Kathmandu Hotels
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The Friendship Highway, Day 4
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· Kathmandu, Nepal
· GMT + 5.75hrs
· Altitude: 4,400ft (1,337 metres)
Lhasa to Kathmandu, Day 4
· Day 4 hours driving: 10
· Day 4 Altitude drop: 10,100ft (3,060m)
· Day 4 Highlights: Our welcome to Nepal
· Day 4 Lowlights: The 10 hours we spent getting to Kathmandu
Another long day
I don't know how we made it though the night but we did (again I credit the layers... and the human will for survival). My watch wasn't so lucky however. I woke this morning to find it dead. 9:05 on
March 3rd 2008 was when it died. That was mere minutes after I checked it having been raised from our slumber by a chorus of stray dogs patrolling Tingri's main street. Maybe it was its time (no pun intended) or maybe it was the cold in the room, the same cold that froze my contact lens solution to a block and depleted the power in my digital camera batteries.
Having endured the night we endured we weren't too fond of hanging around Tingri, as nondescript a town as I have ever seen, and so by 10am we were back on the road, this time for the last time, heading for the Nepal boarder. 5-6 hours we were told the trip would take. It actually took 6 hours, and we felt every bit of those 6 hours. You see the Chin-bleed'in-ese haven't
gotten around to paving the strip of the Friendship Highway from Tingri to Zhangmu, on the Tibet-Nepal boarder, so we, once again, spent the day bouncing around the inside of a no-spare-tire Toyota Land Cruiser, feeling once again like crumbs in a biscuit tin. The trip was, of course, broken up here are there by stops to gaze at far off Himalayan peaks and standing on the La lung pass (16,650ft, 5,050m), 2 hours drive from Tingri, we were all in agreement that the best vistas of the trip were left until the last day (see the pictures).
Change of Scene
From the pass things, mainly scenery, changed dramatically. As we descended from the Tibetan plateau towards the boarder with
Nepal we said goodbye to the bright, sunny, dry weather and the barren, rocky, dusty landscape we'd become accustomed to over the past 3 days. We entered a damp, humid gorge with vegetation (trees and stuff) where it clouded over and snowed, making the twisty and dramatic dirt road we were traveling on that much more twisty and dramatic. It was a precarious trip to say the least, clinging as we did to the side of cliffs as we descended further and further into the wet gorge. We spent the couple of hours on this 33km length of road trying, as we descended, to peer out of the jeep and into the abyss. As we did we were wondering 1 - exactly how far down the valley floor was (it was always a long way), and 2 - if today was the day we were all going to die. Any thoughts of enjoying what lay ahead on this trip were put on hold until we successfully navigated the 'precipice' (Pats word) we found ourselves in.
Namaste Nepal
We eventually made it to Zhangmu, a Chinese-Tibetan-Nepalese hybrid boarder town (now there's a messed up place if ever there was one) that clings gamely to the sheer mountain. From what we could see of the town it was a collection of tin shacks, construction sites, wooden huts, shops, brothels (we assume) and offices. According to our guidebook it's a 'great place with a Wild-West-comes-to-Asia atmosphere'. Wild West indeed. We thought it
was a right hole altogether and having come this far we were keen to keep going, as quickly as possible, for Nepal (surely things could only get better, we thought). So shortly after saying goodbye to our driver (we pitied him having to make the return trip to Lhasa) we hired a car to take us the remaining 8km to the China-Nepal boarder proper. That 8km was another 8km of dramatic, cliff-hugging road, the end of which is marked by the Friendship bridge, the boarder crossing between China/Tibet and Nepal. It was as busy, lawless and as chaotic an area as one would expect any boarder crossing in this part of the world to be. But it was surprisingly hassle free for us 5 westerners and shortly after walking across the Friendship bridge we were in Kodari, Nepal, and organising onward transport for the 4 hour drive to Kathmandu. I remember Pat proclaiming as we crossed the bridge that we were now
"Nepal's problem."
That statement was, for some unknown reason, a statement that comforted to both of us.
