The t-shirt logo had slightly changed from my red one bought in Tibet
Further down
the humid picturesque scary road valley, Nepal was 2 hours 15 minutes behind
the official time in China, which we had left on the other side of the
Friendship Bridge.
It had taken
a few hours to actually get out of China with all the checks. All our bags & truck were checked to make
sure we had nothing along the lines of “Free Tibet”. Various Lonely Planet books were taken because
they had Tibet maps in.
Nepal was
very different.
We sat on
the bridge which was No Man’s Land eating sandwiches, waiting for the vehicle
gate on the Nepal side to open. It was
only our truck on the bridge. All the
other hundreds of people were squeezing through the passenger gate balancing
washing machine size bags/boxes/sacks/barrels on their heads/back with rope
around their foreheads.
The gate was
opened on the other side of The Friendship Bridge by someone who appeared to be
a lorry driver just wanting to get his lorry through. As he drove through, we decided to drive in. No one stopped us. Men & women wearing blue camouflage
uniform & rifles just looked, but carried on eating & using their
mobiles. (This is how I managed to take
a photo out the truck window whilst crossing The Friendship Bridge).
We found
ourselves in a very busy village on a mud road still within site of the gates
looking for somewhere to show our passports.
We found an immigration office so popped inside. All we had to do was fill out a visa
application form, approach a very busy wooden desk, give form + $40 + passport
+ photo to the 3 men wearing various clothes including t-shirts behind the
desk. Between them they handwrote all
our visas, stuck them in our passports & directed us to another room. In there a man wearing a suit signed the
sticker & said “Welcome to Nepal”. No
bags looked at, yet alone put through an x-ray machine as there were none. The truck not even looked at. I celebrated the most chilled-out border
crossing yet with a local bottle of beer called Everest. Off we drove.
It was so hot,
humid & wet. Yaks had been replaced
by water buffalo. The valley road was
not surfaced & at times a mud slick.
It was very narrow. So much so
that in the UK it would be a single track road especially with the sheer drop
into the raging river below. In Nepal it
was a main trade road into China. Very
busy with lorries that squeezed past each other. There were many times during the 15km drive
(which took us about 2 hours as the road was that bad), where we all held our
breath, shut our eyes & hopped for the best!
The main road into China
We were
heading to The Last Resort. I thought it
was named as being the last resort in Nepal before China. Now thinking about the road, it might have
been the last resort in life. To enter
the jungle venue we had to cross a 160m high foot bridge. I had heard about The Last Resort back home
as this is one of the top places in the world to get an adrenalin rush.
Friday 19th
July 2013
Did it
Got the T-shirt
A good shot of Alex
I'm just about to swing
Got the T-shirt
Sat 20th did Canyoning
Got the T-shirt
Our accommodation in the jungle at The Last Resort
On Sunday 21st
July we crossed the footbridge back to the truck & drove for over 4 hours from
rural Nepal into urban Kathmandu. On the
way stopping at a roadside café & having the first of many truck lunches of
Dal Bhatt.
Passing a local bus
Lovely jungle views
The sights,
sounds, smells, atmosphere, persona of this city has been the biggest culture
shock so far for me on this 6 month journey.
The temperature
was about 30 degrees & it was so humid I was constantly sweating. It is a capital city with very high density
grubby/dirty/old/falling down buildings suffering power-cuts most of the day,
where thousands of people walking/in rickshaws/on cycles/on motorbikes/in mini
taxi cars/crammed in buses wearing grubby clothes avoid collisions by
centimetres along narrow/un-surfaced/muddy/smelly main roads with open sewers,
flooding in streets up to your shins due to inadequate drains, plies of rubbish
where dogs/goats/pigs/cows/water buffalo roam finding their food & darkness
at night due to no street lights. There
did not appear to be any rules & everyone fended for themselves. A negative description enjoyed by some of us
& endured by most. I was glad to see
it, but glad I was not staying. This
city’s infrastructure was poor, but the city had many good points & I’d go
back.
We stayed at
Hotel Garuda in the tourist district called Thamel for 9 nights. This was due to the long Indian visa
application process requiring 3 half day visits! We added to city chaos on our arrival because
we were lost. The truck could only just
fit in the narrow streets we found ourselves stuck in. Phil had to stand on the roof lifting all the
wires strewn across the streets from building to building as we very slowly
moved trying to avoid crushing shop displays/stalls & hoping mini taxis
would reverse & motorbikes/rickshaws would turn around. In the UK we would be in trouble. Here shop keepers had a captive audience
& were trying to sell items through the truck windows whilst pedestrians
were staring & laughing at us.
When we
eventually found the hotel on foot in the maze of narrow streets, it turned out
to be above a burger joint & infamous.
