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Published: September 18th 2010
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He is the one who carried my shoes and held my hand through the stream. 9/10/2010 Friday - We knew that this trip was going to be an adventure but what we didn’t know was that the real adventure would begin on day 8. They have been having a lot of rain in Tibet and Nepal and we thought we were very lucky that the weather had cleared for our trip. What we forgot about was the effect of all of this rain on mountain roads, i.e. landslides.
The day started at 9:00 as we headed to the customs office to have our bags and passports checked to leave Tibet. We then met our new guide and walked over the “Friendship Bridge” into Nepal where the guide sent us into the visa office to purchase our Nepal visa. $35 later and we are on our way to the first vehicle of the day. The plan was that this vehicle would take us all the way into Kathmandu. Funny how plans change…
We drove as far as the first landslide and left our driver and picked up a couple of porters to carry our bags, one young boy and an old lady. We hiked through the mud and rocks and then had to
The other porter
Can't believe we paid her to take our bag. We should have carried her on our back. wade through a stream. The boy insisted on taking my shoes for me and helping me through the stream. How cute and while holding my 40 lb. suitcase on his back.
Finally we were able to pick up another ride. Thank goodness for our guide who could negotiate the passage for us and all of the rates. Our bags were strapped to the roof and we filled up the back of the vehicle with five local passengers and were on our way. We stopped a couple of times to let people off and then made our way to the next blocked part of the road. More hiking, more mud and water but at least our shoes could stay on this time.
Our next vehicle was a large box truck that was stuck between landslides so he was making money transporting people from one landslide to the next. We got there first so our guide was able to get us seats up front but the back was full of people and our luggage. One poor couple from Holland were stuck back there too. I sat on Jason’s lap between the driver and our guide. If you can
imagine a mud and rock covered mountain road, in some spots not one lane wide and no barriers. The highlight of this leg was watching boulders come down the mountain barely missing people on a motor bike knowing that you are about to drive through there also. Scary does not begin to describe this trip.
The box truck dropped us off and we went for our third hike. There were road crews, mainly a large front end loader, pushing dirt around and we had to navigate through the work site without getting run over or falling off the mountain. At least this was a shorter hike than the guide thought we would have to take to the next vehicle. The day before he had to hike over a mountain to get through this section. He kept telling us how lucky we were.
Finally we made it through this section and the guide found us a ride into Kathmandu. We picked up a passenger at one of the checkpoints and headed down the road. A couple of hours later we stopped for a late lunch (thank goodness for all of the granola bars we packed). The guide
Stream we waded across
That is Jason and his pack in the picture said it would be a nice place but we didn’t expect to find a resort in the middle of a dirty mountain road. The food was incredible and the view was even better. We sat on the terrace and just enjoyed the beautiful scenery.
Finally we had to get back into the vehicle. Only an hour left to Kathmandu on a dirty, very dusty road that is under construction. Sure, why get better now. Only a 7 hour journey today, four vehicles, three sets of porters, a couple miles of hiking and several moments of fearing for our lives.
Our hotel is in the center of Kathmandu which is really nice. We are giving the hotel a three star but the bathroom barely a two star. The bed was hard as a rock as most are in this part of the world. We came upstairs to clean up a bit then our mountain guide introduced us to the guide that would be showing us around Kathmandu. We felt bad for the new guide Bhuwan as we were too tired mentally and physically to care much about what he was showing us but we tried to play
along. Today we saw Durbar Square. The square consists of a palace used as an ancient seat of the Nepalese royalty. There are also several temples (still seeing temples and more on the schedule for tomorrow) dedicated to different Hindu gods and goddess. Nepal is very hot compared with the other areas that we have seen so we were happy that the hotel room had power, water and air conditioning. After dinner at the hotel, we walked around in the shopping area next to the hotel.
9/11/2010 Saturday - Today was very hot in Nepal but we headed out with the guide to see a day full of temples (Seriously, there must be more to see here). The first was the Swyambhunath Stupa or Monkey Temple. The great Stupa here was built around 250 B.C. and is the oldest by far. The highlight for us was the actual monkeys. They were fun to watch and were everywhere.
Next we saw the Boudha Nath Stupa. It is considered the most holy and largest stupa in Nepal. They have built a square around the stupa with shops and restaurants so we sat upstairs and had a great view
of the stupa during lunch. Finally more food that was not Indian. We walked around the square and on the first level of the stupa and then headed to our final destination for the day.
Our last stop was the Pashupatinath Temple. It is the one of the biggest Hindu temples of Lord Shiva in the world located on the banks of the Bagmati River. We were lucky to be there the day of the “Women’s Festival” so we saw the lines of women dressed in their red clothes going to the temple. The lines went on forever. Our guide got us in the back gate since we were tourist so we could see the festival from inside but not stand in any lines. Good job Bhuwan. He said it was nice for him to get to see it firsthand also. The temple is also the site for the city cremations and was very interesting to see. Another highlight were the monkeys at this temple. As tired as we were something had to keep us amused.
Other than being tired today, we had just started to understand the Buddhist religion and now we were touring Hindu
temples. Way too confusing for us at this point. One thing we did learn was that the Buddhist and Hindus in Kathmandu get along really well and the temples show signs of both religions together. We finally went back to the hotel to clean up from the day and went out to dinner for my birthday. I never thought I could say one day that I spent my birthday in Kathmandu but here we are. After dinner we did a little more shopping and then packed for our trip home tomorrow.
9/12/2010 Sunday - We had a wonderful time on this trip but were really ready to get back to Shanghai. 13 hours, three flights and at least a dozen security checks but we are finally back.
Just a few final thoughts:
Tibet and Nepal were both more than we could have ever expected in good ways and challenging ways. One of the best decisions was to take altitude medicine as a precaution as there were three groups at our hotel that had to miss base camp because they were sick and had to travel back to Lhasa. If anyone wants to take this journey I
3rd Vehicle
We at least got to sit up front. We had about 20 others in the back. say you really have to want to go. We wouldn’t have missed it for the world but once was definitely enough. The scenery was more beautiful that we could ever express in words and I’m sure the pictures will probably not do it justice.
We were talking about our next journey and decided we needed a little time to decompress before we jump into the next thing. For now it is nice to be back in the city and on flat ground.
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