Tibet to Nepal - to home

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Days 12-14 Shigatse to Lhasa to Kathmandu then home

Our drive back to Lhasa gave us a couple of hours to have a last look round the stalls around the Jokhang, and to pick up a few souveners of our time in Tibet. We were looking for postcards of the Potala Palace which were difficult to find, which just shows how far Tibet still has to go with regards to tourism. On a plus note, Mum was feeling much better and was even upto a bit of shopping herself. We split up from Mum and Dad for an hour or so to save time on our shopping as each item was taking around ten to fifteen minutes to barter for ,with the vendour telling you one price, us looking shocked and insulted then coming up a rediculously low offer and the vendor pretending to be discusted by this, almost like an (oh no you don't , oh yes i will) pantomime but great fun all the same. We met back up for a drink at a bar later on and showed each other our purchases proudly (even though there was probably someone walking round with the same things bought at half the price) we were happy. There was enough time to drop our things off at the hotel before heading for some tea. We decided to give the Tashi restaurant another chance as our experience in Shigatse had been a good one, and this time almost got up one flight of stairs before bailing out from the lack of light and the off putting smell. Not to be defeated , Dad had said we should investigate a place he had spotted earlier on that day, this too looked very ropey and the sudden melay as we peeked through the window with the staff acting as we could have been thier first customers in weeks was enough for us to decide that with Mum still slightly recovering, we should try somewhere a little safer and consulted the guide book. We ended up at the Snowland Hotel restaurant which was busy and had lots of westerners inside and it turned out to be a great choice as we all enjoyed the food, even though they still hadn't got the concept that soup was a starter, and the idea was to serve it before the main course, not during it!

Next morning was a reasonably early start for the journey to the airport to head back to Kathmandu. At the airport we once again were searched and re-searched before getting into the departure lounge, where we decided to spend the last of our Chinese Yuan on yet more bargains (by this time we had almost become resigned to the fact that an extra bag purchase was inevevitable). Despite our reservations, we were still under our weight limit, and were now more confident even though we had left some luggage in Kathmandu.

When we reached Kathmandu, there was a festival taking place, which meant that the roads were slightly quieter than two weeks previously as most people spent the time with their families. We waited for the hotel to prepare a room for us to use, and spent a relaxing hour in the garden outside with a cold Everest beer. We set out to bag some last bargains, and arranged to meet later on for lunch in one of the bars overlooking the main intersection. We actually finished our shopping early, and made our way back to the bar, only to find mum and dad had made it there first. Russ presented his case for tacky bargain of the holiday. Dad couldn't compete, so Russ' snake in a basket wins at a cost of 100 rupees and 5 chinese jiao. After a late lunch we headed back to the hotel to get showered and packed before heading to the airport with some great memories of a great holiday, but Kathmandu was not going to let us go without a final reminder and the airport had two power cuts during check in and caused chaos.

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