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‹ Previous (02/07/2009) MONTH Next (2009-08-31)› ‹ Previous (2009-07-03 - Vietnam) COUNTRY Next (2009-08-13 - Tibet)› China Xian (see on map) 03/08/2009:
After saying goodbye with sorrow for the hundredth time to our friends ( whom we will probably not see again until America), we caught a train towards Xian. The night train of economic category surprised us for its tidiness and modernity, nothing to do with all the trains with which we had travelled previously. Besides, the train was so fine that until the following day I did not realise in the morning that the train was going with a different direction than the one I had imagined. So, we arrived on Friday in the morning well relaxed to Xian, where we found another surprise. Xian is the most expensive city visited up to the moment in China, where it is impossible to find two beds in a room shared by less than 8 euros. Finally we chose a small room with 8 beds, where we met Iñigo, a Basque who also complained about the prices of the hotels of Xian and about the costs of travelling through China in general. In this sense, Iñigo told us that on some occasion he had tried to sleep in economic hotels (where the middle class Chinese goes), but the police made him go to a hotel with licence to lodge tourists. Iñigo was travelling for two years, the last months in the company of a Philippine girl. Despite having the spirit and very young aspect, Iñigo had just reached his 40 years anniversary (three more that me), declaring that the best way of preserving youth was by travelling, for the happiness that contributes and the little stress. Even so, Iñigo was also discovering that to travel also can be stressful, in his case due to some incorrect payments on his credit card that he could not return for being found far away from home. In spite of everything, he was already considering the possibility to travel for the rest of his life but the lack of funds was a things that preoccupied him and in the same way limited him. It was this passion for travelling and for photography that allowed us to connect very well, although we did not do too many activities in common for the difference of timetables that we had (I can lose the head if I ask Alexandra to wake up before 8) and the way of travelling (they preferred walking 2 km before catching a local bus of 0,1 €). So, I visited the main touristic attractions of Xian, some alone and the other ones in company of Alexandra. Anyway, before I bought myself a new wide-angle lens for my camera, because in spite of the high prices of China, the electronic products can be 20 or 50% more economic that in Europe; and also the clothes, that's why I have also bought myself two jeans, because its been already almost three years that I travel with the same trousers and they already start to break. The biggest attraction of Xian are the warriors of terracotta that we have visited today, 6000 warriors that Qin had to protect the first emperor in the life after the death, buried for more than 2000 years until they were discovered casually by some peasants that dug a well to obtain water in 1974. The warriors of terracotta are the third big attraction of China, after the big Wall and the Prohibited City, but they have failed to impress me a little, or the city has rather defrauded me of splendour in general, because formerly Xian rivalled Rome and Constantinople for the bond of the biggest and most influential city, but at present it does not remain too much of this oldness, apart from the extraordinary walls of the fourteenth century of 12 km that surround a modern city. Of the same century, the tower of the bell that marked the entry per day and the tower of the drum that marked the entry to the darkness also rise up among the modern buildings. In a Muslim neighbourhood of little older homes I visited a mosque of completely Chinese style, except for the room of prayer, which is totally surrounded with big wooden altarpieces with all the Koran engraving in Arabic. And out of the walls, we also had the occasion of visiting an interesting Taoist temple, with the faithful ones adoring in a similar way as the Buddhists the statues of gods with beards and fine and long moustaches. Lanzhou (see on map) 06/08/2009: Lanzhou is found about 7 more hours by train to the west of Xian, in a valley with a very different landscape, for its aridity, that is favoured by the altitude (1600 m) and its nearness to the plateau of Tibet. It was thanks to this difference of climate that we could observe the blue sky for the first time in China for two days continuously, although it rained. In spite of everything we do not make too much use of the good time, for apart from wasting a couple of hours looking for a hotel that had a vacant room and walking through the city looking for some decent restaurant, we did not visit anything. The main reason was the approach of the date of extinction of the visa of China and the complications that come to arrive to Nepal by crossing the Autonomous region of Tibet (like this it is called in China, although I do not think that it is too much autonomous). It is impossible to enter in Tibet if it is not with a travel agency, and the prices can be astronomical (we had offers of 1000 or 1500 euro), although these can be quite a lot of more economic if they apply to a group of 3 or 4 people. I was quite a lot of hours connected to Internet analysing offers of agencies and looking for other people to share the journey with. In the end I found a couple that were going towards Tibet in a few days with a quite economic tour, but to be able to join them, we needed before to extend the visa of China, a formality which we thought to do in Xining. Xining (see on map) 11/08/2009:
