When Plans Unravel at 3:30 AM

Pre-dawn Pokhara—the calm before a day that would demand every problem-solving skill we had

Day 1: 8 Oct Wed - The Trek Briefing Day, But That Was Hardly the Highpoint

Some days announce themselves early. Very early. October 8th began with a phone ringing at 3:30 AM, and from that moment, everything we’d carefully planned started to shift.

3:30 AM: The Call

Renjith’s phone lit up the darkness. I was awake instantly—that particular awareness you get when you’re traveling and a phone rings at an hour when phones shouldn’t ring. From the brief conversation, I caught enough words to understand the outline: flight delay. Bangkok. Complication.

When he hung up, Renjith updated me with the kind of calm that only comes from years of running a machine shop—when you solve mechanical problems all day, travel logistics are just another system to debug. Alima’s flight from Singapore to Bangkok was delayed. Significantly. Enough that the Bangkok to Kathmandu connection was now very much in jeopardy.

“Everything will be alright,” he told her. Then he went back to sleep.

I tried. I really did. But my brain had already started running scenarios, calculating timelines, mapping out contingencies. By 5 AM, I gave up the pretense of sleep, got dressed, and went out to walk off the restless energy.

Dawn and Disorder

Pokhara was just waking up. I was expecting that serene mountain town tranquility—the kind of peaceful morning walk you read about in travel blogs. What I got was considerably more interesting.

Pokhara at dawn—before the unexpected drama

My random wandering brought me near a nightclub just as it was emptying out. Young people poured onto the street with that particular energy that comes from hours of dancing and whatever substances help dancing go on for hours. I was contemplating the universal nature of nightlife when the first punch was thrown.

What started as two people arguing escalated with remarkable speed into a full gender-neutral brawl. Then someone found stones. When rocks started flying between groups, I decided my morning walk didn’t need this particular cultural experience and quickly extracted myself via the nearest side street.

Sunrise over the mountains—finding peace after chaos

I took a shortcut to Phewa Lake and found the sunrise I’d been hoping for. Watched the light spread across the mountains while messaging Alima for updates. The contrast was almost absurd—from street violence to this absolutely perfect mountain dawn in the span of fifteen minutes.

Working the Problem

By the time the sun was properly up, Alima confirmed what we’d suspected: she would miss the Bangkok connection. New arrival time: midnight in Kathmandu.

It was a setback, but it had one significant advantage—it gave us something definite to work with. No more maybes. No more hoping flights would somehow make up time. Now we could actually plan.

I walked for a while longer, thinking through logistics, then headed back to Hotel Dashain.

The Birthday Boy’s Rescue Plan

When we gathered to discuss options, Renjith proposed what seemed simultaneously obvious and slightly insane: “I’ll take a cab to Kathmandu and bring her back by road.”

It was his birthday. October 8th. The second birthday we’d be celebrating on a trek, though technically the trek hadn’t started yet. And he was offering to spend it in a cab for six hours to Kathmandu, wait until midnight, then six hours back.

The plan was strenuous but it had the crucial quality of removing variables. Domestic flights in Nepal are weather-dependent, schedule-adjacent suggestions. A cab is just a cab and a road.

I talked to the hotel owner about arranging a reliable vehicle and driver. Then I called Praveen, our Indiahikes trek leader, to update him. “By optimistic estimates,” I told him, “they’ll both be back in Pokhara by 6 AM on the 9th.”

He was concerned. It was clear he thought this was pushing it. But he went along.

Decision made: Renjith would leave for Kathmandu by 2 PM.

Happy Birthday with a Side of Sarangi

After updating Alima on the new plan, I went back to the room to wish Renjith a proper happy birthday—one that didn’t involve cab scheduling and midnight airport pickups.

We had breakfast with George and Ann, then set out with a plan to rent bicycles and explore the lakeside. Three engineers and a mathematician on bicycles seemed like a reasonably achievable goal.

The street musician whose impromptu birthday performance became the day’s unexpected gift

On the way, we encountered a local musician selling sarangi instruments. We stopped to admire the craftsmanship, got pulled into conversation, and when he learned it was Renjith’s birthday, he pulled out his instrument and played an impromptu sarangi rendition of “Happy Birthday.”

