Sa-bai-dee Laos

 Our first sleeper bus was taking us from Kunming in China across the border into Laos to Luang Prabang, it had 2 aisles and 3 lines of slim line bunk beds, complete with little Snoopy (well, Snopy) duvet and pillow sets. Travelling through the last of China we passed mile on mile of poly tunnels, at one point there was nothing else as far as my spectacled eyes could see, when China do something they do it on a grand scale! I didn’t even try to sleep until well into the night, even after dark the views were enjoyable and I could still make out the hills and see low lying cloud covering the bottoms of the valleys. We crossed the border in the morning and were immediately greeted by two enormous butterflies fluttering around a nearby bush; they looked the size of a small garden bird, one plain black and the other black with a yellow tip on its bum. Welcome to Laos!

Once in Laos it was as if China had never happened, the people disappeared, the cultivation relaxed, the roads became bendy and eventually more potholed and I felt like we were back in Nepal again. The road continued to worsen and the drive got slower as we hit more landslides, more mud and bigger potholes. The landscape outside was now wild in comparison to China, the forests were thick and hiding all sorts of secrets right in front of us. Driving through it my lasting memory is of the whispy dainty little leaves from various types of bamboo trees hanging out over the road, they’re so elegant and pretty, these are the details that remind me what part of the world I am in as I gaze at any mountains in sight and compare them to Scotland’s.

Our first stop was the city of Luang Prabang, hard to believe with a population of only 50,000 that this quiet little place could be classed as a city. Such a lovely place to wander around, the main street is home to temples, a monastery, a stoopa, a market, a night market and various other beautiful sights. At the end of it we join the river Nam Kan just as it meets the Mekong river. We took a couple of tours up the river on a wee local boat, the first being to a waterfall, the Kuang Si Falls. We got a few hours cruising on the Mekong River, then a 20 minute ride in the back of someone’s pickup up to the falls, its then a short walk to reach the bottom and the pools that you are welcome to swim in or use the tree swing. The main waterfall itself is a gorgeous tropical sight, it looks like it’s come right out of a Disney film set as it cascades down over the rocks. We climbed the hill to the side of the falls, a steep climb of 20-30 minutes up the muddy hillside, not ideal in flipflops. Once you reach the top though you are rewarded by the opportunity to walk across the top of the falls, about 1-2 metres from the edge of the drop. This was the most exhilarating experience, we waded knee deep or deeper through the river, near the edge I could hold on to the bamboo fence for support against the current and the slippery rocks. At some point I could look right over and see the pool below, at other times only the other side of the valley was visible, but the whole time I was thanking my lucky stars that I have the opportunity to be in a country where the health and safety rules are relaxed enough to allow this little adventure to take place. Even going down the other side was exciting, the path was very steep and at times the best way down involved holding on to some creepers or branches, I’m sure Tarzan wasn’t far away! Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better we then had to go down some wooden stairs that were built in to the side of the waterfall and get soaked all over again! The best waterfall to visit, I had a great day, and still had a further couple of hours cruise on the river left to get home.

The next outing was to some caves near the town, the Pak Ou caves were once home to monks as well as places of worship although now they exist only as shrines to their much loved Buddha. There are two caves which are thought to contain over 2500 Buddha’s, many different kinds and sizes of Buddha’s hiding in the nooks and crannies of the rocks or taking pride of place around the centred large Buddha. You need a torch to enter one of the caves as its deep and pitch black with some Buddha’s hiding in the corners! It’s another interesting place to visit and another excellent excuse to take a few hours cruise on the Mekong.

Up and down the river there’s evidence of how much it is used in local life. There are people fishing from it and all along the edge there are bottles floating marking where a fisherman has some nets down. At other points we passed people sawing wood, loading boats with logs, transporting other goods or just parking up their canoes to go to work. All the boats are fairly basic, long thin canoes with a tiny motor attached or longer larger boats that carry passengers. The bigger boats, ones which might carry goods a greater distance have a house on board and washing hanging out to dry. The most interesting boat for me was the fuel station, moored at the side of the river this boat has one side fairly open and two pumps within, we pulled alongside and the boy jumped aboard to fill us up! When another boat pulled up alongside us he made sure that its occupant extinguished his cigarette before coming too close which was a relief to all of us, some rules really need to be applied!

The final point of interest for us was the march of the monks. This takes place every morning around sunrise every day; the monks walk up the street in single file and get their food from the locals who take a space at the side of the pavement to offer the monks some rice and some bananas. The march here is the longest of its kind in the world. The monks here wear bright orange clothing and so it cuts a fine picture to watch them making their way up the main street, some with umbrellas up against the morning drizzle. We kept a fair distance from them, I feel they are due respect however I was disappointed (though sadly not surprised) to see how many tourists didn’t seem to mind getting in their faces and even flashing cameras right up close, you can see they are shy people and some look uncomfortable at being the object of so much attention.

The nest stop in Laos is Vang Vieng, a town which has placed itself well and truly on the backpacker circuit as it is home to the craze of tubing. This would involve a lorry tyre inner tube and several bars to stop at along the way. First stop we rented out tubes for the day, then get a tuctuc up to the starting point of an organic farm just outside the town. The first bar offered us a free shot of whisky and a wee friendship bracelet and this seemed to be the norm for most of the bars. The drinks on offer are buckets of cocktails which are pretty cheap when they use their local whisky. In these unusual pub circumstances we would be jumping in a river at every opportunity and so a new game was developed for our entertainment that day, we’ve named it Cocktail Bucket Blowback and basically one person fills their straw with the cocktail and then fires it across the at anyone with their mouth open! Naturally most of this is sprayed across the other person’s face but if some lands in their mouth it’s considered a success! Throughout the bars we had swings to play on and a slingshot game and twister and various other games intended to keep you at the current bar but we kept moving on, aware that there are over a dozen bars to get through. In between times it’s a lovely gentle ride down the river floating in our inner tube and then as you approach a bar they throw a bottle on a rope out to pull you in with. It was a really great day, we had so much fun and despite a few cuts and bruises no one was badly damaged in any way, which came as a great relief as the tubing has a terrible reputation for being very dangerous. I think the worst thing to happen was when I half disappeared through a floorboard!! The bars are wooden decking and some parts may be a little rotten, it was the funniest thing to be walking along and then one leg disappears down a hole! Big bruise to show for it but no real harm done!