In Xining we have had a lot of luck of being hosted by Amy, a nice girl from Alaska who is working as an English teacher in the city. Amy explained to us that she was delighted with the city, for its relaxed atmosphere and for its mixture of cultures: chinese, Tibetan and Muslim. But not only that, in Xining Amy has found that it is very easy to make friends, and like this we had the occasion of checking as Amy and a friend of hers were invited to dine by some friends of a friend (but unknown) and as rebound, we were added. The boys were a Tibetan and a rich Muslim that led us to a luxurious hotel where they had reserved a dining room just for us. There they started to open beers and to serve to us some, while they asked for different "specialties" to eat: tendons of yak, skin of the face of the cow, back of antelope, fried moss... Anyway, the main problem was not the ingredients, but the quantity of chili that was in them. After the dinner, the boys took us to a discotheque, with music and very interesting occidental atmosphere, although to be inside you had to rent a table. In any case, that was not a problem, because our hosts were in charge of reserving one and of buying us all the beers that we wanted. That night was very amusing, but sincerely, although the other ones have been much calmer, have not been less interesting, conversing with Amy, with her friends and with other guests of couchsurfing. In one of these conversations, after being declared Christian, Amy appeared to become upset with the Tibetan Buddhism, for many monks live with luxury and wealth thanks to the donations of the faithful ones. In any case, Amy also admitted that all the religions are nurtured and grow thanks to the donations of the faithful ones, including any branch or Christianism. On the other hand, Amy also found some hours to walk with us through the city, among the many sport fields, parks and through the interesting markets. Parallel to the meeting with Amy, in Xining we continued with quite a lot of stress looking for the way to arrive to Nepal by crossing Tibet, so as soon as we arrived to Xining, we went to the police to extend our visas and the police denied this possibility to us because Alexandra did not have blank pages in her passport (despite having a new passport). Anyway, we had a lot of luck of meeting casually a Japanese who travelled alone and who also had haste to arrive to Nepal, for the visa of China also expired for her. The three of us went to a travel agency that offered us a good price (340€/persona, including train, guide and transport) for a tour of 9 days, which we could initiate on Wednesday once all the licences were fixed. Tibet Lhasa (see on map) 13/08/2009:
In order to reduce the price of the journey towards Tibet with about 40 € per person, the three of us decided of catching a train thicket of hard seat instead of bed. We remembered the experience of the North of Vietnam, where a hard seat of train meant a wooden seat and we feared that the journey of 24 hours to Tibet would be terrible. Even so we had a lot of luck, because more of half of the seats (quite comfortable) were empty, and Alexandra could occupy three seats in line to lay on and I two. In any case, not only we dedicated the time to finding seats, we were also admiring the landscape from the window, which was impressive. During these 24 hours, the train towards Tibet covered about 2000 km of almost completely uninhabited territory, without forests and at the beginning very arid , with different dunes of sand, that seemed to threaten of covering the line of the train. On the following day in the morning, some loudspeakers in the train were in charge of explaining to us that the last 1150 km of way of train were inaugurated in July 2006 (later than the beginning of our journey). On the other hand, due to the altitude of the line (during almost 1000 km, the line passes at a height superior to 4000 m), this has different records, as the highest crossing (5072 m) and the highest train tunnel (4905 m). Anyway, the loudspeakers were explaining that while working no one died of altitude sickness, because priority was given to health. And they also insisted that the train took happiness and wealth to the people of Tibet, an assertion difficult to contrast, although for sure the train has brought crowds of tourists, a little unlikely if Tibet had been maintained independent, which probably would have kept being a hermetic country similar to Bhutan. In any case, very possibly the region of Tibet will be enriched in the future (maybe at the expense of to lose of this the millennial culture), for the Chinese government has intention of extending the line of train up to Nepal and also up to India (to Sikim) converting Tibet into an important link of trade and communication. Once the loudspeakers informed with all this, I planted the face in the window again, observing the waves of the Tibetan set, every piece of cutlery of very low grass, for where the Yaks with the long hair grazed. Reaching Lhasa we started to see some mountains snowstorms and in front of these small groups of Tibetan homes, with the roof flat, colourful prayers waving, and big windows (strange in a country where there is so much cold). On the other hand, it was also interesting to unhook occasionally the face of the window and to observe the passengers of the train, mostly Chinese and Tibetans, which could be differentiated by their clothes and physiognomy, although it was much easier to identify the Tibetans for their faces of happiness when arriving in Lhasa, indicating us in the distance, the Potala palacethreaded on a hill. 14/08/2009:
