Stuck in Kathmandu due to COVID-19 Lockdown
When I left for Nepal, I thought I was in for an epic 18-day hiking adventure up to Everest Base Camp.
Who knew that those 18-days would turn into 40-days, with 2 weeks spent stuck in Kathmandu during an unexpected nationwide lock down!
Because so many things happened, this post will focus on just my personal experience of being stranded in Kathmandu. And what it took to get all 50 Malaysians from Kathmandu back to Kuala Lumpur. A feat given that airports, air spaces and airlines were not working in the region due to the global pandemic that is COVID-19!
Table of Contents
Nationwide Lockdown in Nepal
To set the context, here is how the 2020 nationwide lockdown in Nepal happened.
On 23 March, the Nepali government announced their first nationwide lockdown starting at 6 am on 24 March 2020 for 1 week (until 31 March 2020). A decision made after its 2nd positive case had been confirmed: a 19-year-old Nepali student who had arrived from France via Qatar on 17 March.
On 29 March, the Nepali government extended their lockdown to 7 April. During this time, the number of COVID-19 positive cases rose from 4 to 5, with 1 having recovered. These cases were all located some 100+km outside of Kathmandu, having been brought in by nationals returning from overseas.
On 6 April, the Nepali government again extended the lockdown until 15 April 2020 with 9 confirmed cases & its first in-country transmission at the time.
Reason for Nepal’s Overnight Lockdown
Now I am no expert but as I understand, Nepal went into an overnight lockdown for one main reason: its healthcare system.
Both the governments and the locals were well aware that their healthcare system would not be able to cope with any outbreak. All the locals I spoke to confirmed this. They have just 1 doctor for every 1600 persons, as opposed to the World Health Organisation (WHO’s) recommendation of 1000 persons.
And in addition, Nepal shares borders with India and China, which posed a huge threat given the high number of cases present in those countries.
Effect of Nepal’s COVID-19 Lockdown
The effect of Nepal’s nationwide quarantine was that it locked down the movement of 30 million people within Nepal.
In particular:
- All movement beyond places of residence was forbidden unless you were seeking medical attention or purchasing essential food;
- The few shops permitted to open, i.e. those selling essential goods, had very limited opening hours. No one was really sure when those hours would be but they tended to be in the early morning and late at night. No time was specifically allocated for opening hours to avoid the probability of crowds forming;
- All public transportation was stopped;
- All flights were suspended unless you were in the security forces. Most importantly, all airports were shut down including the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, which was what affected us!!
- All public & private vehicles were forbidden on the road unless they belonged to the security forces or healthcare workers. You can move around in your car provided you had a licence. This licence comes in the form of a yellow paper that is stuck on the windscreen & has to be renewed on a weekly basis.
- All government services were closed unless they were essential services;
- The land borders with India & China were sealed save for cargo trucks;
- Most of the population consists of daily wage earners, who were severely impacted by the lockdown;
- Much of the fear arises from the fact that many of the locals are still illiterate. Thereafter the risk of unintentional spreading of the COVID-19 virus heightened the fear and uncertainty in the country. “Fear” was a word that many locals used to describe how they felt when I spoke with them; and
- Plenty of Nepali remained stuck outside of Nepal, particularly at the Indian borders and in the Middle East.
Stranded in Lukla (2800 m / 9186 ft)
The overnight lockdown also resulted in over 300 trekkers being stuck in the Himalayan mountains, with no way of getting down.
The 2 common methods of descending from Lukla were not available:
- By land: This consisted of several days of downhill trekking, which was possible. However, the second part of that descent requires land transportation – something that was unavailable due to the lockdown. Descending by land was therefore out of the question.
- By Air: Through the Tenzing-Hillary Airport, save that this was shut down like all other airports in Nepal!
BUT after much effort and liaising between the trekkers (which included some of my teammates at Lukla (2800 m / 9186 ft)) and government authorities, rescue planes were arranged. The journey back to Kathmandu was even covered by Al-Jazeera!
For the full details, check out this post on what it was like being stranded in Lukla during the COVID-19 lockdown in Nepal.
My Personal Experience in Lockdown Kathmandu
I was fortunate enough to make it out of the Himalayan mountains three days before the sudden lockdown happened.