The rest of Laos was a bit of a blur for me. We had a day of recovery from the tubing and then took a couple of buses to a place called Savannakhet which we stayed in on the way to the border of Vietnam. I don’t know what my sickness was but I slept for the best part of two days and therefore missed the latter part of the country. I’ve really enjoyed Laos and I love how wild the countryside is, it’s so thick with trees and bushes and really rustic looking, it’s such a pleasure to drive through it and daydream into the hills and forests, and so quiet you feel like you’re really getting into the country when you drive through. The food's been nice too, I had one of the nicest curries yet here in Laos and while it said it was local it tasted like a Thai dish, really tasty coco-nutty flavour, yum! Next stop, Vietnam!!

China, the Sequel

The main attraction of Chengdu is the panda breeding centre where most people head off to but I decided instead to hire a bike and take a small city tour. I had a lovely day cycling through the city to the main square, the local monastery, the Tibetan quarter, across the rivers, through parks and in among the contrasting old and new buildings. At most of the hostels here you can hire a bike for the bargain price of one pound for the day, so it was a cheap day but full of pleasure and I thoroughly enjoyed Chengdu.

The next day we were back on the train for the long journey to Lijang. A small town popular with Chinese tourists, Lijang’s big attraction is the old town with its winding cobbled streets and beautiful old buildings. It’s so easy to get lost as there is such a maze of streets all looking fairly similar to each other. At night the restaurants all light up their red lanterns outside the doors and the town becomes most enchanting. Through the day you can see that the whole place is surrounded by beautiful big green hills, and when the haze really clears up even bigger mountains capped with snow come into view.  The train journeys are taking us through gorgeous mountain scenery, the water from these are used for China’s hydro power and we’ve passed several places where the gathered water is shooting through enormous gates or crashing down their purpose built waterways, what a spectacle! As with the truck though it’s very difficult to capture photographs while moving along, the perfect shot will suddenly have a stray tree blocking the entire image or else it’s all just one big blur!

We also had a quick stop in Dali, another Chinese tourist town whose main attraction is their old town. It’s very similar to Lijang but without the old town being quite as quaint and unlike Lijang it’s not pedestrianised. In an effort to get out of the town and see some scenery I agreed to go horse-riding up to a hillside temple from where we could get views of the whole town. It wasn’t really the best introduction to horse-riding for a beginner, the path was so incredibly steep and so muddy the horses kept slipping and it was really quite frightening, not just for our safety but that of the poor horses, especially mine which seemed to be a bit of an oaf and kept tripping and stumbling. All the way up we had the extra fear of knowing that we must also come back down this way but I needn’t have worried as going down the horse showed far more control and gave me a lot more confidence. While he continued to stumble and got a little bit stuck almost throwing me off (the owner quickly grabbed me and held me on the horse!!) I had by then been shown how to steer him and slow him down and I soon felt like I was Robert Redford in ‘The Horse Whisperer’ riding along with the reigns in one hand, feeling quite in charge of my steed! It turned out to be really good fun and the cold beer I had earned tasted all the better for it even though I continued shaking for a good half an hour!

The next and final stop in China is in Kunming, a fairly large city with all the expected High St goodies on our doorstep. I didn’t find many amazing things to go and visit here so decided on a fairly relaxed couple of days, except for our night out to the Chinese karaoke or KTV. The Chinese are reportedly crazy about karaoke and there are KTV places dotted about all over the place so we had to go and experience this! It was of course necessary to ensure a suitably drunken state was achieved before unleashing the beasts of karaoke and I feel we managed this exceptionally well. We arrived at the KTV to find it really quite posh; the staff all wore smart uniforms with little waistcoats and smart trousers. The KTV room we were given was a very smart little living room with a leather corner sofa built in, a glass coffee table (full of beer and popcorn!) and a big flat screen TV. We wasted no time at all in getting the party under way and gave it our all, singing and dancing and having a great time. I looked in other booths to see the Chinese people all sitting sensibly on their sofas and singing from there, the contrast to ours was extreme, if you looked in ours there was carnage! Dancing on the sofa, beer bottles everywhere, everyone was on their feet dancing and singing except one person who was asleep in the corner and the floor was awash with spilled drinks! It was so ironic, we had come here to laugh at the Chinese people’s karaoke, but the Chinese people were all looking in our windows and laughing at us! It was the best time, and as a karaoke hater I am converted!

