More No Fly!

You have to give these Nepali bureauracrats credit. They are really good at this. It is SUN at 1245 lcl. Additional info has come to light. I misinterpreted (a common occurrence) the reason for the paperwork shuffle. The school Certificate of Airworthiness (CoA) was what was up for renewal, not that of the aircraft. Language issues like this are common. The Ministry is holding out their hands for $$$ and Shivani Air management (to their credit) is refusing. So, that is where we find ourselves. A perfectly good business is grounded because it won't pay bribe $$$. I am told MON & TUE will be no fly. That may be optimistic. We shall see.

Meanwhile, I decided to take holiday and travel to Pokhara on SAT. This is no small undertaking. Driving a motorcycle on this road is not for the timid. Bharatpur to Pokhara took ME @ 4 1/2 hrs. I am very slow and, hopefully, safer. The road for the first 1/2 was not so good. The 2nd 1/2 was not all bad. I made it with only one close call! I have bought a mask (surgical type), not due to Swine Flu but to try to avoid some of the dust and fumes from the road. It can be overwhelming. SAT evening, the Monsoon hit and, unlike the scattered intermittent showers of Bharatpur, the rain is constant and heavy here. It has not stopped and this will make travel difficult!!

I remember little of my visit here in 1973. Having the motorcycle makes it a whole different experience. Pokhara is a pleasant enough place, at least the tourist part at Lakeside, where I am staying. The rest of the town is the usual er... stuff! I do recall the views of the peaks to the North but due to rain, I have seen nothing. I thought I was bored in Bharatpur but, due to WX, I am equally bored here!

I will try to get some pics and upload them, when/if I return to Bharatpur.

Return to Meghauli Airport

Shivani Air vehicles from the hangar.

Yeti Air Twin Otter departs for Kathmandu.

Crowded bus. Very typical!

Here is a young neighbor of Prakesh's seated in the one table "restaurant". What a bright and interesting face. I don't know who the old guy is behind but he appears to be guarding the cold beer in the fridge over his right shoulder.

Church at Meghauli.

Corn drying in the sun. Very common.

It is TUE and word is that no flying through WED. That may be optimistic. I am told that the problem is that enough bribes are not being paid for signatures on our aircraft's Airworthiness Certificates. That pisses me off but here I sit. I could have used this time for a nice holiday if I had known it would extend this long. Oh well, come back tomorrow.

Bribes are the way business is done in this part of the world. That pisses me off. Shivani Air, despite all its many faults, is a business that employs many people and contributes mightily to the local economies. But not if these delays continue. These "do nothing" bureaucrats exist in every part of the government. That pisses me off. Perhaps these folks will one day make demands of me in person and I will have the opportunity to make them aware of how I feel.

Anyhow, yesterday, I decided to revisit Meghauli Airport. I had made some copies of some of the photos that I had taken during the first visit. These pictures were a big hit and drew the entire village over to view. It was another hot day (105 degrees) but the road was in much better shape so I was able to make much better time and was much more comfortable.

Just as I was asking about the old Christian lady, she came walking by. I had to ask, how in this Hindu land did you become Christian and where is your church? The answers were illuminating. She had the misfortune (in this part of the world) of bearing only 3 daughters, no males. The rules of inheritance were not in her favor, so, she said to heck with that and became a Christian. She then went and got her Bible, written completely in Nepali. The church was near by so I got the nickel tour. Met some other Christians there and got an invite to SAT's services. The lack of any statues or pictures puzzled me. I did not ask. These folks knew a lot about Shivani Air, even way out here. I had a nice ride back so the no fly day was not wasted.

So, maybe fly on THU. We shall see.

As the blog's name says ... about nothing!

Statutory Directive! You gotta love the Asian English.

Grain in the road. I guess the farmer must want you to run over it. This is very common on the back roads.

An elephant sauntering through Sauraha.

An Joo displaying the latest Nepali hair beauty treatment

The NAF comes to Bharatport.

Fixing the flat tire. The size of this shop is very typical. One room!

Not a very interesting week.