So I got to see a little of Kathmandu – the shops, the crazy traffic (motorcycles & cars come from absolutely anywhere and everywhere at full speed), and also received my first hint of a potential lockdown.
Even at this point, hotels were already beginning to shut down. For some, that meant scurrying at the last moment to find a hotel that would take them in.
I spoke to so many locals and at the time, no one knew what the lockdown meant. Was the lockdown even happening? Did all the shops have to close? How would we get food? Could we still move around?
No one had the answers to those questions.
It seems a little crazy now but at that point in time, I genuinely thought that the “rumours” of a lockdown was something of a joke. It didn’t seem possible.
Sure, maybe several shops might close down, but life would be normal. We could still wander the streets and explore its many temples and local attractions.
Boy, was I wrong.
From 24 March onward:
- Most hotels were either already shut or looking to shut down. The handful of hotels that were still operating were no longer taking in any more guests. You won’t have been able to book a room even if you wanted to;
- Simple things like the local newspaper was no longer available;
- Depending on where you were, food might be hard to come by. Meat in particular became something of a luxury for some;
- Many locals opted to work at the hotel I was staying in instead of being stuck at home with nothing to do. At the same time, there were those who felt that they had no choice but to come to work and had to deal with the fear of perhaps unwittingly bringing the virus home;
- Many locals started to make their way back to their home town with no intention of returning to work until the lockdown was fully lifted; and
- Any travelling to work was done by the company car given that it had a licence. If not, you might run the risk of being caught by the police (unless, according to a local, you took the back alleys where the chances were apparently a lot lower!). Sometimes, the locals even had to stay overnight at the hotel because it wasn’t possible for them to return to their home after their day shift.
Getting out of Kathmandu, Nepal
Getting out of Kathmandu during a global lockdown necessitated the help of the Malaysian embassy & Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But really, the whole prolonged endeavour to get home started quite a while back.
On 13 March (while we were still hiking up to Everest Base Camp), we came across a Facebook notification from the Malaysian embassy. We had to register our presence with the email provided. That email was sent but days later, we discovered that no one knew of our existence in the Himalayas! 😰
Visiting the Malaysian Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal
The fact that half of my EBC trekking team decided to return early to Kathmandu proved fortuitous.
On 23 March (Monday), we visited the Malaysian Embassy in Kathmandu in person. An interesting journey through the myriad alleyways of Jhamsikhel – the equivalent of U Thant in KL / an area where all the consulates and international schools are located.
Address of Malaysian Embassy: Naya Bato, Lalitpur 44600 Nepal
Finding the Malaysian Embassy proved to be a bit of an adventure as Google Map did not lead me directly to it! It sent me to a nearby building instead.
However, the locals can converse in English (fun fact!) so this wasn’t a huge problem. The guards in front of the building that Google Maps sent me to, directed me down the road to the gated building that was the site of the Malaysian embassy.
At the gate, I was required to show my passport before being allowed into the building. Once shown to the living room, I was given a form to complete, detailing information such as where I was staying in Nepal and how I might be contacted.
At this time, rumors of Nepal’s lockdown were still just that. Rumours.
No one, including those at the embassy, knew what would happen or if a lockdown would actually happen. But what was certain was that the airlines were ceasing operations across the Middle East and also along any potential routes that might take us back to Malaysia.
Malindo wasn’t expected to operate until mid-April.
Malaysia Airlines wasn’t working.
And even the likes of Singapore Airlines was suspect given that we would have to transit at Singapore. At the time, it seemed likely that Singapore might close its borders to all flights including transits, so that was a no go.
So where did that leave us?
With no choice but to sit tight and wait.
STRANDED M’SIAN IN NEPAL Whatsapp Group
On 25 March, a day after Nepal went into lockdown, a “STRANDED M’SIAN IN NEPAL” Whatsapp group was formed by the Malaysian embassy.
Gosh, it feels surreal just writing that down.
The purpose of the group was to disseminate any latest developments on the lockdown situation in Nepal, including arrangements for getting us out of the country. The number of Malaysians seemed to grow every day. At one point, we were as many as 50+ persons strong!
Whatsapp was a pretty common form of communication for those stranded in Kathmandu. A German couple in my hotel mentioned being in a similar Whatsapp group with the other Europeans stranded in Nepal.