It is mentioned on page 31 in the book “Into Thin Air”. There was a display on the hotel walls. This book concerns a 1996 expedition where
climbers died, which added to Everest’s largest death toll in one single day. The expedition members stayed at this hotel
before they set off. In the early 90’s
the expedition organizer who died & his wife who survived often stayed at
the hotel & advertised their New Zealand expedition company in this hotel
with posters. Those posters are still on
the wall.
We found a
lovely cheap restaurant serving curries that did a fab garlic naan two doors
along from the hotel. This had
rules. Take off your shoes & sit on
the floor. It was interesting peering
over the window ledge into the narrow street below people watching. So much so I ate there 4 times.
Walking tour
number 1 out the Lonely Planet Guide gave an idea how many Hindu & Buddhist
religious monuments & buildings are crammed into the streets.
It was great
& very refreshing to sit on the many roof-top cafes drinking beer as it was
about 30 degrees & very humid.
On Tuesday
23rd July I got my hair cut followed by a surprise back/shoulder/neck/arm/head
massage whilst still sat in the chair.
Worrying, especially when he pulled each finger to make them crack, clasped
his fingers together & knocked me hard over the head numerous times,
twisted my neck so it clicked! In all it
took about an hour & cost me about £4 = much better than Supercuts.
Saw the
monkey temple, Patan Square, Durbar Square.
Took a mini taxi & rickshaw for the experience. Went shopping & bought The North Fake
quick drying shirts, ¾ length trousers & dry bags useful for south east
Asia from the hundreds of fake trekking gear shops.
On Saturday
27th July went Canyoning again.
On Monday 29th
July I decided to post many of my items home – camping gear, warm clothes, heavy
cotton clothes, souvenirs & excess items from the past 3 & a half
months. I & seven others used a
courier at the bottom of the hotel called Fastway Export & Cargo. An hour & a half to pack it all, 18kg, 21,200.00
Nepalese Rupees (£150), 20 emails from seven separate people, 5 phone calls
from various people & 1 visit by Odyssey’s agent later, I & the seven others have no idea
where our boxes are! Something dodgy has
gone on so that he has not provided tracking numbers. I’ll be really upset if I’ve lost all my
gear. If you end up in Kathmandu wanting
to send stuff home, don’t use this guy or any of the other couriers. Get in a rickshaw & go straight to the
DHL or TNT office as listed in the Lonely Planet. We have discovered you get the chance to
insure it & get a tracking number before you leave the office. All boxes sent by them have already arrived
at their destinations!
Tuesday 30th
July we left Kathmandu heading towards Chitwan National Park home to elephants,
rhinos & tigers. It took us 10 hours
to drive there due to getting lost leaving the Kathmandu car park. After 2 hours of what we thought was driving
out of Kathmandu we ended up on a road next to the airport which was about half
an hours walk from the hotel! We drove
straight into another traffic jam that appeared to be caused by Hindu or Maoist
protestors. After 3 hours we made it out
the city behind slow moving tractors, lorries, tuk-tuks on the narrow roads.
Chitwan was
fab, but only got to the edge of the national park, not deep into the jungle
& only there 1 full day.
Arriving in Chitwan the traffic was slow
Wed 31st July elephant safari
Elephant bath & shower
Dug out canoes=very unstable!
Water buffalos with birds on their backs
No canoe required when you have one of these
Jungle trek
Rhino
Thursday 1st
August we drove 6 hours to a town called Janakpur near the Indian border. On the way through villages there were many
queues of stationary lorries. We were
flagged down to stop, but when we in the back were noticed, we were waved
on. We were lucky. It appeared to be a Maoist protest to stop
freight.
The only way to move freight today
The town of
Janakpur WAS my infrastructure description of Kathmandu & not much else. It appeared to be the poorest town of our 6
month journey so far. Our hotel looked
like the best hotel in town. I felt very
wealthy here.
Our usual audience, this time on arrival in Janakpur
If Nepal had an airline!
The town had
many man made ponds with steps leading into the water which I had not seen
before. People were swimming, washing
themselves & washing their clothes.
This town also had Nepal’s only working railway. Warren suggested we take a ride so Warren,
Andy, Spike, Dave, Bruce, Hayden & I headed to the station, bought a ticket
2 stops along the narrow gauge track & climbed on board! The ticket cost 30p. The second stop was called Baidehee 10.6km
& 1 hour by train away. 3 hours
after setting off it would cross the border into India. It did not look like any of the passengers
had passports to me. It was not the
Eurostar!
I could not squeeze in any of the carriages
I got in the cargo trailer at the back & yes, that is a ticket inspector!