Tibet is the first place in our entire journey that we have been obliged to hire a travel agency and to go with a guide. In any case, the first hours were excellent, the guide (called Tom) received us with white scarves that he put around our collars, and after taking us to a relatively economic hotel he guided us in taxi up to the monastery of Sera, in the North of Lhasa. As the great majority of monasteries in Tibet, the monastery of Sera has lived a great reduction of the monastic population since "the release of Tibet" with the help China, specifically, from 5000 monks that there were, they only remain some hundreds. Anyway, these still maintain a great activity, with animated debates that are done daily and which we had opportunity to witness. As we could observe, the monks are arranged in small groups of three or four in a courtyard, with one of them asking different questions that the other sitting monks have to answer gesticulating with a lot of emphasis. After the visit to the Sera monastery, we had some free hours that we dedicate to visit the alleys full of shops around the hotel. Lhasa is at a height of 3600 meters and, although in Tibet we will pass through different mountain passes of above 5000 meters, immediately we started to feel tired, snorting when we had to raise the two levels of the hotel. Anyway, calmly we could walk through the neighbourhood that was very guarded and supervised: in every corner there were cameras of surveillance, in many corners there were police installed during all the day, and parading through the alleys there were other groups of four police men: one with a weapon, another with a fire extinguisher, another with a silvery suitcase and a last one without function. On the other hand, it was not only the police that decreased the magic of being in Lhasa, but the city itself did not seem too Tibetan, with homes of different flats, many Chinese trades and even a mosque, where we could observe tens of Muslims going out with the head covered. Evidently, the Chinese policy of offering support to any Chinese who wanted to immigrate to Tibet was giving result, converting the Tibetans into a minority in their own territory. Today in the morning, we have visited the temple of Jokhang, the most sacred religious structure of Tibet, which is found in the centre of Lhasa. When arriving to the temple well early in the morning, there were already hundreds of pilgrims doing queue to enter, in any case, we have had to pay the entry of 7 € that at least it gives us the right to go straining inside. The temple was composed by a big central room where the monks seemed to meet, and crowds of chapels where the pilgrims kept circulating, in the same directions as the needles of the clock, pouring liquid grease of Yak(they maintain it hot in thermos) in the torches and offering valuable notes equivalent to 1 cent of euro to the multiple statues of Gods, Buddha’s and images of Lamas. So many Gods and different Buddha’s there were represented and so much devotion showed by the faithful ones, that inevitably I have not been able to avoid to relate the Tibetan Buddhism with the Hinduism. In fact, visiting this temple has surprised me that the Tibetan Buddhism is so followed, in spite of being forbidden during many years and even though the current religion has a spiritual leader that has its name and image forbidden in Tibet. It has given me the sensation that the people need to think and that will keep thinking independently of the political situation of their countries. On the other hand, at the top of some stairs that slid because of the grease of Yak, I have also been able to observe hundreds of books wrapped and kept in shelves and also some monks that read them with a lot of care, for the leaves of the books are not bound together, therefore, when finishing reading one they have to pile up with the ones already read, watching a lot that they do not get messed up. During the visit of the temple of Jokhang, I had to get rid of the guide Tom, because apart from talking very deficient English, he seemed more interested in showing the local girls that he was guide than to show us the marvels of Tibet. In fact, Tom seems to detest his job and continuously wants to show us the attractions to the speed of a cheetah. Even so, Alexandra has followed him a little and, observing that in the monastery there were different images of the 5o and 7o Dalai Lama, Alexandra has asked him: "there is any Dalai Lama alive at present?" he has answered with the learned Chinese lesson of all guides: "Not, there is none alive." In any case, the one who has suffered more from the deficiencies of the leader has been the Japanese Yuri (our colleague of tour), for she has decided to pay the entry of 10 € to visit the Potala inside, while we admired the former and majestic residence of the Dalai Lama outside. In less than 40 minutes, Yuri and the leader were already waiting for us in the other