Day 203 Observations (March 3rd 2008)
· Counting our blessings
We're glad, so glad, we weren't born in Tibet. If the 4 day trip through Tibet has thought us anything, it's how appreciative we are of the fact that we were born into a western society. Seeing and experiencing the hardships of everyday life in Tibet really makes one crave for the 'luxuries' of home; heating and hot water come to mind straight away but it goes so much deeper than that for the poor Tibetans; infrastructure, democracy, freedom of speech, oppression, hygiene... it's all missing for them. Pat thinks the Tibetans, because of all the hardships they endure, are a broken race and again who am I to disagree with him. That, we know for sure, can definitely be blamed on the Chin-bleed'in-ese.
· Breathing easier
We began breathing easier once we got to the Chinese-Nepal boarder. Not because the danger of falling off the edge of a cliff had subsided but because of the drop in altitude. It's nice to know that with each breath we're now getting our regular intake of oxygen (to supplement our regular intake of carbon monoxide).
· Infected
Resistance is futile. Some of Pat's mp3 player music found its way onto my mp3 player and at various times over the last day or so I have found myself listening to the likes of Mika and CCR (Creedence Clearwater Revival). If anything the new music will be a theme tune for our 4 day drive on the Friendship Highway. Rest assured, we're still friends.
· An even happier lot
The Nepalese are a happy, more laid-back lot than the Tibetans, in much the same way that we commented on the Tibetans being a happier lot than the Chin-bleed'in-ese. Yep, we're sensing a trend here. Maybe it's because they realise, and appreciate, that they are not Tibetans (or Indians for that matter). Dealing with the boarder officials (two young, jovial guys in casual clothes in a room off the bridge marking the boarder) was like dealing with a member of your own family and organising onward jeep transport to Kathmandu was not the exercise in negotiating it would have been in Tibet or China. It made the long uncomfortable trip from the boarder to Kathmandu that bit more bearable. As did the jeep driver who tried to educate us on the ways of life in Nepal. He told us that Nepal has,
"many many rice," in response to a question on the numerous paddy fields we passed en route to Kathmandu.
But it wasn't just him who put a smile on our faces during the trip. At one of the military checks we passed through on the road to Kathmandu (yep, they have them here too) the boyish looking solider smiled at me in the back of the jeep and proclaimed,
"Welcome! Happy journey!"
· Colourful
In keeping with their happier demeanor the Nepalese also seem to like to colour things; the buses and trucks are brightly coloured which gives an almost hippy feeling to the place.
· LHS
This is more like it. Familiarly breeds comfort. The Nepalese drive on the left, which is the right (as in correct, not as in the opposite of left) side of the road, if you know what I mean? I knew it all along; it's them North Americans who are backward.
· How much?
It looks like things are cheaper in Nepal than in China and that prompted Pat to ask me in the jeep to Kathmandu how much I thought a beer will cost here in Nepal.
"Dunno lad, but we'll soon find out."
Btw, the cost of a beer is our gauge as to how cheap/expensive a country is. It works well and is as good a method as any, even better than the McDonald's index we find. After all, not everyplace, mercifully, has McDonald's.
· GMT+ 5.75
Nepal is 5.75 hrs ahead of GMT. That's a weird time change, especially having come from China with its GMT +8hrs timezone. We hear the Nepal chose that time zone to firmly distinguish itself as a separate country from India, its southern neighbour. Considering the Nepalese look so much like Indians that was probably a good idea.
· Different worlds
That last observation brings me nicely to another one, and that is how I'm amazed at how the people on either side of a seemingly small boarder crossing can look so different, so distinct, as is the case with the Chin-bleed'in-ese/Tibetans and the Nepalese. I also commented on this two years ago when I crossed the boarder from Mongolia, where the people look so obviously Asian, and Russia, where they look so obviously European/Eastern European.
· No worries
Just like the Y2K bug all those years ago, we needn't have worried about altitude sickness. None of us suffered so much as a headaches over the last 4 days and even if we had of suffered any ill effects from the trip we would have blamed the Chin-bleed'in-ese (and maybe the beer), but definitely not the altitude.
Where I stayed:
Tibet Peace Guesthouse
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