UPDATE – Rockin’ thinks this much broken glass has likely been collected to be used as a replacement for gravel. A drainage layer, perhaps, for the nearby golf course renovation.
If you have lots of time — and spend some of that time shopping for bargains — you can get good deals on flights.
Especially if you are flying to or from London.
Included in my $368 fare with Qatar Airways was a free hotel night in a 4-star Doha hotel.
When I booked that hotel it looked like I was supposed to pay $22 / night. But when checking out they said I owed nothing. Hotel shuttle both ways was free too. Most nations get a free visa on arrival in Qatar.
This is the first time I’ve managed to deliberately book a free hotel stopover. It’s more difficult than the advertising would lead you to believe.
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For future trips I often start looking at options using Google flights.
Once I decide on departure and arrival cities, I check prices on Google Matrix Airfare search.
Click ‘calendar of lowest fares‘ to see the range over a 30 day period.
If possible, I actually book the flight on the airline’s website. If they have a slow or confusing interface — or if the fare is higher than I found on Google — I start checking aggregators instead.
Some airlines are not on Google Matrix nor most aggregators: Southwest Airlines, Virgin America, EasyJet, Ryan, etc.
The 430,000 square foot (40,000 m²) museum is made up of interlocking discs that create cavities to protect visitors from the desert heat. …
Time Magazine named it one of the World’s Greatest Places to Visit in 2019, citing the integration of “immersive video screens and dioramas” into Jean Nouvel’s architectural design.
In 2019 I ended up staying in Kathmandu two days at the end of my trip as the departure was out of the city.
As always, I visited my favourite attraction — the Monkey Temple.
Swoyambhunath is an ancient religious complex atop a hill in the Kathmandu Valley … It is also known as the Monkey Temple as there are holy monkeys living (there) …
The Swayambhunath complex consists of a stupa, a variety of shrines and temples, some dating back to the Licchavi period. A Tibetan monastery, museum and library are more recent additions. …
The stupa consists of a dome at the base, above which is a cubical structure painted with eyes of Buddha looking in all four directions with the word “unity” in the main Nepali dialect between them …
The second night I went, as usual, to the Great Stupa. Had dinner on one of the rooftop restaurants.
The ancient Stupa is one of the largest in the world. The influx of large populations of refugees from Tibet has seen the construction of over 50 Tibetan Gompas (Monasteries) around Boudhanath. As of 1979, Boudhanath is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. …
Tibetan merchants have rested and offered prayers here for many centuries. When refugees entered Nepal from Tibet in the 1950s, many decided to live around Boudhanath. …
Here are a few other random photos from my last days in Nepal.
Sizzler at Rum Doodle (new location)
unique and excellent donair Nepali-style
I’ll be back. There’s no better way to hike the Himalayas than from Nepal.
This is 25-year-old College dropout Ritesh Agarwal. He’s worth $365 million.
In 2013 Ritesh founded Oyo Rooms (stylised as OYO), also known as Oyo Homes & Hotels, is an Indian hotel chain …
OYO initially consisted mainly of budget hotels. Over a span of six years, the startup expanded globally with thousands of hotels, vacation homes and millions of rooms in hundreds of cities in India, Malaysia, UAE, Nepal, China, Brazil, UK, Philippines, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Vietnam, …
In August 2019, Oyo made its first major investment in the United States by purchasing the Hooters Casino Hotel, near the Las Vegas Strip.
The company is currently valued at $10 billion dollars …
I stayed in one inexpensive Nepal OYO hotel for 3 nights. Couldn’t see any difference between it and the non-OYO competitors. OYO hotels have very nice signage, however. And there could be some loyalty program networking.
The evangelizing rah-rah turns me off … as does the focus on money while claiming not to care about money.
Rick McCharles 