tip of the Potala, having visited the palace much more fleetingly than the 50 minutes that the Chinese government has assigned for each visit. In any case, the main problem we had was not with the guide, but with the agency of Lhasa, then they wanted us to do to pay about 40 € more because we had the intention of going out of Lhasa tomorrow, a day before planned. In any case, we had to go out a day before to reach Shigatse in time; the place where we could extend our visa for four days more, to be able to enjoy all the tour. In any case, it was not completely sure of us being able to extend the visa, because Alexandra did not have more blank pages in the passport. So, in the end we decided to pay the 40 € in exchange for the agency committing itself in writing a letter that says they commit to return us 180 € if we could not extend the visa and we saw ourselves obliged to reducing the tour with three days. Shigatse (see on map) 17/08/2009:
On Saturday we got out well early from Lhasa, with a 4x4 that should take us up to the border of Nepal in six days. Anyway, the first stop we did was very soon, in the monastery of Deprung, on the outskirts of Lhasa, another monastery similar to Sera, but that got to have the greatest quantity of monks of the Tibetan Buddhism: 10.000 before the invasion China in 1951, remaining at present only 800. The greatness of the monastery and the great quantity of small chapels and labyrinthine temples, required a calm visit, that's why I already started to become annoyed when the guide showed signs of displeasure when I stayed behind while he was advancing with Alexandra. After half an hour of thrilling visit, Tom called on my mobile telephone to ask me where i was and to press me of being faster. I screamed at him that I don’t want him to call me and that he lets me visit the monastery calmly. But after another hour he made Alexandra call so that he told me that there was a limitation of time in the visit. This lie annoyed me enormously and when I finished the visit (some parts of temple i had to leave behind) I was determined to ask for a change of attitude from the guide(or of trying to change the guide). Yuri,was annoyed with him for the visit of the Potala was also ready to change him, and Alexandra not so much, for she was annoyed with me because I had screamed to her on the phone when i should have screamed to him. So, well turned on by having a guide that did not let me to enjoy Tibet enough, i directed myself to him (he was eating in a restaurant with the driver) and I started to say that i was very annoyed with him, but before i could say more, he got up and told to me that he also was very annoyed with me, and that he did not want to be our guide if we did not abide by his demands. In that moment I turned and without saying anything else, i sat under the shadow of a tree, completely annoyed and I called the agency of Xining explaining that it was impossible to continue with the same guide and that if we kept being with him six more days, some very severe problem could happen to them. The Agency of Xining told me that they would talk with the agency of Lhasa and that they would call me again; their efficiency surprised me, because after 20 minutes I received a call from Xining telling us that we could turn back to Lhasa where was waiting for us a new guide. Tom did not say anything, when the manager introduced the new introverted guide, they commented: "This is the new leader, examine him". But after proving that he talked better English than Tom I commented, "it is not necessary to examine him, by the face it is already seen that the person is good and that we will not have problems with him". The new leader was called Toto (in fact he had another Tibetan name, but this was easier to remember), and later, during the journey in the mountains to the outskirts of Lhasa, he told us that he was 30 years old and that since the age of 8 till 24 he had been living in a Tibetan monastery, having no relatives nor family. Without explaining why he gave up the life of monk, he explained to us that at present he is a professor of Tibetan, because there are many people in Tibet who do not know how to read or to write their language, and because many schools of Tibet do not teach this language either. On the other hand, even if Toto is not married, he seems that this is one of his goals, because during all the journey he did not stop flirting with all the girls of the restaurants and hotels. One of the first signs that convinced us of the good success when changing guide, was when we arrive to the collar of Kamba-(4794 m), from where the lake of Yamdrok-tso could be observed, he commented: "If we stop here they will charge you 4 € for person, it is better to stop further on". We cheered up for this proposal, for in the morning, the previous guide, Tom, had insisted that we should pay 4 € to observe the lake of Yamdrok. In any case, the guide asked the driver to stop after half a kilometre, where we could go out to make photos and to admire the incredible turquoise of the waters of the lake. The lake of Yamdrok is one of the four sacred lakes of Tibet, where vindictive deities live, although these do not seem to still have taken revenge on the Chinese, which have had the boldness of perforating the mountain to steal water to generate electricity (the biggest headquarters of Tibet). After stopping different times to take photos of different perspectives of the