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Published: September 25th 2006
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Maoist 'donation' en route to Tibetan border, Nepal Today's trip to Tibet began with a very early 4:30am start, although my eyes had flown open at four as I was paranoid about missing the bus. Originally advised to be in Thamel at five o'clock, the late working travel agent revised the meeting time last night to 5:30am, giving me a whole thirty minutes extra sleep. I'd decided to catch a taxi as the keys had been locked in the Mukti car for two days, however Goma came down at five, key in hand & dropped me in Thamel almost twenty minutes ahead of schedule. I'd had a pretty woeful sleep totalling about three hours & became increasingly miffed at having to sit around waiting for the bus to depart. We finally got underway just after seven & as it was a miserable drizzly morning, I took the opportunity to snooze for the first few hours of the journey.
Our first stop was for breakfast & I sat with Sandy (another Australian), Indra & a Swiss traveller who didn't speak much English. I'd met Sandy whilst waiting for other passengers in Thamel, as I was the first there & she & her husband Indra had arrived shortly afterward. My
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Countryside en route to Tibetan border, Nepal first problem of the trip came shortly after breakfast when the guide gave us a rundown on the day's schedule, crossing the border procedures & money changing. I'd brought travellers cheques, my Visa card to withdraw cash & a small amount of Nepalese Rupee, confident I had all my monetary bases covered. Unfortunately, we were advised there were to be no ATM's for the first two days, the banks were closed for the same timeframe, travellers cheques could not be cashed at the border & my pitiful amount of rupee would last me about half a day according to the guide. I decided to swallow my pride & ask Sandy (who I'd known only a few hours), to borrow some money. She leant me $100- Australian, which was more than enough & I changed it for Yuan with our driver whilst waiting to cross the border.
The bus took us to Kodari, the Nepali border post, where we disembarked & carted our packs ten minutes up the muddy hill to immigration. Our guide processed the paperwork on the Nepali side, whilst we all stood around on the Friendship Bridge for two hours in the drizzling rain. Finally the Chinese
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Countryside en route to Tibetan border, Nepal were ready to process our Tibetan visas & we were allowed to cross the border, then loaded into Toyota Landcruisers, which were to become like home for the next five days. Our group consisted of six people including the driver Chang, who didn't speak two words of English. The other passengers were David from France, Monika from Austria, honeymooners Betsy & Gustavo from Puerto Rico & me. Gustavo took the front passengers seat, while the remaining four jammed into the backseat & we headed off on a wet & winding start to our Tibetan journey.
After a half hour of driving, we had to disembark & be processed through Chinese immigration. It was another slow process & whilst waiting for the rest of our bus group to go through, Gustavo bought Pringles, Pepsi & Kit Kats for lunch/afternoon tea. The waiting wasn't so bad, as it gave the five of us chance to chat & bond with each other. Further delays came in the form of traffic jams on narrow streets along our route. During one such hold up we had to reverse about five hundred metres to let oncoming traffic through. It was a stroke of luck really
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Waterfall en route to Tibetan border, Nepal because we parked right next to an ATM & across the street from a restaurant, which let us girls use their restroom. We continued ascending through the mountains & must have been above the clouds because the rain stopped & we could see the scenic views of the Tibetan countryside.
Due to the time difference, it was still light when we arrived in Nyalam (3800m), although it was already about eight o'clock. Because the town was so small & remote, our first nights accommodation was dormitory style with shared toilets & no showers. Our car group took a room, went upstairs to settle in & then headed out for some well deserved dinner. We did a lap of the main street; found one restaurant that looked promising but the staff ignored us so we left & ate at the place attached to our accommodation, where most of the tour group had congregated. Turned out it was a good decision as the food was pretty good, although I'm not sure you can really go wrong with fried riceā¦ Before we realized it was after eleven & we all turned in for the night in preparation for a long travelling day
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Bungy jumping en route to Tibetan border, Nepal to come.
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