The food so far has been delicious; the Chinese like their food hot though especially in the Szechuan region where the Szechuan peppers add a real tingle to your mouth. One of our truckers had spicy pasta and afterwards had a visible facial twitch for a good 15 minutes. Not many of the dishes are like those from home (in my limited experience) except the Cantonese style sweet and sour which have been similar. Outside the main dishes we’ve ventured into the world of strange Chinese foods and have tried many different things including pigs ear, chickens foot, pig trotters and some kind of treated egg. The pigs ear was in a very spicy sauce and mostly just tasted of fat and gristle, the worst part was crunching through cartilage which I didn’t enjoy. The chickens foot smelled amazing, the skin tasted good but the bones and toenail, while soft, were still a little crunchy for my liking. The pig trotter was also in a very spicy sauce but it was mostly just skin, there was some meat on it though which tasted delicious. The egg was brown the whole way through, from the outside it looked like a chocolate egg but it tasted a bit salty, not egg-like at all, we think it was possible boiled in soy sauce but haven’t managed to get it confirmed. The other interesting foods are the crisps, cucumber flavour, corn flavour, lime flavour which were really nice and of course chilli flavour which were hot hot! Everything is also served with chopsticks which is a great way to eat, much nicer than the Indian and Nepali way of just using your fingers!

The school holidays in China are the same as the British ones and so this is high season for Chinese tourism. At home this would mean there are children everywhere and it took a while for it to dawn on us that this isn’t the case here, the one child rule has kept a lid on this and suddenly I’m far more aware of the fact there are hardly any children around. It’s rare to be bothered by children playing loudly or even to see children together as all the children are solitary and will be paired with an adult. It’s so sad to think of an entire generation of children who will grow up without siblings and therefore lead to a further generation without cousins or aunts and uncles. It makes me wonder if India would ever consider such restrictions or have the control to implement them.

Chinese toilets have surprised me given how clean and structured the rest of the country seems to be. In one of the train stations the public toilet consisted of nothing more than a length of trough and sections like cubicles but without doors. The people inside are clearly seen in their squatting position with absolutely no privacy whatsoever. While one girl was in a cubicle another lady came in and stood watching her, at point blank range, while she wiped herself and got dressed again, it all seemed so indecent and made us feel uncomfortable. I’m quite used to the squat toilets now and will occasionally even choose one over a throne depending on my mood, but when it comes to public transport I would definitely prefer a throne!  All the trains have squats and I don’t enjoy this balancing act, maybe this is why locals find it acceptable to use the bins instead?! A lady on the train held her child over the bin while he pooed into it, as if that’s not bad enough they were standing next to a vacant toilet at the time! Everything seems so normal here until you just have a little scratch at the surface!

Next stop is Laos, we have a week there and while I’ve enjoyed China and all it’s quirks I’m quite looking forward to the next stage of the adventure. 

Ni Hao!

Flying into Beijing (via Kunming) was very comfortable onboard China Eastern Airway, the seats are roomy and the pitch is the longest I’ve ever seen in cattle class. The food was tasty and the toilet was NOT squat, a dreadful thought that had occurred to us in airport before boarding – imagine!!

Beijing’s a very modern and swish city, in the taxi from the airport it felt like such a treat to be in a big car with seatbelts and a suspension, driving on orderly roads with lanes and no tooting. Chinese girls are very into their fashion of short shorts, short skirts, fancy dresses and big wedge heels. There’s more flesh on display here than we’ve seen for months and it’s made us a little prudish to start with as we gawp at the tiny clothes the girls are wearing. China has been far more westernised than any of us had realised, and there’s a lot more money here than we expected which is a pleasant surprise, but we’re still in the city so maybe the rural places are another story, without the truck we’re unlikely to find out.

We only had one day in Beijing so we rushed out to the wall on public transport and took a cable car ride up to it. The place was so busy, I think the whole of China came to view it too as all the other tourists were Chinese, but this is different to India, we joined a queue! We haven’t had the pleasure of an orderly queue for some time now. It was a lot hillier than I expected, we walked along about a kilometre of it, some bits had steps and some were just steep cobbles with old ladies holding on to the railings for dear life in fear of their flip flops sliding them back down to the bottom. We might have stayed for longer if we hadn’t been fighting through the crowds to get anywhere but it was amazing to be standing there on the Great Wall of China! Had we had time and paid more we could have taken a tour which would have taken us out to a much quieter part of the wall but that wasn’t an option for us. On the way home I hopped off the underground to take a quick look at Ti’an anmen square before heading back to the hostel to reacquaint myself with the group I hadn’t seen much of for 2 weeks. That evening we went to the night market, a tourist attraction of various small beasts available for deep frying and tasting. There are skewers of scorpions, starfish, seahorses, centipedes, grubs and goodness knows what else. I tried a scorpion, the man coated it in spices and so it ended up tasting quite nice, it was crunchy and bits of the shell hung around in my mouth but the worst part was getting over the mental issue of putting shell, claws and a sting in my mouth. We also tried snake and possibly dog (who really knows?!) and I really wanted to try a spider but when it came to the crunch I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

The next day we took a bullet train followed by a sleeper train to Xi’an. Unlike the planes though the toilets on the trains are squat and not the most pleasant! You can squat and try to keep your balance as the train jolts it’s way around the corners, some of them have a bar for you to hold on to while you’re squatting, just hope it’s dry! Taking the trains means we’re among the local people a lot more, all the stations are rammed full of people, it is currently Chinese school holidays so everything is busy. Chinese people are such a mixture of polite and friendly and rude and shouting, but what they all have in common is the more revolting habit of spitting everywhere! Not just a small discreet spit but a full on throat curling hack followed by a loud spit! It’s horrible, even on the train, you’re just settling down to eat your noodles and in the background someone lets out a big loud hacking sound, and not into a bin or into a sink, they’re happy to just allow it to land on the floor!