Personal Visit from the Malaysian Embassy
On 26 March, the Malaysian embassy made a personal visit to every Malaysian stuck in Kathmandu. As we were not allowed to move around the city, they had to come to us.
Again, everything was status quo. No one had any updates on flights from Lukla to Kathmandu, let alone Kathmandu to Malaysia. The earliest we knew of was a MAS flight on 13th April, pending any further changes from the government.
The purpose of the visit was really for the embassy to touch base with everyone stuck in the country and understand their needs. An effort that we greatly appreciated!
What was confirmed in our conversation was that the embassy was primarily focused on getting every Malaysian back to Kathmandu, including the trekkers stuck at Lukla. The application had been sent but the approval from the Nepali government was still up in the air.
The Power of Social Media
I never imagined that anyone beyond friends & family would want to know about our trip to EBC but with our timing, we ended up going a little viral online!
International outlets reached out to us stranded Malaysians for comments. BFM (a popular Malaysian radio station) interviewed some members of my trekking group. And our group photo (my face!) even appeared on national and international news!
It was beyond surreal to have appeared in:
But I suppose being stuck in the Himalayas is pretty different from being stuck at home cooking up a storm and making Dalgona Coffee (not that I haven’t ended up becoming guilty of that either!).
Life in Kathmandu
But while all this drama was going on, what was life actually like in Kathmandu?
I’ll be honest: it was like living in a hotel, with a difference.
On one hand, there wasn’t much “social distancing” going. The guests didn’t wear masks, nor did we go around sanitising ourselves every time we touched a public surface. We even sat down to share meals together!
But there were also some big differences:
- All of the hotel staff wore masks at all times;
- Only 4 guests remained in the hotel and no one was permitted to book a room even if they wanted to
- All the restaurants and bars were closed;
- A limited menu was on offer;
- All public facilities were shut. These included the swimming pool, spa, salon and sauna
- Breakfast shifted from the rooftop to the ground floor due to limited staff;
- On that note, the hotel ran on very little staff. At its height, it tends to be around 120 staff but this number was vastly reduced during Nepal’s lockdown period;
- Sometimes, certain food items were unavailable; and
- Of course, we weren’t allowed to go outside the confines of the hotel. However, there was a little grocer at the end of the road that we were allowed to walk towards but that was the limit of our ‘freedom’.
As for my daily schedule…
My day would start with a very early 7 – 8 am breakfast.
Mind you, I’m no early bird. This was the mountain timing in me. While on the Everest Base Camp trek, we had to be up around 4-5 am at the latest, and be ready to hike by 7am. So those early starts remained with me when I was back down in Kathmandu.
With breakfast done – and this was always a prolonged affair – we would move off to do our own thing. Everyone had their own way of “coping” with the day. Some spent their days playing cards. Doing work via their laptop. Having conference calls. Reading books. Snacking. Or… Netflix.
Evenings were normally spent on the rooftop where there is a lovely view of the whole of Kathmandu. Given that Kathmandu is a valley, that meant that the rooftop gave 360 degrees of the hills surrounding the hotel. And I say “hills” because the locals only consider anything above 7000 ft to be a “mountain”!
It’s pretty hot in the afternoon but gets quite chilly at night. It rained only once in the almost two weeks I was there.
Flying Home to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia ✈️
Arriving at Tribhuvan International Airport, Kathmandu
As the days went by, we received word on 2 April that a MAS flight might be coming for us on 4th April.
Our chartered flight was scheduled to depart from Tribhuvan International Airport at 1 pm. We were requested by the Malaysian embassy to be at the departure lounge by 10 am.
The morning of the 4th was the first time I ventured beyond the walls of the hotel since the lockdown began on 24th March. 12 whole days since I last saw a human being that wasn’t based in my hotel.
The roads were empty, but there were many pockets of policemen everywhere. Stationed in front of closed shops and around roadblocks.
There were very few people walking down the streets with their groceries.
But all that changed when we arrived at Tribhuvan International Airport.
The airport was seething with people. Most amusingly, the moment I got off, I was surrounded by media folks taking pictures of me! Clearly intent on showing how the foreigners were all leaving Nepal at last.