I did take a ride to Sauraha, the main resort for the Chitwan, about a 30 minute ride. I met some Western Canadian tourists and had a nice chat. This is the off season so I imagine deals are out there. Got a flat rear tire while right in the middle of Sauraha. Fortunately, there was a bicycle shop RIGHT there. With the temps reaching 108 degrees, this was not the day for a long push. He went right to work and was finished in 15 minutes. It was more than awesome that he had a new innertube for a motorcycle tire in stock (as you can see from the picture, he didn't have a lot of room for inventory). And he didn't charge me for labor. 450 NRs (about $6.00).

Shivani Air is not flying, once again for a stupid reason. This time, the Airworthiness Certificates for our aircraft must be renewed annually. Since our date was WED, 15 JUL, some whiz at CAAN determined that a visit and audit was necessary on TUE, 14 JUL and, shockingly, no Shivani Air management had thought to put in the renewal paperwork early. The plan was for our management and CAAN to arrive on Buddha Air in the AM, do the audit, have lunch and catch the last Buddha Air flight to Kathmandu. They would then take the paperwork to the Ministry of Aviation for the required signatures and put it on the first BA flight on WED AM so that we could continue flying on THU AM. Geez, at least they had a plan. I simply banged in sick for the day and went to Sauraha. Much more pleasant that way.

The new (and first and LONG awaited) budget from the NC (Nepali Congress, the body that currently rules since the king was deposed) was announced on TUE. It seems that this budget did not provide for pay increases for government workers, such as those at the Ministry of Aviation. So, they decided to bandha and so our paperwork remains in place at the Ministry. Flying has been cancelled through SUN and that may be optimistic. Frustration does not do it justice.

It seems the entire country is bandha(ing). You might think that it is the Maoists who are causing all these problems. Not so. Some will close down an entire district demanding that the perps of a murder be caught and compensation be given to the family. Or perhaps a pay or job dispute. Or after someone is run down on the highway, family members demand compensation. It seems that any group, sensing an injustice, will bandha. This is choking an already embattled economy. Things are tough enough without setting up road blocks and shutting down traffic. I did fly twice to Simara on WED. It is just North of the Indian border and is a vital avenue of commerce. From the air, I saw the longest line of trucks imaginable in both directions, stopped and parked for the day due to bandha. Nepalis act puzzled when I try to explain the US version of bandha. Oh well, come back tomorrow!

I was going to use this time off for a trip to Pokara (about a 3 hr ride) but deferred due to the threat of bandha.

After nearly hitting a goat, I was told that custom requires that I must pay compensation to the owner if I run over his goat, chicken, dog, water buffalo or whatever. It can be hazardous to refuse to pay. Actually, I can understand this. People are very poor and much of their wealth is in their animals.

Stay tuned!

Another Day in Paradise

Buddha Air departs.

Buddha Air arrives.

New bus station built by Germany and its donations. But, no buses, no people, no anything? That is my bike to the right.

Meet Mamata (Mum"-ta), Asst VP of Scheduling and Student Records. The aircraft in the background is "my" aircraft, known as Foxtrot. 9N-AIC is Karl's airplane, known as Charlie. Delta is in the hangar awaiting a newengine.

Reena and Mamata leaving the airport for the day. That sun can still be hot! The style of dress for these girls is of interest. They will alternate between Nepali and Western dress each day.

Hello All! It has been very hectic this week. I have been flying hard and this left little time and energy for blogging. My biggest hurdle is the time required to upload pictures. Very time consuming. Oh well.

Today is SAT, an off day but here I am at the airport preparing to give some Instrument checkrides tomorrow. You can't just throw this stuff against the wall and take what sticks. So, not really an off day. Oh well.

One of the students came by to butter me up for his checkride. I took a look at his license. Nepal Private Pilot Lic # 01 (there may be Private Pilots here in Nepal but they all got their licenses in other countries and converted them). He was in the first batch of students and was the first to take his Private Checkride. Nepal has NO GA and, in fact has no one to administer a Private or Instrument Exam (except me). So, Sunjog has Numero Uno. In fact, Numbers 1-8 are right here. Shivani Air is the First and Only fixed wing flight school in Nepal. Kinda neat, no?

The WX has moderated a bit lately, hence, you have not been subjected to my constant complaining. Today, it got to 95 degrees, a welcome relief from the constant 105 degrees previously. The Monsoon is dumping rain several times a day for a 1/2 hour or so at a time. This makes for some interesting flying. When you leave the airport, you have to consider that your returm may be delayed. The options to not returning to B-pur are few and fewer still if your tanks are not full.