Xi’an is home to the fairly recently discovered Terracotta Warriors. It’s thought that once the excavation is complete there may be as many as 6000 warriors who have been lying underground for over 2000 years, every one has different facial features and is an individual. There is still a lot of work going on at the site as they were only discovered in 1974 and as none of them were in one piece they are slowly picking out the army and piecing them back together, it’s a huge project which won’t finish there as a nearby pyramid shaped hill is thought to hold the extravagant tomb of Qin himself. Entering the biggest archaeological site packs a visual punch as you’re face to face with a huge area containing an army of hundreds of soldiers with some horses dotted around. Fantastic!

Xi’an is an ancient capital city and the start of the Silk Road and was surrounded by miles of city wall with smaller walls within. The centre of Xi’an resides within one of the inner walls, about 14km round and we spent a lovely couple of hours cycling around the top of it looking down onto the old town and the temples. It’s no small structure, about 30m high and the same wide so it’s the perfect size for a short ride.

Back on the train again and headed for Chengdu.

Namaste Sagarmatha

The Everest Base Camp trek begins one of two ways, a drive out to the end of the road at Jiri and a 5 day trek to Lukla, or a flight in a small twin-engined plane to the scariest and most dangerous airport in the world, at Lukla. It’s known as this as the runway is cut into the hillside, it’s only about 450m long and at the end of it is the rest of the hill!! This means that any pilot coming in to land must commit to the landing as there is no option for second chances, if you don’t land and stop you will crash into the hillside. Trucker Chris and I flew to Lukla and enjoyed a beautiful clear flight with mountain peak views and valley views and a textbook landing in the crazy airport. The flights are all first thing in the morning so once we arrived we were fit to start our first day’s trek, and we were off!

The trekking was incredibly scenic, the path clear to follow, the cloud was high so we had a good view of the surrounding hillsides and their many cascading waterfalls and houses dotted around the hillsides. Combining 2 days into one we continued up the valley in the monsoon rain surrounded by low cloud and finished our first day off with a relentless 800m uphill climb to our destination of Namche. It was great to finally arrive; we’d taken a wrong turn somehow and ended up walking uphill for an extra hour then had to go back down to cross the river, so after the final push to the top we were pretty wiped out. We both had a fantastic bowl of Sherpa stew in our guesthouse and though it was basic it was the best stew I had ever tasted!! Mainly just a vegetable based soup with big chunks of potato and gnocchi and various other veg, but it was warm and filling and we had no trouble dropping off to sleep that night.

Along the path we had to cross about 9 wire bridges, these are set up at various stages, are usually about 100-120m long and cross the river using wire supports and metal grill flooring. Each bridge is swathed in prayer flags and everyone uses them, even the yaks, proof of this is dotted along the bridges as they leave trails of poo!

The next morning we left Namche at 5am to climb the hill to the viewpoint 400m above us, an hour and a half later we were rewarded with a stunning clear view of a range of Himalayan mountains! All these stunning peaks and in among them the summit of the earth, Mount Everest!! Yes!! At this height it doesn’t look like the highest point in the world as the peaks close by appear to be higher but it was still recognisable and a nice Sherpa man in Namche pointed it out from my photograph when I asked him which was Sagarmatha, the name by which Nepalis know the mountain.

All the way up the path we are constantly meeting the Sherpa porters who manually transport all the goods from the planes at Lukla up the mountain to the other villages. Each Sherpa will carry 100kg each and the goods will be strapped to a bamboo frame hanging from a head strap that they suspend from their forehead. We passed all manner of packages, mostly food and building materials, some of the men walk the whole way bent over at the waist as they have huge boards of wood maybe7 or 8 feet long and 3 feet wide, they can’t be too wide as the Sherpas then have to fit through all the wire bridges previously mentioned. Some carried lengths of wire reinforcement for buildings, windows, various food packages and the most unusual we passed was a huge big prayer wheel, I bet he felt safe taking that up! They come in all ages, some look like they’re only teenagers and they wear just simple sand shoes or plastic sandals, there were loads of them streaming up the paths, I can’t imagine how busy this must be in the high season when there’s endless tourists as well as all the items needed to keep them fed and watered along the way.

We trekked down the hill after our Everest viewing and made it as far as Pakding before we decided it was enough for one day, over the last 2 days we’d walked for about 16 hours and having sat on a truck for 3 months our feet were pretty sore by now. Here we decided to pay the extra for a shower and 300 Rupees later I had a bucket of hot water to take up to the bathroom as my shower, I enjoyed it hugely though I was blissfully unaware that it would be my last for almost a week.  The following day we completed the final 2.5hours to Lukla, just as we were arriving into the village we watched a plane take off and disappear into the clouds, if we had left a couple of hours earlier we might have caught this flight and been back in Kathmandu that day, the Tuesday, as it would turn out we didn’t manage to leave Lukla until Sunday due to the weather closing in.

The general rule for flying is that if you can see the other side of the valley then the plane might manage to land, this isn’t a hard fast rule but it helps you to know whether or not to get out of bed at 5.30am every morning. As the days went past we didn’t see very much of the other side of the valley, our guesthouse was right next to the runway and we could barely catch sight of that most days. On Thursday it became apparent that the bad weather was part of a large front that was moving over the whole of Nepal and India and so it seemed unlikely we would be catching our flight to China on Sunday with the rest of the group. We weren’t alone in this fear as other stranded tourists were also starting to worry about their flights and so we ordered helicopters to try and get out on time. The other problem was that we were running out of cash, I ran out on Thursday while Chris ran out on Friday but luckily found some dollars in his bag we could exchange for rupees. The mountain phone lines were down so we had no internet and no ATMs, the bank couldn’t give us any money without a phone line. This is the reason we couldn’t have a shower! We ran out of wet wipes too and eventually had to give in and buy new underwear! We had soaked our spare set of clothes on the first day and nothing would dry, it was too cold, we were minging! With no planes or helicopters on Friday or Saturday it was clear we were not going to catch our flight and had to organise ourselves. Chris had a Nepali sim card so we called one of the other truckers who took charge of our stuff, arranged for our luggage to be left with the truck and also phoned my mum to ask her to call Chris’ mobile in order that she could cancel my flight. I also had one of the keys to the truck safe so they had to break into that to get people’s valuables out as the truck is staying in Kathmandu. We arranged with the guesthouse to run up a tab and Kinley’s good name allowed this to happen, we could pay Kinley who would in turn pay them, however later on the phone lines came back on and the bank manager opened the bank especially for us stranded tourists to withdraw cash. Thank you! Kinley is the former trekking guide who had arranged our trip for us, and was now sitting in Kathmandu feeling really bad that we were stuck and missing our Chinese flights.