The large crowd was due to the two main flights taking off that day: our flight to Kuala Lumpur and an earlier Qatar Airways flight to Frankfurt, Germany.
We lingered outside for around half an hour, waiting for all the Malaysians to arrive at the airport.
Once everyone had arrived, the embassy signaled for us to start queuing up to enter the departure terminal.
In another sign of COVID-19’s influence, our body temperatures were first checked before we were permitted inside, before our bags were scanned.
We then moved towards the check-in counter. A procedure that was both familiar yet unfamiliar. All I had to do was hand over my passport and check in my luggage before getting my boarding pass. There wasn’t even any limit on our luggage weight!
Thereafter, we moved up the escalator towards the departure lounge. There are only two floors to the airport. With so many people moving about, Tribhuvan International Airport did not look like an airport that had been shut down at all!
Once we passed the final scans into the departure lounge, we waited.
Boarding Our Rescue Plane
The Germans departed first. Once their plane was gone, the departure lounge suddenly became a lot emptier.
Then 12.04 pm, our plane from Kuala Lumpur (specially flown in) arrived at the Tribhuvan International Airport! It turned out to be a Malindo plane (as opposed to MAS!).
Funny story: Before we boarded the plane, two of my friends were called to the front desk. It turned out that my friends had been so vocal about their situation in Nepal, that the CEO of Malindo insisted that a photo of them be taken as proof that they would be boarding this particular Malindo flight home! 😂
At 12.15 pm, we started to line up.
Exited the departure lounge and walked across the tarmac to the awaiting Malindo flight.
The only other flight of the day.
Like so many things, everything was both familiar yet unfamiliar.
Going up the steps, we met our air attendants. Every one of them wore masks.
We were a full flight but not in the way you might imagine. Everyone was allocated either a window or aisle seat. We were not allowed to sit side-by-side.
Every seat already had a large plastic bag stuffed into the compartment in front. This contained a Maggie Mee curry cup, milo sachet, empty cup & biscuits.
Before taking off, the pilot informed us that:
- Where possible, everyone should wear their masks;
- Nothing would be served on the flight apart from hot water (for our Milo & Maggie Mee cup!);
- Once we arrived in Malaysia, we would be sent directly to our compulsory quarantine centers for the next 14-days. Our journey was still not over!
As it is a small airport, the planes taking off and landing use the same strip but there was no queue. We were the only flight scheduled to take off!
And take off we did.
At 12.42pm on 4 April 2020, we left Kathmandu. After spending over 25 days in Nepal, we were finally on our way home.
Timeline of Events
To give you an idea of how things unfolded, here is a brief timeline:
| 13 March | We received notification of the cancellation of our Malindo flight back to Malaysia on 28th April. We were advised to try rebooking out flights upon our return to Kathmandu as we still had around 2 weeks of hiking left. |
| 21 March |
Now, there were only 2 flights available & both required an extensive transit time:
|
| 22 March |
|
| 23 March |
|
| 24 March | Nepal entered into its nationwide lockdown!
|
| 25 March |
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| 26 March | A pretty momentous day!
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| 27 March |
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| 28 March | In Lukla…
|
| 29 March | In Lukla again…
Now the focus turned towards getting all the Malaysians from Kathmandu back to Malaysia. |
| 31 March |
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| 1 April | We received a copy of the semi-viral video showing the shocking conditions of the quarantine center in Sabah! |
| 2 April | At 8 am, the MAS flight departed from Kathmandu to Kuala Lumpur – a full flight arranged by the Dutch embassy for the Dutch people. They would arrive in Kuala Lumpur and board a KLM flight back to the Netherlands. |
| 4 April | We boarded our 1 pm Malindo flight back to Kuala Lumpur! |
Conclusion
This post got quite a bit longer than I expected! I’ll continue charting my journey through an abandoned KLIA to life in a Malaysian quarantine center in my next post.
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And if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below!
Until next time.
#staysafe #stayathome
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2 Comments
Nurfadiah Zailan
i am following your blog and get surprised with this posting! i hope you are in good condition by now. thank you for all the details that you always shared. i guess i am one of your ultimate fan. i feel like i am there. thank you! 🙂
Iuliya
Thank you!! Yes, I’m all good although I should get along with posting on how the entire trip went 🙂