Day 59 – 4th July 2009 – Kathmandu and Lhasa – Pagodas, Palaces, and Prayer flags - 4th July 2009

Hello again everyone,

We’ve travelled a fair bit since the last blog entry through Nepal, into China and now back in Nepal. This therefore is going to be a bit of a long one, so go get yourself a drink (ours are a Jack and coke and a BDC) and get settled comfortably!

We’ll continue our riveting adventure story in the now customary fashion from where we finished off last time.

We caught the Darjeeling Toy Train down from Darjeeling to Siliguri on the morning of 24th June. We had been told that it was a more enjoyable journey on the way down as it only took seven hours instead of nine!! (If we’d taken a jeep it would have taken 2!!!!) The train is an UNESCO world heritage site, and it travels down the mountain side occasionally traversing through a series of switch backs to descend the steep mountain side.

Si - I thought it was great fun and spent pretty much the whole journey with my camera and head stuck out the window. (Ev is starting to get jealous, she thinks I love the camera more than her!)

It was amazing to see the scenery change throughout the day from the cloud covered tea plantations on the mountain sides, to the hot sticky forests down on the plains. At one point the train stopped to let the oncoming train pass as there is only one track. The local monkeys had obviously clocked on to this and gathered to steal crisps from the unsuspecting passengers (as per the facebook photos!!). Only some swift window closing action stopped them from getting into our carriage.

Once we’d arrived at the train station we wasted no time in finding a taxi to take us across to the Nepal border which was about a one hour drive to the west. We stopped at the Indian immigration office on one side of the river and got stamped out of India, before getting back into the taxi, and heading over the river and into Nepal. We managed to arrive at the Nepali immigration office just in time. It was about seven in the evening, and after we’d handed over our $40 visa fee plus 100 Indian rupee administration fee/bribe, they shut the office. We of course, at this point had no Nepali rupees, and there were no banks or ATMs in the town. Fortunately they accept Indian rupees in Nepal, but we were even running low on them.

We had decided to not stay in the border town of Kakarabhitta (I think – I don’t have the lonely planet on me to confirm), but to head 25km south to the town of Bhadarapur (ditto). Bhadarapur was the closest airport to the Nepali border and we’d decided to fly over to Kathmandu instead of risking the seventeen hour bus ride through Maoist terrorist territory (plus - seventeen hours – you can’t blame us!?!)

The guy who ushered us into his friend’s taxi as we stepped out of the immigration office turned out to be very helpful. When we arrived in Bhadarapur he took us straight to the Yeti Airlines office and we managed to get us booked on the second flight the next morning. They don’t tend to stick to a nine to five here, and when the power cut out they even said I could pay for the tickets the next day at the airport! The taxi then took us to a very cheap hotel that was about 100m from the airport.

Simon - After dinner we accidentally fell asleep with the mosquito net still up and I nearly got eaten alive. I swear some of the mosquitoes in Nepal must be the size of cats because the bites you get are ridiculous. I woke up after a few hours and turned the lights on to find myself covered in bites about the size of a one pence piece and bulging out from the my skin by about three or four millimetres. Needless to say, I put the net down after that!! For a change they left Ev alone that night, it must have been all the vegetables she ate on the trek!?!?

The next day we gladly checked out as another day would have been torture, especially as a rat had eaten a hole through Simon’s bag, and caught our flight to Kathmandu. It was the smallest passenger plane I’ve ever been on, only three seats wide. Ev was really chuffed to get both a window and an aisle seat!! As we took off the airhostess (there was only one) handed round toffee sweets and cotton wool for your ears to block out the sound of the propeller engine. (The toffees were for eating obviously not putting in your ears!) Ev – I kept the cotton wool so I couldn’t hear Simon’s snoring!!!!

After that she handed out drinks and peanuts. Now, those of you that have been to Nepal and India will know that the peanut packets, like the crisp packets are not made from the standard foil we have at home. Instead they are made from a titanium coated carbon fibre composite sealed closed with laser cutters. Thus it is nigh on impossible to simply rip them apart. There is a knack however which is tear them down one side, something Ev discovered a while ago, shortly after she developed an addiction to Spanish Spicy Tomato flavoured Lays (Walkers) crisps. Unfortunately the gentleman sitting next to me wasn’t aware of this, and so whilst I sat back and enjoyed my peanuts admiring the view of Mt Everest (we think) poking its head out from the clouds, he spent a good twenty minutes wrestling with his packet of nuts. Simon - I was tempted to offer him a hand but thought it far too patronising. “Excuse me sir, would you like a hand opening you peanuts??” Nah – I think not!!

We arrived in Kathmandu and handed over our last Indian Rupees for a prepaid taxi to the Thamel district of Kathmandu. Thamel is a tourist haven, and is full of bars, restaurants selling western food, shops selling clothes, bars, tour operators, bars, and irritating men on the streets trying to sell you tiger balm. And that is pretty much where we spent the next four days!! We found a few restaurants and bars which had free wireless and so we updated Facebook with photos (I hope you’ve all had a look), and drank a lot. We did have good intentions. We kept on planning to go and visit the Durbar Sq which has lots of palaces, stupas, and the home of a four year old living goddess. Unfortunately it kept on raining so we had to take refuge in,...yeah you guessed it, BARS!! One in particular was a great Shisha bar with a live band that did a fantastic cover of “Hit me baby one more time”!?!