photogenic lake, the road started to go up to the collar of Karo- (5045 m), where we got out to take photos of a huge glacier from where there were born crowds of cascades that were reviving the valley. And finally, after crossing a big plain of more than 4000 m in altitude and an artificial lake, we arrived to the city of Gyantse, dominated by a former fortress or dzong located on a rocky hill. In any case, the main attraction of Gyantse, which we visited the following day, is the monastery of Pelkor Chode, with a big room of assemblies, around which there were numerous chapels richly adorned with paints, statues and libraries. And much more incredible it was still the building on the side named Kumbum, of circular structure and of six levels that were becoming smaller with the height, which had in its interior up to 70 chapels, each adorned with different statues representing a minimum part of the infinity of gods and Buddha’s of the Tibetan religion. When finishing the visit, our guide Toto suggested us to start to do path towards Shigatse, where we could extend our visa, in spite of all, we managed to pull half an hour of spare time that we dedicated to the old Tibetan neighbourhood next to the monastery, with a main street with the cows staked in the doorways, and some houses with plane roofs where they waved prayers of colours and where piled up slabs of shit of cow that they must act as fuel in the winter. Later, Toto explained to me that the flat roofs of the Tibetan homes are isolated from the water of the rain thanks to the use of ash in their construction. Before reaching Shigatse, Toto made the driver stop in a water mill that had an unknown grain, and we later stopped in a muddy village, where there was the monastery of Shalu, famous for the mythical flying monks. But instead of that we are with a monastery in works that we could not visit, although instead of that, we were invited to take tea, a tea with milk much greasier than the previous ones taken (in Tibet it is typical to put grease of Yak in the tea), by some very nice monks. The midday passed we reached Shigatse, the second biggest city of Tibet, that contains the big monastery of Tashihulpo, with many buildings of Chinese style, which lodged the Pachen Lama, the second Lama in importance (after the Dalai Lama) and traditionally well related to the Chinese government. Being Sunday and impossible to extend our visas, we had the free afternoon, that I dedicated to walk the Kora that gave all the turn to the monastery through the mountain, a path full of grinders of prayers, fanions and skulls of Yak recorded with prayers. In spite of the rain that threatened at all times, the road was circulated clockwise by different Tibetan pilgrims that recited their prayers and turned the small round prayers. While i walked the Kora, I thought that it is curious that during the Chinese cultural revolution crowd of temples and monasteries in Tibet were destroyed and, the Chinese government is however since some years ago reconstructing many of the destructions, leaving them as if they had never suffered any damage, to promote the tourism. For example, in Shigatse, the Chinese have just reconstructed a palace or dzong that had remained popular in ruins during the revolt of 1959, the same year of the escape to India of the 14th Dalai Lama, nine years after "the release" of Tibet in the hands of the Chinese army. Our guide appeared a little sceptical or burlesque with the new building, qualifying it as Chinese and not mentioning its past as dzong. Anyway, the reconstruction of temples and monasteries was not initiated to favour the tourism, after the death of Mao and of the Chinese cultural revolution (which deplored any religious demonstration), the Chinese government realised, for to have the people happy it had to provide the "opium", that they could not keep suppressing the religion. So, since the eighties, many monasteries re-opened, many religious artefacts were returned from China and many others were built again to make up for the destroyed ones. And in a certain way, it has been this fast reconstruction, the one that allows us visiting Tibet as if nothing bad had happened, although the scars must still be present behind the re-painted walls. Today in the morning, Alexandra was well nervous, for she feared that they could not extend the visa for lack of pages, anyway, our guide Toto was very insistent and persuasive with the police, and towards noon he commented us smiling that they would extend the visa to both of us, in the case of Alexandra using her new passport. Anyway, we have to wait till the afternoon to collect the passport and inevitably to spend another night in Shigatse. On the other hand, until today, our Japanese colleague of journey had not spoken almost anything on her life, and has not been until she has shown her passport to the police that we have realised that she was an authentic traveller who had visited many countries, opening opportunities for new conversations. While we expected them to extend the visa for us, I have decided to go up to the summit of a mountain behind the temple of Tashihulpo where they waved many colourful flags of prayers. Good, in fact, once I have finished the costly ascent, I have surprised myself of the tons of fanions that there were waving and that were piled up to the ground forming comfortable mattresses. In fact, I have had a great luck that there were fanions everywhere, because half the way down a very urgent necessity has com and as i finished I have been able to clean my bottom with a couple of prayers. I have probably committed the most heretic heresy, in any case the Tibetan Buddhists could also be happy that their fanions have a practical application, apart from the spiritual undemonstrable one. Nepal Border (see on map) 20/08/2009:
