Up at 6.00am to take our 15 min flight south of Kathmandu, beats a 5 hour drive anyway!! Richard is catching up on the situation while we wait for our tickets to be issued. They were only booked at 11pm last night - by talking to the pilots - who as it turns out happen to be a another class mate of our translator - Prakash - Class mates 6 & 7.
Landed an an hour drive north we reach the military base were we will hook up with the King. The battalion commander comes up and checks that everything is OK as he only got word that morning that 4 people from Sky would be coming to film the King and we had to be looked after. In our concern about getting the shots we hope to be put in the pickup in front of the king as he drives himself along the route. Why of course thats the press vehicle reserved to the government controlled media and we are made most welcome - by we I mean me as there isn’t a huge amount of space.
The King arrives in his helicopter and is crossing the field to his waiting Landcruiser. Taking the opportunity as he is being filmed doing this walk, I follow Richard up to him and who then proceeds to interview him. Amazingly there is total silence from every one else and no-one tries to usher us out of the way. Thank God the helicopters had shut down because he is very softly spoken!!
I guess when you are King you can talk or not to whoever you want!! Once done - off we go to the waiting crowds.
The tradition is to give flowers to the King and Queen (who was also there but did look distinctly bored).
Quite amazingly the King did his walkabout in blazing heat for about 3 hours. Talking flowers and signing autographs! Not sure about the fatigues or shades to be honest.
As the supply of flowers ran out people turned to the trees.
With more traveling I retire to the pickup only to find that it has become the flower depositary.
At least the camera will smell nice.
Eventually we get back to the base for lunch at 4.30pm. This is at the officers mess. Must admit not a fantastic spread but the beers were cold!!
We’re not in time to to fly back by airplane so we hitch a ride with the King is his support helicopter for the 20 min flight back to Kathmandu. These hills don’t half increase the journey time! The military are really bending over backwards to accommodate us. Its just not normal - very nice though. It turns out that the Kings head of security is also a class mate of Prakash - same to with his doctor who was also along for the ride. Class mate total so far - 9.
When we are back in Kathmandu we get a call asking if the local press can run the interview that we did with the King. They were filming us filming him. Strange question - but of course - so out it went on the evening news and thats how to become famous in Nepal - be the first foreign tv journalists to interview the King in 8 months since he took power!!