Sunday was pretty clear when we woke up, but would you believe the weather in Kathmandu was bad! We waited, pretty resigned to not getting out for another day, when the excitement began! Helicopters started to arrive and drop people off and pick people up, it was the only activity in 5 days and even the locals came out to watch the helicopters. We got excited about each and every one but then were disappointed to learn none of them were ours. The guy who’d arranged ours eventually asked one of the pilots who’d landed to come back for us as his company was still telling him our helicopter hadn’t left Kathmandu yet! As it turned out, further up the mountain a Lama (high up in Buddhist religion) had requested a helicopter and we had therefore been dumped as a lower priority, well that works two ways as that company were then dumped!

Eventually helicopter number 8 arrived to take us from the mountain, it was a lovely little 5 seater with lots of glass for maximum viewing, and it was amazing! The flight was stunning as we ducked under, over or around the clouds. The views were incredible, we glided close to the mountainside where possible and looked in on people’s lives on the terraces; we watched all the waterfalls streaming down the hillsides into the river we were following to Kathmandu. It took us an hour to reach the city and I loved every second of it, to the point where when they asked for money at the end I really didn’t mind giving it to them!! It was certainly a bit of a dent in the budget but was worth it to make sure we caught up with the group as soon as possible and at this early stage we could still catch them in Beijing which means we’ve only missed out on two days in the city. So our short stay in Kathmandu was far from relaxing as we quickly organised ourselves, spent some time with our abandoned truck driver and his girlfriend and then flew to Beijing that Tuesday. That was 3 quick weeks in Nepal, it’s a fantastic country, earmarked as a future destination!

Biking Nepal

To kick off the break in Nepal myself and 2 others hired motorbikes to take a wee jaunt for a few days. I had wanted to spend my time volunteering but I just didn’t find any positions that I was very interested in, they all involve rooms full of children and I just can’t willingly put myself in that situation!! I was so nervous going to pick up this little 200cc bike I was shaking, the thought of driving on these crazy roads was pretty terrifying but it had to be done! The first thing we did was go for a slow crawl around the city, trying to get used to the traffic and the mayhem. Driving in Asia is like driving the wrong way up a one-way street, everyone is against you and it’s every man for himself! We soon relaxed and I decided to head out of Kathmandu alone and off I rode in the direction of Nagarkot, the only fairly local place where a view of Mt Everest is possible. I rode out of Kathmandu and started heading uphill, the road to Nagarkot is a beautiful winding uphill ride, like the one we’d just done on the truck only this time I was all alone with the wind and dust in my face and the freedom to do my own speed and stop when I wanted. All of a sudden motorbiking Nepal was the most enjoyable experience and I found I was riding with a big grin on my face, looking around at all the fresh green scenery, which of course at times makes me think of home. There were two reasons I wanted to go here, first was my quest to view the highest point on earth and secondly because it has been the only place so far that my parents have specifically mentioned from their own travels. So here I sat with an Everest beer in my hand, in the same village my parents had viewed the sun rise over Everest 38 years ago, and I waited for my Mum’s birthday to tick around, it was really quite special and I’m glad I had a night to myself there to reflect upon this. This whole trip is a rough copycat version of my parents trip as they embarked upon an overland UK to Sydney trip all those years ago, completed by public transport, I wonder how much has changed in all that time.

Two mornings in a row I got up at 5am to climb the small hill to the viewpoint of Everest and 2 mornings in a row I looked out over the sun rising above the smudgy clouds, it was not to be this time. I was joined in Nagarkot by the other biking truckers and after a relaxing day in this lovely tranquil hilltop village we spent day 3 of the biking adventure actually biking! We headed in the direction of the Shivapuri National Park. After a few hours on the road we found we were maybe averaging about 20kmph, the road was appalling (I actually felt like Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman at times!!), trying to get up this hill through enormous pot holes which were now full of mud thanks to all the rainfall, it was slow going and we wondered if it was really worth the effort so we headed back to Kathmandu. What a difference a couple of days makes, this time I was winding my way through the Kathmandu traffic with the confidence of a local, tooting my horn at every opportunity, squeezing into tiny wee gaps between vehicles and ducking and diving where necessary, riding Kathmandu actually became fun for a little while but the overall stress is too much, I’m meant to be on holiday!

I finished my first week of the break walking around Kathmandu. I was quite happy having all this time to myself and used it visiting various landmarks. I went to see the rivers around Kathmandu which join together as a tributary to the Ganges and is therefore also a very holy river but it’s not very big and the ghats are no longer used.

Nearby Durbar Square is well worth a visit, it’s in the old town and home to many a delapidated but very attractive building, the place is buzzing with people selling their wares or sitting around all the different temples, of which there are many!