Having extended our visa and happy to be able to enjoy three more days in Tibet, on Tuesday in the morning we left Shigatse, going through a big valley towards the pass of Tropu-(4950 m) and stopping later in the small people of Sakya, which preserved the purest Tibetan soul of all the visited villages. Sectioned from the main road and settled in a fertile valley, Sakya had an extraordinary monastery surrounded by some very high and long walls of square structure. In any case, we left of side the monastery of Sakya to visit the old Tibetan neighbourhood on the other side of the river that, with the houses painted in black and with occasional red strips and white verticals, a small monastery of red colour was raises, some stupas in white and the ruins of another big monastery were rising on a dusty pending. Walking through the wild mountain to a medium-sized monastery that was observed to the right, we passed different Tibetans, the majority with the face very red, like us, due to the little protection of the atmosphere against the solar light. On the other hand, the Tibetan women in general wear a big thread of wool or silk rolled up around the head, dressing with dark colours and an apron or mantle of colourful strips in front. Right before arriving to the medium monastery of the mountain, we ran into a family that nicely offered us to sit with them despite not speaking a word in a common language. Afterwards, they followed the pilgrimage towards the monastery, while the man suggested to me to follow him. The man made me to turn round the monastery in the direction of the needles of the clock, while i imitated his rituals, rubbing different parts of the body in different stones. When finishing the tour, I found Alexandra at the entry of the monastery, and she warned me that the monastery was of women and that it refrained from making photos. I followed the man in the monastery, who kept pouring grease of Yak in the torches and leaving some notes of 0,1Y in some statues, while he did cute comments to the nuns, who laughed timidly. Afterwards, a nun made me sit by her side, while the man exclaimed alarmed that I got up immediately. But the nuns, young girls with the shaved head and covered with red tunics, told him that there was not any problem. Then, while I remained alone with them, they tried to give me conversation, although the language did not help much. Finally they suggested to me making them photos, while they sang and touched different instruments, and I said goodbye to them and they wrote the telephone of the monastery to me on a paper. In Sakya we pass the night in a room of hotel for pilgrims, with very dirty sheets, that besides it did not have shower (incredibly, no hotel of the following three days had showers) and had some terrible toilets (similar to all China, but worse). The day after, despite having slept 8 hours I woke up more exhausted than the previous days, even so we got on the road towards Tingri. On the way we stopped in the collar of Gyatso- (5220 m) where it did so much cold, that immediately we convinced ourselves of the good decision of not going to Mount Everest Base Camp (of the same altitude). In fact, it did days that we had taken the decision of not going, saving ourselves to pay 40 € for person, a price that did not offer accountability of being able to observe the Everest (July and August are the rainiest months in Tibet) to a distance of 30 km (inexplicably, the base camp is not found in the base of the Everest, but at about 25 km of its base). During the stop in the collar of Gyatso- I could not avoid the cold penetrating me till the bones and during the path up to Tingri i noticed how my body shook while the fever kept rising. Right before entering in the village of Tingri we could observe the spectacular range of the Himalaya deep down, with the Everest raising to the left. So pretty was the scene that I proposed of curing myself the same day, and after passing three hours sweating in the bed of the hotel and taking a paracetamol, I woke up with sufficient energies to go with Alex up to the hill behind the village of Tingri to observe again the succession of snow topped mountains , the highest in the world. And in front of these mountains it did not stop surprising the immense plain that was extended for hundreds of kilometres in all directions at an altitude of 4500 meters. The day after, observing again in the morning the fantastic sight of the Himalaya, we have started to do path towards the border with Nepal, always flanked by cables of electricity or telephone parallel to the road, which normally spoiled the best photos. On the other hand, as we approached Nepal and we crossed the collars of La Lung- (5124 m) and Tong- (5120 m) we started to observe many ruins, of some old Nepalese invasions of the 1788 and 1891, that were repelled by a Chinese army assisted by Tibetan troops. In any case, lowering through the valley of the river Sun Kosi was difficult to imagine how the Nepalese army could raise the deep and abrupt valley, for this was too narrow. The green valley concealed by fog and clouds offered a landscape completely different to the rest of Tibet, but not less spectacular. On the other hand, I also found it strange that the border was situated in the middle of the valley, without any geographical signs of importance, apart from a small cascade offering a dividing line. On the border there were some villages without any type of appeal, where we had to spend the night, since we arrived late due to some works in the road. It was our last night in Tibet filled by the pretty memories of this country, even though our look had the sight put on Nepal, on our car and in the turn towards Europe. Nepal Kathmandu (see on map) 29/08/2009:
