai at our own cost, or cancel one or both parts of our journey and book our own alternatives, although a refund of the cancelled flights wasn’t 100% certain.

Not a great choice really, and both Steffi and I were up to our eyeballs with work and family stuff.

Looking for positives, although leaving on the Wednesday rather than the Thursday would be a pain, at least it was doable for us both. I’ve been able to juggle my working days (although that does mean I lose the Monday I had set aside to pack, and the weekend before we go I’ll be in Northern Ireland for a birthday), and Steffi had booked the whole week off.

My initial thought was to take the main flight and book an onwards flight for the Thursday and ask Val to sort out an extra night’s accommodation in KTM. That way at least we’d be in KTM. I was influenced by the expectation that hotels in Dubai would be ex.pen.sive – Burj Khalifa, Jumeriah et al. But, when I googled Hotels Dubai International Airport I was pleasantly surprised, quickly homing in on the presence of the ever-reliable Premier Inn. Checking availability, prices and location on their website, I realised that staying in Dubai would be doable without breaking the bank, and may well come in cheaper than cancelling our DXB-KTM flight and booking a new one.

So that’s what we decided to do: take the alternative flights offered by Emirates, and book 2 nights in Dubai International Airport Premier Inn – 2 nights meaning we can get a room as soon as we’ve landed and cleared immigration and baggage collection (2 minor minuses with staying in Dubai is that we have to do that, which is a pain), worth it given we land at 7.10am and Premier Inn checkin is 2pm. They provide free transfers between the airport and the hotel, and it’s only 10-15 min journey.

But inevitably it was not smooth sailing putting this plan into action.

The GoToGate email instructions were to respond to the email confirming our course of action within 6 days. By the time Steffi and I had conferred it was Thursday. No problem, I emailed them with our decision then and there. Five days left to go.

Thursday I heard nothing,

Friday, nothing – and Phil and I headed north to spend the weekend in Leith with Sue. Checking my junk mail every 30 mins brought no joy and the stress began to build. What if GTG were having trouble getting seats on the alternative flights? What if we wouldn’t be able to get to KTM in time for the trek? Had I lost Steffi and me another £60 each, having already booked the hotel on Thursday….. What if they hadn’t actually received my email at all?

So after a terrible night’s sleep Fri/Sat I decided I had to call GTG – assuming I could find a number, and even if that meant sitting on hold for hours.

I should be more positive. The phone number was easy to find, was a “normal” rather than premium rate number, and within a minute or so of navigating the automated call menu I was speaking with a very calm and reassuring lady. She could see my email, and confirmed they’d rebook us on the offered flights – there was no risk that we’d be left in limbo. PHEW.

Her confirmation email came straight after the call, and although it took a few days to get the updated confirmation PDF from GTG, once we were home I was able to log into the booking and see we were on the new flights. From there to the Emirates site to download our boarding passes and to book new seats – no need! We’d got the same ones as I’d booked for the original flights. Neither planes look very busy at all, which may explain the cancellation…. I’d half wondered if the main flight cancellation might be Brexit related.

Let’s hope that’s it for the flight stress.

(OK – we’ve still got Yukla in the schedule, but that’s Val’s responsibility.)

(And annoyed that we paid more for a flight without the inconvenience of a layover, and have ended up with one.)

So now I can start to ponder how we might spend our day in Dubai. It’s been a long time since my one and only visit, but Janette’s been recently and tells me the metro makes it easy to get around, plus the hotel has a pool and plenty of food places nearby, and having booked direct we get 2-for-1 deals, which helps. One good thing about our new DXB-KTM flight is that we don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to get to the airport for checkin.

I’ve bought new Stansted Express tickets and Steffi’s changed her train to arrive on the Tuesday.

Let’s hope that’s it for travel plan changes.

In the meantime I’ve been buying USD daily via the ever reliable Thomas Exchange Global to try to even out exchange rate fluctuations (thank you Brexit; thank you Trump), and I’m writing this as my Virgin Train heads north to Penrith for a weekend’s walking and training with Val; Steffi and Nicola are coming too so that we can all get some practice in using ropes, harnesses, crampons and scrambling. We’ve also got a prelim kit check and I am sure we’ll be fine tuning our “getting the gear” plan, although I’m hoping Steffi and I will still be OK to hire kit from Val’s KTM contacts, to avoid having to lug it there and back. Let’s hope my birthday daypack passes muster.

Things left to do: buy Alpine & Ski Insurance from BMC. Pack. Buy UAE dirhams.

And in the background, at work David dropped his bombshell.


Post Lakes Training Weekend Update

  • We’re walking rather than flying from Lukla. GREAT!
  • Nicola’s on the same DXB-KTM flight. EXTRA GREAT!
  • The getting the gear plan is even less clear than it was before. And the trip cost has crept up again. NOT GREAT.

Training was fun.

Training for Mera Peak - Amphu Lapsta - Island Peak
Training for Mera Peak – Amphu Lapsta – Island Peak: Me, Steffi & Nicola at Near Howe