It was one of those perfect moments that you can’t plan. The kind that reminds you why you travel in the first place.

Watch the sarangi birthday performance

The Scooter Pivot

The bicycle rental never materialized. But scooters? Scooters were available.

We looked at each other. We looked at the scooters. We made the obvious choice.

Two scooters, four friends, one lake—what could possibly go wrong?

For the next hour, we traced a route around the lake. Through busy town areas that transitioned gradually into villages, then into the quiet green of paddy fields stretching out under perfect blue sky.

Rice paddies and open roads—the Nepal that exists beyond tourist zones

About thirty minutes into the ride, they started appearing: paragliders. First one, then another, then dozens. Colorful canopies floating down from Sarangkot, the hilltop launch point, like some kind of coordinated sky ballet.

Paragliders in droves—the sky filled with color

One of many gliders making the descent—a sight that never got old

We stopped to watch. They were mesmerizing—these humans suspended under fabric and physics, gliding down to earth with what looked from the ground like complete confidence but was probably at least 30% terror.

Later, we walked across a hanging bridge over a river that was too beautiful to just scooter past. The bridge swayed gently, the water rushed below, and for a few minutes, the schedule pressures and logistics challenges felt very far away.

The hanging bridge—worth stopping for

The Handoff

By then, time had stopped being flexible. We returned the scooters and went to the same Thakali restaurant from the previous day for lunch. The food was as good as remembered. The conversation was lighter than the morning’s 3:30 AM beginning suggested it would be.

After lunch, Renjith left for Kathmandu. We watched him get into the cab, bags packed, prepared for a long night ahead. Then George, Ann, and I went back to Hotel Dashain to rest.

The Assembly

While we were resting, the rest of Roaming Souls was converging on Pokhara. Messages started lighting up the group chat: Roshni, Prakash, and Tinku had arrived at Hotel Top & Top. Then Deepu, Bushra, Simon, and Vandana. The team was assembling, minus the two who were somewhere on the road between airports and mountain towns.

We agreed to meet at Hotel Top & Top by 5 PM for the trek briefing.

Trek Briefing (The Nominal Reason for the Day)

When we all gathered, there was the standard catching up on travel stories, the comparing of flights and connections and how many times each person had to explain to airline staff that yes, we really were going trekking. Everyone was concerned about Alima and Renjith, though concern mixed with the kind of confidence you have in friends who’ve proven they can handle complicated logistics.

George and Ann brought liquor and chocolates—excellent trek companions

The actual trek briefing was thorough and informative. We met Praveen, our Indiahikes trek leader, who went through the route, the daily schedules, the altitude profile, what to expect and what to pack and what to absolutely not forget. We also met the three trekkers who weren’t Roaming Souls: Pratibha, Nihar, and Anushree.

Last Minute Everything

After the briefing, I went out with Prakash for some last-minute shopping. “Last minute” is basically Prakash’s middle name, though to be fair, he’s remarkably good at accomplishing things in those final available moments before they become impossible.

The shopping took longer than planned. We almost missed dinner back at Hotel Top & Top. Almost, but not quite—we have finely tuned instincts for showing up just as food is being served.

Before heading back to Hotel Dashain, Prakash and I grabbed Renjith’s backpack to transport it to Top & Top. One less logistical complication for tomorrow morning when he’d be arriving directly from the Kathmandu road trip at approximately 6 AM, assuming everything went according to the newly revised plan.

Lights Out

Everyone retired early. Tomorrow was Day Zero of the actual trek—the day we’d been planning for months. The day that would start at a civilized hour assuming two of our friends made it back from an overnight rescue mission that was, if we’re being honest, both completely necessary and mildly absurd.

Before sleep, I checked my phone. Message from Renjith: he’d reached Kathmandu safely. Alima’s flight was on time for the midnight arrival.

All the variables we could control, we’d controlled. The rest was up to flights and roads and the particular kind of luck you need when you’re trying to coordinate fourteen people across multiple cities for a trek that starts at 8 AM.

I called it a night, set an alarm for early, and hoped that tomorrow’s 6 AM would bring good news and two more trekkers ready for the mountains.

Sometimes the day before the adventure is its own kind of adventure.