I took an afternoon out in Bouddha to visit a volunteering trucker, Chris, and also to see the Stupa there, one of the larger Stupas of Kathmandu but not the biggest. We partook in the customary clockwise walk around the stupa, 3 times as required, we spun all the prayer wheels and I just love to look at all the prayer flags adorning the stupas. Every time you spin a prayer wheel you are releasing the prayers out, every time the wind blows the prayer flags they are releasing the prayers out, it’s such a nice way to involve everyone in the religion and also to add a bit of colour and extra interest to it. We then visited the school at which Chris had been volunteering and had a great chat with the headmaster, Kinley, a former trekking guide. Before we left his office there were plans drawn up and flights arranged for a 3 to 4 day Himalayan trek for the 2^nd week of my break, and the next opportunity for me to view the so far elusive Mt Everest!

Welcome to Nepal

Arriving in Nepal was such a pleasure after India. Approaching and crossing the border brought so many wonderful changes, the landscape turned green and luscious, trees were sprouting all around us, the number of people about immediately shrunk, the amount of litter along the road reduced significantly, the smell improved dramatically and the sound of horns also all but disappeared. It would appear that we had arrived in a country who don’t regard their surroundings as one enormous toilet! We headed straight for a bush camp in the woods and had a most pleasant, quiet and relaxed evening which would turn out to be our last bush camp with our beloved truck. Throughout the night our first monsoon shower ensured our campsite was a big muddy puddle in the morning but not many people seemed to mind as it was such a relief to break the heat and the humidity of the last few weeks. We drove a couple of hours into Nepal to reach Chitwan and our hotel nearby the National Park, what a calm country this is in comparison with manic India, I feel such affection for it already.

An early morning elephant ride through the nearby jungle was a great way to spend a morning here. Our lovely elephant was the same age as me and carried 4 of us and her driver through trees, bushes and rivers for about 2 hours. We pushed our way through branches which then scrape along our legs and feet, then slowly descend into the river and back up out the other side. Anyone who’s ridden upon a large animal will know only too well the feeling when they begin to descend a steep slope and you’re certain that the poor thing is about to buckle under your weight and catapult you head first into the river in front, of course no such thing ever happened but it all adds to the joy of the ride. We were lucky on our jungle walk to not only spot several deer and monkies but also a crocodile in the river and a rhino lying trying to sleep next to a small lake, he didn’t look too pleased to be woken up by several elephants surrounding him with bright eager-eyed tourists staring, it was only a very small rhino which had been de-horned for some reason but it was still very exciting to be in it’s presence. When the driver need to go to the toilet he gave me his stick and slimbed down the elephant’s leg, leaving me in charge!! Aaaargh!! The elephant started walking forward and I was a little scared, what do you do if your elephant decides it’s going to go and live the high life in the woods alone? Fortunately my elephant was just heading for some tastier grass to munch on while she waited for her master. The elephants use their trunk to pull a clump of grass out of the ground, they then batter it against their leg for a little while so as to get rid of any residual earth, then they fold it into their mouth. When they have an itch they pick up a small stick and use it to scratch, it’s really quite amazing to watch them. When our driver returned he stood at the trunk and the elephant scooped him up her head so he could scramble up on to the top of her head. He told us she’s a very nice elephant, to demonstrate this he threw his stick on the ground and she picked it up and handed it to him! All the elephants in the park work, and only the females take tourists out as the males are too unpredictable. Even in the street of Chitwan you can see the elephants being driven around, it’s very funny to see them stop at a shop and the elephant lifts a bag of goods up to the driver! It’s a nice little village though starting to get more touristy.

The other outing of significance was to a nearby jungle village where a charity has been working to improve the quality of life for many of the poor inhabitants. The founder of the charity is the manager of our hotel and he was showing us around the village for anyone interested in doing voluntary work here. Having worked on the community for about 19 years the charity has built a nursery and a school where all the local children have not only the chance of an education and a future but also atleast one stable meal a day. The charity is also working to try to educate the families with regard to hygeine, health and safety and also in trying to provide some training enabling them to earn money for themselves and keep the trade and the money within their own community.  It was a most interesting afternoon and we met lots of lovely and interesting people, including a woman who was found living in squalor on the outskirts of the jungle, she had gone blind on the birth of her 2^nd child and had since literally lost her children and her husband. They built her the shell of a house (this is only a one roomed house) and found her husband living nomadically in the mountains, he has alcohol issues and is not highly regarded in the community but the charity aims to try to keep families together and so the husband is now based in the village but still wanders off from time to time. In the mean time the woman has used the traditional mud and water methods to plaster her own walls and is very house proud, inviting us all in and trying to lay her bed out on the floor for us so we have somewhere to sit. Four of the group agreed to come back and work in the school, any help given would be greatly appreciated as they need to learn some real basics of life, otherwise it is expected that around half of the class of children we met would die before adulthood due to illness brought on by poor hygeine and lack of medical treatment.

Leaving Chitwan we headed to Pokhara, this being the popular tourist spot where the Annapurna region of mountains is accessed from, as its the monsoon season the days are generally overcast and so the mountains are not visible and you could be completely unaware of their existance. Pokhara is a nice place, lively enough to accomodate tourists with restaurants and bars and shops but also small enough that the surrounding hills and lake can provide all the tranquility or adventures that you might be looking for. Several of us hired a boat and a few kayaks and took to the lake for an afternoon of peaceful paddling. The far side of the lake has remote restaurants or bars as well as residents, one of the boats we passed had 3 school children paddling home from their lessons.