We woke up early, but the majority of tourists were already awake and on the border between China and Nepal we had to wait more than three hours, first that they opened the border and that afterwards the Chinese policemen diligently opened absolutely all the backpacks and suitcases of the foreign tourists and leafing through all their books in search of illegal material (for example, photographs of the Dalai Lama). After the formalities in the tidy Chinese building, we went to the Nepalese hut, where after taking the passports sealed they also took our temperature with the thermometers to legalise our presence. We had been informed that the road from the border to Kathmandu, despite having less than 200 kilometres, is in quite bad condition and that the journey in bus could last about 8 hours. Anyway, the problem that we found was the absence of buses or of information on these. For luck, little after asking about the bus to Kathmandu, we found a group of Israelis (some of them of Romanian origin), that they let us share their private bus. Without thinking that now we could be the target of some Islamic radical attack, we shared the nice journey conversing on politics and travels. In spite of everything, and although nice, the journey was very long, at the beginning because of the terrible state of the road, without signs of being improving in the future; and afterwards for the impatience of the drivers of other lorries, cars and buses that generated numerous jams before entering the city and once inside. This arrival to Kathmandu made us realise that Nepal has not changed at all, with the same chaos of people, motorcycles and cars, the same problems of traffic and the same roads in works (as if the workers had been 5 months in strike), strolling everywhere. On the other hand, as we arrived to the hotel where we had been accommodated the previous time, also we found that there was no electricity (it was just a small power cut). What seemed to be a little different, was the minor presence of tourists in comparison to the previous times, basically because it was the period of the monsoon (it was raining almost every day). In any case, that did not deprive us of listening in the hotel and in the street to many Spanish, typical of our region, where all the people take holidays in August. We had arrived to Kathmandu a Friday at night, and in the face of the impossibility of being able to go to collect our autocaravan during the weekend, we decided to go to Thamel (the touristic neighbourhood) asking for the best prices of different products with the intention of reselling once arrived back to Europe. Anyway, on Monday we could go to collect the autocaravan, which was found in the same state that we left it, although with more dust. From the workshop, we drove among the terrible traffic, up to the camping area near Thamel, where we had parked previous times and where we prepared ourselves to pass a busy week shopping different kgs of clothes and some hundreds of grams in jewellery http://www.globetour.org/products. Apart from doing all the desired purchases, at the beginning of the week I also managed to get in touch with the friend of our friends, who had already become our friend, Jay. We met with him and his family a Wednesday in the afternoon, surprising us by the change of his three children during the five past months: Maria of five years had become more timid although she already spoke English, Asmita followed just as naughty but she was also passing different minutes drawing Nepalese characters in a notebook for the school, and David already started to walk crying at the smallest things if he did not have everything as he wanted. Knowing the Nepalese tradition, we bought two beers (1,5 € each), although also Jay had bought two, to accompany one delicious dinner that Jay cooked (one of the most delicious foods in weeks). While we dined, Jay explained us worried that he did not have any trekking hired for September (when it starts the touristic season), that's why he was looking for another agency for which to work. Anyway, also there was a sort of introduction to the idea about going to work in Europe or maybe Dubai, to be able to keep paying the education and maintenance of his children, starting to ponder for the future, for when he could not work anymore. In any case, we cheered him up at the evening party with three big bags full of gifts, basically things that we had not used during the journey or that we would not use again, other useless utensils that were occupying a valuable space where we intend now to put all the products that we are buying. ‹ Previous (02/07/2009) MONTH Next (2009-08-31)› ‹ Previous (2009-07-03 - Vietnam) COUNTRY Next (2009-08-13 - Tibet)› |
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