Journal-9

Over the Everest to Thailand

Sunday, 24 June 2007

Our departure form India was as unpleasant as our arrival. Air port officials tried to make every thing as difficult as possible. We departed about 8 am. Our next flight was over Nepal and Bangladesh to Bangkok Thailand . This was 1780 miles and 12 hours fo flight time.

Our intention was to fly next to Everest, Due to weather and high terrain we were unable to get too close to Everest. If you look very close on the far left side of the photo you can see a part of Tibet ridge rising through the clouds.

Monsoon season is well on its way in Thailand . There was a large area of thunder and lightening that we tried to avoided, but at the end our approach to Bangkok was at night time though light rain, and we made it by an ILS approached for runway 21R.

Bangkok is a beautiful city. The airport officials were courteous and very helpful.

Bangkok exotic food (fried insect, caterpillar, worm, grass hoper and larva) is very tasty.

You will find the most unexpected items on the street of Bangkok .

Singapore

Monday, 25 June 2007

We left Bangkok on Monday June 25^th. Our ground handler was excellent, and we left with good experience and hope of visiting Bangkok again.

Our flight over the South China Sea from Y-REGION w:st="on">Thailand to Singapore was smooth. We had 15 knots of head wind, but we had plenty of fuel. Three hours in to the flight we run into few isolated weather systems. We requested higher level, put on our oxygen and climbed to flight level 210.

Through climbing flight level 160, we notice icing on the windshield and decided to clime faster to avoid further icing. However, for some reason, the turbocharger could not build enough manifold pressure. We continue our climb with lower than normal manifold pressure and came out of the top to a blue sky.

Once we started our descent for landing in Singapore , the manifold presser returned to normal after reaching the altitude above freezing. I am not sure what caused our problem, but it looks like the waste-gate or vent was frozen.

After landing at Singapore airport, we requested fuel. The fuel company would not take credit card or travelers check. We had to go to several ATM to get enough cash to pay for fuel.

Jakarta, Indonesia

Tuesday, 26 June 2007

So far, from India to this point, for our flight through Monsoon we had the good weather ahead of our route and nasty weather behind us. It looks like there is a hole with the good weather that is following us.

We left Singapore at 7 am. Again, we had good weather for our flight today. We spend a little time in flight to read Ferdosi’s poetry.

We landed in Jakarta and tried to fuel. There is a shortage of fuel in Indonesian Islands and they would only give us 50 gallons of fuel.

Our agent who is handling all of our landing permits told us that China had declined to issue our landing permit due to unavailability of fuel. Without fuel in Indonesia and landing permit in china, we may have to find a different route after Australia and go through Hawaii to get back to US. We will make that decision in Australia . We are still hoping to stay on track and problems would be solved.

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