The drive to Kathmandu from Pokhara contained most of what you would expect from delicious Nepal. We mostly followed rivers which raged through the valleys carrying the fresh monsoon mud water down stream. Every now and again there is a wire across the river for  residents or workers to access the other side, these generally have some form of metal cage and pulley system in place so that people and goods can be transported across the river, one such cage was full of school children pulling their way over to the other side, I think this might be the most unique form of school bus I have so far come across. Onwards and upwards we wound our way up the valley sides, marvelling at the gorgeous landscapes, the hillsides are invariably covered in some form of agricultural terracing as the locals grow rice or potatoes and other crops. In among the sea of greenery you can occasionally pick out the bright colours of the saris as the women are working away, but no matter how many times you photograph it the camera just doesn’t want to fully capture the stunning scenes presented. The final ascent up to Kathmandu takes us up a much higher valleyside climb, winding roads and queues of slow trucks making their way to the top, with road side signs considerately offering the services of life insurance companies! This being the final day of travel in our wonderful truck, I am delighted to literally go out on a high! Such a beautiful drive through such a beautiful country, I am quite enchanted by this country.

Why was this the final day on the truck? Sadly we were informed we could not be granted permits to enter Tibet, this obviously changes the trip a great deal as the truck can go no further on our overlanding adventure and will now remain in Kathmandu along with our driver Adam and his partner Helen, while we continue the rest of the journey on public transport. It’s a great loss to the group as the truck provides us with so much security, we only tend to travel by day, all our stuff is safely locked on board, we have a safe box for our valuables, we don’t have to carry all our luggage and it also means we can camp and be self sufficient with all the cooking aparatus on board. The trip is no longer the trip that we all signed up for. From here we fly to China where we now have an extra week which will be spent visiting Beijing and the Great Wall and Xi’an and the Terracotta Warriors. We really can’t grumble at that as a fitting alternative to driving to Everest Base Camp and journeying the most dangerous road in the world out of Nepal to get there. After our Chinese bonus week we continue along our original itinerary on public transport, staying in hotels and hostels until we reach Darwin where Adam and Helen will meet us with a bus to take us through Australia, and here we can camp again, hoorah!

For now though, it’s 12 weeks in to the trip and time for our 2 week Kathmandu break.

Hot and Sticky Hindustan

Jaipur, the next stop on the Indian agenda, was a ray of light after Delhi, probably more so because I was back to health and keen to explore this city, which has so much on offer. We made a full day of it, 3 of us hiring a tuctuc for the day and being driven around by the lovely Nashard (no idea how that's meant to be spelled!) who was bright and friendly and very in touch with the tourists. His first plus point was for not having a horn on his tuctuc as he knows how much tourists hate the crazy incessant horn blowing of India, he prefers to actually use his mirrors, an alien concept here! When questioned about the driving abilities of Indians he confessed that there are only 3 road rules... 1. Horn! 2. Brake! 3. *makes sign of the cross*!!

To start the day we headed to the grand hillside Amber Fort, just on the outskirts of the city. From the base of the hill you can either walk up or take an elephant, incidentally the elephants are unsurprisingly enormous!! I wasn't expecting them to be anything else really but close up it was the scariest animal I had ever seen! We're cheap though and walked up and around the fort, the place is so big that when we later discussed it with other truckers we had all found different parts that each other had missed!
Next stop was a quick photo of the water palace, stranded in the middle of a lake this looks like a rather large and grand building, we then discovered that a further 3 floors of the palace are under the water, it used to be quite some place but is no longer accessible.
Nashard then took us to the tombs of the past maharajas including Jai Singh the namesake of Jaipur. Another beautiful display of Indian marble architecture at its best, these people really knew how to celebrate the people special to them and also how to spend a few rupees! I couldn't decide if the place was so special to them that we were followed around it (no misbehaving!!) or if it was just because we were the only people there and they had nothing better to do! Outside was very quiet, just a wee shop and a little monumental roundabout, the perfect place for our chance to drive a tuctuc!! Yes!! It's really just a glorified scooter and great fun to have a little tootle about in, we owe massive thanks to Nashard for that little treat! Might I point out that no tuctucs were harmed in the making of this adventure!

By this time we were starting to flag a little, we'd been out for hours and it was 44 degrees and every time we returned from something Nashard was snoozing in the back of the tuctuc trying to avoid the sun! So the next few sights were a little rushed, the wind tower was so beautiful on the outside but we were knackered so I'm afraid we didn't even stay long enough to learn what it's history was, just a point and click and leave. the Jaipur observatory, or Jantar Mantar was the final stop and I'm very disappointed to say that we flew through it. It's worth coming all the way back just to visit, it's a spectacular display of well preserved astronomical gadgetry dating back to 17 hundreds, I think several hours could be spent here learning about each instrument, but on this day we were dead men walking and after a few oohs and ahs and some photos we were pooped! After recharging our batteries we attempted to go and view a bollywood film, the latest blockbuster! The whole cinema was swamped in people, the entire building just had people all around it, we managed to butt into the queue but when we reached the front there were no tickets left, what a shame, these people really go crazy for their films.

Leaving Jaipur I was walking on air, high from such a fantastic experience in a beautiful city, nothing could alter my mood or bring me down... nothing! Or so I thought. We stopped at the next world heritage sight to look at a castle and a temple, I skipped the castle and headed straight for the (free) temple. I'd read that Agra was the worst place in India for the touts, and I felt I'd fairly got used to them so far, I don't like them but I can smile and politely decline. Well, the temple is housed inside a walled quadrangle and usually once you get inside it's lovely and peaceful and calm. Not here. Even inside I was getting followed, getting cheap tat waved in my face, asked questions (all questions lead to begging or selling) or just general harassment, well I think I left them in no doubt about how much of their stuff I was going to buy! So my lasting memory of Fatehpur Sikri  is of being annoyed and wanting to leave, not great. They have a reprieve though as the Taj Mahal is in the neighbourhood, that's a proper wild card!