We began to
realize there would be no buses or taxis back to Janakpur so we climbed off at
the first station & walked back along the track. It took 2 hours to walk back the 6.7km we had
travelled in the boiling heat, but well worth it to walk past the locals
cycling along the track & past those walking their goats & water
buffalos. Those that could speak English
genuinely thought we had walked along the track from India & were saying
“Welcome to my country” in the conversations we had.
Baidehee international train station
Back at Janakpur train station
On the
Friday evening I had the hottest mutton curry yet. I was looking forward to tomorrow where we
would be moving towards the Indian Himalayas to do hiking, have a ride on the Darjeeling tea train & sit on a
tea plantation drinking tea & admiring the view. This was the highlight of my trip. So much so that I had wanted to get into
Tibet, not just to see Tibet but so I could get into Nepal & do hiking on
the Annapurna Circuit & foothills of Everest on the Nepalese side. That highlight had not been for filled, it
would be in Sikkim & Darjeeling.
On getting
back into the hotel from eating the hottest curry there was a note on the
reception wall from Teresa & Simon saying we would be staying for a third
night! There was a meeting tomorrow at
9am to find out why.
Yvonne had
received a phone call from Teresa earlier & already knew the reason – we
could not go to the Sikkim & Darjeeling area due to riots/deaths &
tourists stuck in hotels without food or water.
The riots had occurred because these areas of India want to be independent
& 1st August is a significant date. I knew none of this. Yvonne checked out the FCO website that was
now saying DO NOT travel to this area.
If we did, our insurance would now be invalid.
In some
respects it was the 1st major hick-up along this 6 month expedition. However, I was devastated to be missing out
on my highlight of this 6 month journey.
I was not the only one. Questions
were asked at the 9am meeting. Surely a
company driving a bright westernized blue & orange truck containing 22 tourists
was monitoring the FCO travel info reports?
How come Teresa only found out about the troubles when phoning the hotel
to confirm the booking in that region on Friday when we would be staying on Sunday,
especially when the FCO had 1st issued a warning on Tuesday?
The
administration of Odyssey Overland became a topic for many once again. Before the expedition began important
supporting visa documents had been sent on email from an iPhone. Some documents had not been received. Some documents had been mixed. At the start of this expedition we all
discovered the visa documents were sent from the running South America journey probably
using free Wi-Fi. Now the FCO warning
had been missed the group were concerned Odyssey Overland does not appear to
have a UK admin office.
On Sat 3rd
August not many of us were in the mood/patient enough to venture out into the
streets to politely say “No thank you” a thousand times to
rickshaw/tuk-tuk/taxi offers or people trying to flog stuff in your face or say
“sorry” to beggars or put up with the constant herds of locals staring at us on
the hot smelly streets. Most stayed in
the hotel enjoying the air-con watching films or searching the web for an
interesting India itinerary. Were there
any India highlights between here & Kolkata? I was concerned we were only going to see the
Janakpurs of India.
As the day
progressed the group became more & more angry with reasons why our journey
to Kolkata did not appear to be flexible as stated on the Odyssey website. We could not leave the truck in Delhi & fly
to Bangkok as flights had already been bought from Kolkata & the truck was
to be collected from Kolkata for the winter return expedition back to Istanbul.
The truck could not make it to the Taj Mahal & then drive to Kolkata
because it was too far. We could not
stay longer in Nepal making the most of the 30 day visa & actually visit
Pokhara for the Annapurna Circuit or make it further into Chitwan or venture
over to the Everest foothills to enter India later after the riots as 2 of the
group were only issued 1 month visas for India due to sporadic guidance in
filling out the Indian visa application form.
Discussions
began about how the itinerary was poor after leaving Tibet because it had not
made use of our short time in Nepal as we were ‘stuck’ in Kathmandu for 9
days. People made plans to break away
from the truck so they could actually enjoy India especially when the visa cost
£90, rather than just drive through seeing ‘Janakpurs’.
I needed a
cup of tea to drown my sorrows (not Darjeeling that would have been too
painful). I popped out to the market
stall type shops to buy tea bags as I had accosted the truck kettle to use in
hotel rooms. No one had a clue what a
tea bag was. They did not appear to even
sell loose tea. I met a lad serving in a
café who spoke really good English. He
wrote down the name of a shop selling tea bags that would not be opening until
6pm. After an hour of chatting to him
I’d warned him about people on the web trying to get money out of him by saying
they could get working visas. I helped
him email Travelodge back home enquiring about a job in the UK. I wanted to help someone escape from this
place! He gave me a Lassi drink for the
favour.
On Sunday 4th
August we left Nepal & entered India.
The border gate into India from Nepal
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