Beijing to Kathmandu - Days 18-24

We're finally updating our blog again after being out of touch there for a few days! We were basically in rural Tibet and conditions were fairly primitive in some places. The last place we left on the blog was Shigatse. The morning we left Shigatse, we drove for about 4 hours and came to a town called Sakya. A lot of these towns are built around the monastery and very little else so there is not a huge amount to do other than that. Once we arrived here, we had some lunch (in a pretty filthy restaurant it has to be said-God knows what the kitchen was like-we can't dwell on this or we would starve!) and went for a walk around the monastery. The hotel was similar to what we have had. This is just the way it is in Tibet - hopefully in a few years time, with some investment, things will improve (for themselves and for tourists!) but for the moment, I think we're getting the best that there is on offer. Nobody is really bothered at this stage because we are all just concentrating on getting to base camp the next day. We do get some nice pictures at the monastery and on a walk we do up the mountain overlooking the town. On this walk we end up calling into a farmers house (well, he herds us in actually) for some yak butter tea, which we all decline. This tea is really salty tasting and awful but Zsoka our leader has some all right. The farmer brings her a cup and then drops a lump of butter into it. She can barely drink it herself (obviously) and when we are leaving you can just see the film of butter on top - yuk! He also offers us some hardened yak cheese, which tastes like tramps socks and at this stage I'm nearly feeling guilty because he's only trying to be hospitable, but seriously!!!! He comes in with a sack of barley seeds then and we all HAVE to take a handful at this stage - thankfully they are fairly palatable and we all make a big show of patting our tummys and saying 'yummy' really loudly......that's an exaggeration actually but not too far off! We race back to the hotel for showers before the hot water runs out and repack our bags beofre beading off the next morning.
We next morning we leave really early because it's an 8 hour drive to the Everest base camp. The road is a joke in parts. But apparently all these roads were done up since last year, because the Chinese took the Olympic flame up to the summit of Everest (didn't notice that at the time!) and so we're pretty lucky! We arrive at Rongphu in the afternoon - this is a monastery just 8km from the base camp and it's incredibly cold!! This is at 5200m above sea level and this is the highest we are going to stay at. We are staying in really basic accomodation - think outside toilet and no sink anywhere!! And Joe and I are sharing a room with Craig and Gene. The rooms are freezing and we're all a bit apprehensive because someone tells us that the temperature is going to drop to -20 deg in the evening but thankfully we are provided with a couple of duvets and blankets and we are all planning on sleeping in our thermals anyway. There is a small kind of common room there where they serve rice and noodles and once we have our dinner there is very little else to do so we all go to bed at a ridiculously early hour. The temperature has really dropped and we fill plastic water bottles with hot water to put in our beds for extra warmth. By the time I get into bed I can barely move with all the layers of clothes on top of me and I'm just praying I don't need the toilet in the middle of the night. It's just not gonna happen!! We all sleep in hats as well - this is how cold it is. None of us get a great nights sleep because of the altitude - it makes you wake up because you keep needing deep breaths and everyone is having seriously strange dreams.
The next morning we get up and a few of us start walking the 8km up to the base camp. Although we're wrapped up like michelin men and breathnig really heavily, it's a cool walk because all you can see is the mountain ahead and it's fairly special. We are ALMOST tempted to aim to actually climb it at some stage in the future - but these are just delirious thoughts caused by the high altitude we conclude. The jeeps end up picking us up about half way up though so it's not as difficult to get there as it might have been. We spend a while up there taking pictures - Joe had very thoughfully brought an Irish flag and a Scottish flag and you would swear we had just climber to the summit looking at the photos of us with the flags. It's all good craic and we're almost sorry to head back down when the time comes. There is nothing there at the moment actually except an empty space where all the tents are pitched during the climbing season, and some Chinese military to stop you going any further than a certain point.
Once we came down from base camp, we left Rongphu and headed for a town called Tingri. Apparently this is the town where most climbers acclimatise before climbing Everest but it's hard to believe because it's incredibly basic - and everyone stares at us when we walk down the street as if we have just walked out of a spaceship. It's beyond belief. We're walking down the street and there are random animals wandering up towards us. We're all wondering which one is going to be dinner later, and everyone secretly resolves to have veg rice/noodles for dinner.
The next day we have a long drive to a town near the border - I think everyone has mixed feelings about leaving Tibet at this stage. We arrive in the town at around lunchtime, to be told that the road is closed due to construction and we won't be able to leave until 9 o'clock that night. Apparently this is what the Chinese do all the time - if something needs to be done, they just do it and it doesn't matter who it affects. It's priceless. We're all a bit horrified at having to hang around until 9pm but what can you do. As it happens, they let us through at around 4 o'clock. It was all very bizarre - if it had been at home, I would say there were definitely brown envelopes involved but who knows over here. We drive on anyway and arrive at a town called Zhangmu, which is the border town between Tibet and Nepal. We stay here 1 night and the next morning make our way to the border.
At the border, on the Chinese side, it's all very official - you can't take photographs of anything, they scrutinise your passport and they even make Gene empty his rucksack because some souvenir he had bought popped up on their x ray machines. On the Nepal side however, there is practically a party atmosphere!! We h ave just walked about 100m for God's sake!! Everything is so casual, nobody has any problem getting a visa, everyone is happy - I can't quite remember but I think there may have been music coming from somewhere!! You immediatly know you've left China anyway and there is a bus waiting when we are done getting our visas to take us to a place called Dhulikhel, whish is about 1 hour from Kathmandu.
We arrive at the nicest place we have been in since we started this tour - it's practically paradise!! We're staying here for 2 nights and this is basically time to chill out, do laundry and just get introduced to Nepal. There seems to be a real Indian influence here. The women are all wearing saris.Everyone is incredibly nice and all the children shout '1 photo, 1 photo' at us as we are walking by. All they want is to see the photo on the screen of the camera then and it's so funny. We end up taking a bus to the nearest village and we all ride on the roof of the bus!! As if we are luggage!! It is hysterical - absolutely straight out of a film - this is the norm here - to ride on the roof rack basically - of the bus.
On the second last day of our tour, we head to Kathmandu - it's only about an hour away so it's not too bad.We have a walk around to familiarise ourselves with the place and then we have our farewell dinner that night. We are in Kathmandu writing this actually , it's Monday evening and we arrived last Saturday. Kathmandu is absolutely manic - neither of us have ever experienced anything like it. Walking down the street is bordering on suicide because there are so many cars, motorbikes, push bikes and pedestrian jostling for room. It's bananas. Our tour ends in Kathmandu so it was time to say goodbye to most of the group - we'll definitely miss the group - and the safety net it created for us!! Now we are on our own and need to plan and book everything ourselves - scary stuff but we are looking forward to it as well.
We decided to book ourselves a trek in the Annapurna region of the Himalayas so we are starting that tomorrow morning at 6.30am. It should be good - exhausting!! But good. After the trek we are going to Chitwan National Park which is in South Nepal - for elephant rides and the like -so again, we will be pretty much out of touch for the next few days! But we arrive back in Kathmandu on the 12th of November and hopefully will have even nicer photos again (no pressure for Joe then!! :))
So Beijing to Kathmandu is complete and the next installment will be the next 9 days of trekking the Annapurna lower loop and the National Park.

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