Yesterday, I had an unusual event. The prop delaminated parts of itself just after takeoff, requiring a quick review of emergency procedures. Great traing for the student but they don't pay me enough for that kind of work. We made it back to the runway OK but the a/c was performing very poorly. MX cannobalized the prop from the aircraft awaiting a new engine (rumored to be in Kathmandu last week but likely several weeks away from arriving here. Nothing happens quickly here) and we were good to go in a few hours. These MX guys are OK. There are about 5 or 6 true MX (mostly retired from Nepal Airlines and worked the B757 and are called by their first 2 initials, PJ, DL, NB, etc) and 5 or 6 others that are MX wannabes/ramp folks. I'll try to get some pics.

I uploaded some pics while I wrote this so I will add comments when they pop up.

More Megauli

I think I did a poor job in describing my day visiting Megauli Airport. So, I will try to add some info.

Prakesh and his family were VERY interested in US politics. That has been a constant theme around here. One of the pictures does indeed show Prakesh's older sister reading a biography of Barack Obama. There was just enough English to make it interesting but not so much that any one person dominated. And the beer was cold.

They had some USDs that they had been unable to exchange because the nearest bank was 2 hrs away in Bharatpur. They had accepted them from some tourists as payment at the shop (at a premium I imagine). They seemed very pleased when I accepted their offer to give them NRs (Nepali Rupees) for the USDs. It was a small thing but saved them a lot of hassle! Of course, this left me 2 hrs from the nearest bank with no NRs in my pocket, all on back roads. After a few Ghorka beers, who cares.

An old woman wandered by (@ 80 yrs) and was on her way to church. Uh, you mean temple, right? No, she is Christian and was going to church. I missed asking how that happened and where is this Christian church out in the boonies? Perhaps when I return. And I will likely return. They were such nice and enjoyable people. There is elephant polo coming soon to the airport, which is now closed for the season. I'll be back.

These are very poor people by our standards but they don't realize that. It was one of those "trail magic" days that you can't make happen. You let it come to you!

Meghauli Airport

Entrance to Megauli Community Forest.

Sorry for the pictures being out of sync.

View of an open area from the tower. No wildlife today.

Airport Road with runway to the left. Prakesh's shop is just beyond the water buffalo on the right.

Family maize factory out back. That is a lot of corn.

Windsock on Megauli Airport

Prakesh standing in front of Megauli Tower.

SAT is a day off in Nepal so I headed out to find Meghauli Airport, which is on the South side of our Training Zone, 27 km from Bharatpur Airport. We see it all the time from the air, now the challenge was to find it on the ground. We do not have permission to land there.

This grass runway airport is associated with the Meghauli Community Forest (kind of a game preserve) and is used in season to fly tourists in to see the wildlife and back out. The roads were really bad in places so it was slow going. It took almost 2 hours to cover that 27 km.

Upon arriving, I met a young fellow named Prakesh, whose family owns the shop (restaurant), next to the runway, pictured above. The normal salutation of "Where are you from?" would spur me to move on quickly because that would likely be the only English words the person would know. However, I decided to give Prakesh a chance and it paid off big. His English was quite good and he was very bright. He offered to show me the viewing tower in the forest. So, off we went, crossing the grass strip and on into the forest to the tower. The wildlife was shy to day so the rhinos did not appear.

He invited me into his shop to meet the family. They were very engaging and fun to speak with.

An elephant, with his trainer, walking by. No telephoto lens here. I could reach out and touch him.

Prakesh, L with his two sisters and brother on the R and a neighbor, in the one table shop.

So, this turned out, unexpectedly, to be one of those good days.

Pics

A picture of the guard guarding our house.

The local grocery store. Only the corner of the building. The rest is likely the living space.

This picture was intended to show some unique construction techniques. The bamboo support columns were quite interesting. There is a guy tossing up individual bricks, succeeding, perhaps, one in three tries.

While riding around some of the back roads, I came upon this temple/shrine in the middle of no where. I think it is a memorial to the Cobra.

This guy appeared to be the caretaker of the shrine. I think that may be his mission in life.