We were up early to visit the Taj Mahal, at the gates for opening time at 6am, and it really paid off as there were hardly any people there. When we stepped through the archway and into the courtyard to get the full view of the Taj I have to say I was not disappointed. A beautiful marble monument, standing proud and magnificent, commanding everyone's attention and still looking fantastic despite being over 400 years old! I am delighted to finally stand in it's presence. It was even peaceful enough to sit in the archways and savour the atmosphere for an hour, it was lovely. An impressive display of wealth this building was a monument to commemorate the death of the favourite wife of the maharajah, it took 20 years to complete and used the expertise of around 20,000 craftsmen working with materials imported from all over Asia and northern Africa. I only hope that some of the money we pay to see it is put towards keeping it in such amazing condition. I'm so lucky to be here, I am a lucky lucky girl.

We left Agra to head in the direction of Varanasi with a bush-camp on the way, we were nearly at the camp spot when a loud bang rang out from underneath the truck and I looked out the window in time to see a huge strip of our tyre flying out behind us. My first ever blow-out and not only was I lucky enough not to be driving, but it was a back wheel with so many other wheels to compensate that it wasn't too much of an immediate problem, and the tyre never hit anyone either, phew!  The camp itself was probably the weirdest bush-camp ever! We are used to people coming to look at us or talk to us but here we soon had about 100 people crowded around us and none of them would talk to us. They stood around watching people pitch tents, make dinner and change the wheel, sometimes getting way to close and being asked to back off. But when we sat to eat some of them threw stones at us, we packed up all the stuff and when the stone-throwing continued decided it was best that we leave. More stones were thrown as we drove away and it also became apparent that someone's tent had been slashed and the pegs stolen. That was such a sad night, it knocked us all sideways as all we've ever seen from people is kindness and somehow we upset them, I suppose we should not be showing off our wealth to people who may be envious. Whatever caused it was a dampener and I think we all felt a but blue from it. That night we continued all the way to Varanasi, reaching there late at night, which had its own benefits. We don't often see places at night but as we drove in we got to see how many people sleep on the street, on top of buses, outside their shops or in their rickshaws. Concrete pavements with a rolled up blanket for a pillow. It's not unusual for these people, thousands of them sleeping just wherever they lay their head, do any of us really know how lucky we are? We say we do, but do we actually appreciate our luxuries? We can't truly appreciate them when we don't know what the alternative is, not just looking at pictures of poor people but living as they live, it would be the end of a lot of us. Even in the hotels you see the staff sleeping in the corridor, on a blanket over the solid marble floor, that is their life.

On to Varanasi. What do you say about Varanasi? It's crazy town!

First I went out to Sarnath, a village nearby where Buddha himself performed his first sermon, so obviously this is a busy destination for pilgrims and also home to Buddhist temples from around the globe. I visited so many temples including a Chinese one, Korean, Thai, Burmese, Nepali, Tibetan and Japanese and all of them have their own distinct style and architecture, they also have their own version of Buddha, for example the Burmese Buddha is actually quite feminine which is interesting.

 Varanasi itself, with the ghats (access points to the Ganges) and the river Ganga and all the things that go on there make it one of the most amazing places for people watching. Between and evening and a morning river ride I developed a strange picture of this place. First and foremost it is one of the holiest places in the world, people flock here to visit and people also flock here to die. It is believed that dying in Varanasi and being burned here or placed in the river allows a soul to skip some of the rungs of the afterlife ladder. There are the burning ghats where the cremations take place, while we were there 6 fires burned, which means 6 bodies were being cremated at the time, and true enough it was possible to identify some body parts from the flames. Family members may hang around until the head 'pop's as this is when they believe the spirit is released from the body. Some people ( babies, pregnant women, holy men and lepers) are too pure for burning and are therefore shrouded and weighted and  put into the river to be carried downstream. While we were on the river we were shown a body whose weights had clearly failed and a shrouded human form from butt to feet was clearly visible with the head still underwater, this body had caught on the ropes of boats tied up at the ghats, it was mere metres from shore. On shore there is always a hive of activity as people use the river for their everyday activities, people bathe here, swim, play, brush their teeth, launder their clothes and linen. The river is the centre of their life, not matter what else happens on the river their will ingest some of it. The cows and water buffalo bathe and swim here, the sewers drain here, and as previously mentioned, human bodies get deposited here. Varanasi is a puzzle to me, no matter how much I think about it I can't solve it, can't even come close! I am amazed to watch what goes on here but I just can't for the life of me understand it, which makes it even more interesting to watch! 

As a stubborn traveler I was determined not to upgrade and to feel every bit of this experience I have signed up to and Varanasi has proved very difficult in terms of accommodation. We are camping in the garden of a hotel and its over 100% humidity here, I can't tell you how uncomfortable the camping is, I wear clothes and sleep on my towel and everything is soaking wet in the morning. I do sleep, not all night but I lie still as I can and yet sweat like crazy, I've probably been at my grumpiest here but that's determination for you. By the end of the 3 nights here there are only 5 of us left camping out of 23, it's not great accomplishment but I have done it now, thank goodness that's over! We have a long drive day to the Nepal border and I think most of us are ready to leave India. It's too hot, it's too sweaty and sadly the places we've been have been so touristy that the locals have driven us crazy! I can't even comment on the landscape, the country is bursting at the seems to the point where all the roads are lined with people, there are some crops but there are just people everywhere!

When I tried to tell my aunt how hard I found it to place India, do I love it or hate it or what? I just don't know! I got the perfect reply... 'just be fascinated, no need to love or hate' - perfect! Well said!