Kathmandu (original email)

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Hey everyone,

So Kathmandu is nothing like I expected. I thought it was cold and there was nothing to do but trek, but it's amazing! In Kathmandu it goes up to about 25 C (that's about high 70s for you non-metric people) in the day. There's white water rafting (we're going on a 6 day trip soon), elephant safaris, cool villages and markets. Also trekking. I could spend months here.

We seem to be giving the impression that all we do is drink. Some of you may be wondering why we just didn't stay home and do a round-the-world tour at Milwaukee's (that's a bar in Toronto that has about 150 beers from around the world). So in this message we won't mention beer anymore.

Later today we're going to a slide presentation from one of the Rafting companies. Normally we wouldn't go to boring slide shows, but they're serving unlimited rum and cokes. It should be good. Yesterday we went to a similar one from a different company, also because they gave away free rum and cokes.

Hmm, I could use a BEvERage.

Last we wrote were in Shanghai. Life's been fairly uneventful since then, no major accidents, no one's got lost or missed trains. We've even been fairly regular. After Shanghai, we wanted to take a boat cruise to Hong Kong, but that service has been cancelled. (So we took a train). Then, in Hong Kong (China), we went to a Chinese embassy to get a visa to enter a country we were already in. Does this make any sense? Cost us 30 bucks too. Hong Kong hasn't really changed much since I was there last (2 years ago), but then that's only from a tourist view. One resident we met said the only thing that's changed is the colour of the mailboxes.

Next we went to Macau. We thought we would go in the middle of the week because it's not as busy (read cheaper), we managed to hit China National Day and so it was busier than ever. We really liked Macau though. It's much more European than Hong Kong. Also good cheap red wine (imported from Portugal). We did the tourist thing and went to a casino, Gerry lost, I won.

Then we wanted to take a boat on our way to Yanshuo via Guangzhou, but that's been discontinued as well. So we took a bus. Then a boat. Then a bus. Ended up in Yanshuo at about 3:00am. All the hotels were booked up; there was a group of 8 people outside a bar, who were going to stay up till 11:00 hoping to get a room in the morning (they had arrived shortly before us). We decided to do the same, so spent the next 8 hours in delightful conversation. At 11:00 we got a room (don't read into that), slept a bit. Then we got up, went to the same place and had some more delightful conversation. We didn't really like the town cause there were far too many tour bus groups there (Gerry's impression of a tour group person 'Hey Frank, didja see this over here' (read it in a slow drawl)). So we got the next available train out (had to wait a day).

Three buses, a train and 48 hours later we were in Chengdu. The only reason people go to Chengdu is to fly to Lhasa (in Tibet) However, we really like the place.

So then we were in Lhasa, courtesy of China Southwest Airlines (anyone know if I can use that for Aeroplan?) (I may just send them the flight coupon to mess them up). A really good flight, new plane, even got served an in-flight meal and got English newspapers! Lhasa is the home of the Tibetan monks, or what's left of them after China liberated Tibet (that's the Chinese official description, we would use other verbs). Our major reason to go there (to the disappointment of many other people we met) was to the do the 'once-in-a-lifetime' (LP description) Lhasa to Kathmandu crossing by land. We did see the major sights in Lhasa, and then started the 3 day journey by bus to Kathmandu.

The crossing was pretty cool. We did get altitude sickness, because we had flown in from pretty much sea level, and the crossing reaches 5200 metres at its maximum. But after the pass, it's almost a straight drop down to 500 metres in Kathmandu. That part was cool. We did get our cheapest room yet the second night of the trip, 10 Yuan ($1.25 US) for a double, and it wasn't too bad.

So in Kathmandu, we ran into Eileen and Kirsty (you may remember them from our little adventures on the jeep trip in Mongolia). They have a much better story of their Lhasa-Kathmandu crossing, their driver was a little careless/dangerous, and managed to roll the vehicle off a 20m drop (and rolled it six times). Fortunately no one was seriously hurt, although one passenger had to be taken to a hospital. We thought about doing the rafting trip with them, but we're not sure if we should wait until we up our insurance policies.

BigMac Combo research:

Hong Kong 17.30 HKD, 5.6 HKD = $1 US
Macau's Never visited one.

We'll let someone else do the math, apparently (as pointed out by Roach) our math skills have deteriorated (I hear delightful conversation kills brain cells).

Toilet Update:

We're still regular.



Personal Communications:

!Marisa!: Hi 😊 Teeth doing fine, Colgate's okay.

An*: Will attempt to brave telecommunication system sometime in next few days.

Nalini: Visited Tiger Balm Gardens and bought a postcard to send to your friend that wanted to visit last time, but I don't know her address (or name). Can you send it to me? And thanks for helping me get my boots. Also, there's no Canada Direct number here, can you let mom & dad know I'm alive?

Dad (Eric's): The flight was on a 757-200

DLA: Thanks for keeping us in the loop. Maybe you could cc MJV as well.

MJV: Remember, when you wear your jacket, you're sleeping with every person that your jacket has slept with.

UWO grads: We hear you didn't do so well at the Homecoming, lost to the mighty Warriors in the football game ...

Dean: Thanks for the above info.

Beth: Thanks for the joke.

Christopher (almost 10 going on 17) and family: We weren't that long in Tibet. But, we did notice more of a police presence than in the rest of China. Compared to Mongolia, where all the monks were really young cause all the older ones had been killed/deported, there were monks of all ages here.



That's about it, now we're off to have some delightful conversation.

Love Eric and Gerry (or Gerry and Eric)

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