We did however manage to arrange the next few weeks of our trip. We arranged the trip to Tibet (at outrageous expense but well worth it!!), a white water rafting trip (I really had to twist Ev’s arm for that one. Not too much mind, she still needs to paddle!!), and a visit to the Royal Chitwan Nature Reserve where hopefully we’ll see some Rhino, Royal Bengal tigers, and bathe with some elephants.

On our fifth and final day in Kathmandu before leaving for Lhasa we did manage to get down to the Durbar Sq, and saw all the temples and stuff. Pretty cool, photo’s on facebook!!

The next day we caught our flight from Kathmandu to Lhasa. we had never been through such a palaver for a one hour flight!! Let me explain... When we arrived at the airport, we had to show our ticket to get through the door, after which our hand luggage and hold luggage was X-rayed. Once we’d queued up and checked in our hold luggage we went upstairs, through immigration, and had our hand luggage searched, and entered the departure lounge. There we waited for an hour or two (we had to be at the airport three hours before the flight), before heading through to the gate. We queued up, had our hand luggage X-rayed, got a pat down by the security staff, picked up hand luggage, and then took it over to another member of staff who then emptied the whole bag. After the security guard was satisfied we weren’t carrying any cemtex, we repacked our bags, got our boarding pass stamped and passed through another security guard who checked the stamp. We then walked down a corridor (with no doors), and into a room (with no doors, except the toilets!) to wait for the plane. When they finally called our flight we queued up, handed over our boarding passes, and,...yeah you guessed it, had a final pat down and had our hand luggage checked,...AGAIN!!

I can see their reasoning really. It’s very possible that I got Scotty to beam down some nitro-glycerine from the Enterprise after I passed through the third luggage check. You never know!!!

So, after that bit of excitement we got on the plane and flew at thirty-six thousand feet over the Himalaya to Lhasa in Tibet. A little higher than your average trans-Atlantic flight, but when crossing the highest mountain range in the world, it’s worth giving a little bit of lee-way!! We were looking forward to a tasty bit of in-flight food, as we didn’t have breakfast, and they didn’t disappoint. They served up possibly the most pathetic tuna roll ever made by man. A bit of lettuce, a slice or two of tomato, and about two grams of tuna mayonnaise in a burger bun, Mmmmm.

Once we’d landed the ever so cautious people from the People Republic of China got onto the plane clad in face masks bearing infra-red cameras and thermometers, and took a temperature reading from every single person on the plane. Forty minutes later when they finally let us off, (one guy at the front had fallen asleep as we were getting off it took so long!) we queued up again to have another temperature reading taken from an automatic machine, whilst being watched by another two infra-red cameras. Very thorough people the Chinese!!

After immigration, and collecting our bag we were pleased to find our guide waiting for us, since they won’t let you out the airport without him signing you into Tibet.

Finally, we were in Tibet. Lhasa is at 3800m and if Tibet was its own country (didn’t mention that whilst we were there!) it would be the highest capital in the world.

We spent three full days looking around palaces and monasteries which have all been pretty amazing. The most famous is the Potala Palace in the centre of Lhasa. This was the official residence of the Dalai Lama and the government of Tibet until the fifties when those oh so nice people from the People Republic of China kicked him out!! We actually had to tag along to another group as our guides friend told him when we arrived that the police were checking guide permits. Of course he didn’t have one!?!? It did us a favour actually because the guide we were then with spoke pretty good English. Our guides English was pants!!!

Food was pretty strange, one day we were in a restaurant for lunch and ordered a Hawaiian Chicken and a Teriyaki Chicken which turned out to be exactly the same except for a few slices of pineapple. Amazing considering they are meant to originate from opposite sides of the planet!! Simon - I had Yak steak for lunch one day which was pretty nice too!!

It’s a little strange being in a country where the government is as oppressive as it is here. The army have a larger presence on the streets of Lhasa than the police, and they march around in squads of about eight. Most of them look about fourteen though and really don’t look menacing at all, even when brandishing their tear gas cannons, or shot guns. We asked our guide one day about the protests by the monks last year. We were going to ask why they were protesting, but he said he couldn’t talk about it because there could be plain clothed police and army soldiers anywhere and arrest was a real possibility!!

. . . . . . . . . .FREE TIBET!!!!

On our third day we were standing in a square outside one of the numerous monasteries. We were busy trying to understand our guides pigeon English whilst he explained about the prayer flags. Suddenly we noticed a flock of about six Chinese tourist who had completely surrounded us and were busy taken copious photo’s. Well we are pretty photogenic!?!? Thankfully they saw the funny side when Ev asked for payment. Not sure if the guide got it though!!

The flight back wasn’t quite as intrusive, but we still got the same mangy roll. Luckily we were prepared with Haribo and Bourbon biscuits!!

So we’re now back in Kathmandu, safely holed up in our wireless cafe gorging on BCD, Jack Daniels, and spring rolls, Oh yeah!!

We do plan to do more sightseeing, . . . Promise!!

Until next time, (hopefully still with all our limbs intact after the white water rafting and safari)

Bye-se-bye

Simon and Ev