Crazy Journey - Lhasa to Kathmandu

  Nyallam, China
Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Bus, broken down on the way from to Shigatse

This story ends by me walking about 10 miles due to lack of transportation.  The photos from Shegar, Tingri, Shigatse and Everest Base Camp entries all go along with this story.

I just arrived in Kathmandu last night.  Wow, what a journey getting here and Kathmandu is both absolutely crazy and awesome at the same time.  I love it.  I'm so not missing China but I do miss Tibet...if that makes any sense.  This is the first time I've seen the Internet in a week...and a shower.  Yuck. 
 
Traveling independently from Lhasa to Kathmandu is a kick and I wouldn't recommend it for the light-hearted.  Luckily I befriended 4 others who were doing it.  Two of them, Brits, Neal and Harriet, were easy going and loved the adventure like me.  The other couple, Anya and Stefan, Germans, were not so adventurous and hung in there most of the way because Harriet, Neal and I were making things work OK for them.  Still, despite his having already traveled to 20% of the world, Stefan admitted this was the most adventurous thing he had ever done. 
 
Let me try to give the Reader's Digest version...
 
My goal was to make it by bus from Lhasa to a town called Tingri, hike to Everest Base Camp, hitch back to Tingri, and hitch or take buses from Tingri to the Nepali border.
 
It sort of worked out like that.  But man, was it crazy.  First, from Lhasa they wouldn't sell me a ticket to board the bus to Shigatse or Tingri.  Luckily the bus station lot manager didn't seem to have any problem getting a Tibetan teenager to buy me a ticket to Shigatse.  I spent the night in Shigatse.  In the morning, at Shigatse bus station, not only could I not buy a ticket to Tingri, but also the driver would not let me on the bus.  This is when I met Stefan, Anya, Neal and Harriett. 
 
Together we wandered around and...long story somewhat less long...hired a taxi for the four of them and I slipped into an empty seat on another packed taxi heading the same way.  This got us to a town called Lhatse (not Lhasa).  Because I was in a cab full of Tibetans (5 of em), I easily caught another cab with the same group to Tingri (I thought). 
 
I arrived in Tingri (or what I thought was Tingri), checked into a shitty room, and waited for the other 4.  And waited.  And waited.  Eventually I figured they had to make other plans and started buying groceries and preparing to hike on my own.  (Harriet and Neal said they'd join me in the hike to Everest Base Camp) 
 

Stuck in Shegar

Just as I'm about to head out for a stroll to find the trail head and maybe take some sunset pictures, 3 hours after I arrived, the other 4 show up in a miniature, dual cab Chinese pickup truck.  They're like, "What are you doing in Shegar? We thought you were going to Tingri?".  What?!  Oh shit.  Now I know why I couldn't find any of the hotels listed in the Tingri section of the Lonely Planet.  I'm not in Tingri.  I'm in Shegar.  Fuck.  Oh well.  At least we're together again.
 
Soon thereafter we hire a decrepit Toyota Land Cruiser to take us to Everest Base Camp for the next day and back 2 days later.  We got a great deal (1000 yuan, $135) and felt like we'd accomplished something since we'd saved a bundle compared to what a packaged tour would've cost (and this is way more fun...no matter what I'm about to tell you, I definitely saved a ton of money by not doing this by tour, which is officially the only way a foreigner can go to Everest Base Camp from Tibet and the Nepali border).
 
Considering that none of us had a permit to do so, going to Everest Base Camp and back went pretty smooth--except the driver tried to get another 100 yuan out of us.  No big deal.  But, then we were stuck in Shegar with half the drivers against us due to our gangster Land Cruiser driver.  We didn't have any problems at any of the check points due to not having a permit. (we dun nee no stinking per meats)
 
Eventually Harriet and I tracked down a mini-minivan driver who would give us 5 a lift to Tingri for 200 yuan...a very reasonable offer.  No one else would pick us up because they were either worried about the police--apparently you have to have some special license to carry foreigners--or they just wanted to charge us obscene prices.  At this point Neal and Harriet share their appreciation that they ran into me and that I know a little bit of Chinese.  I'm glad I took the class.
 

Stuck in Tingri

Once in Tingri we figured we'd call it a day.  The next morning we camped out for hours trying to find a ride.  A tourist bus full of Germans came through town but they would absolutely not let us on.  We would run into this same bus in the next city, Nyallam, when where we would be even more desperate to find a ride but still they wouldn't let us on.
 
Out of desperation someone in our group...maybe me...I guess it was me since I was the only one who knew any Chinese...attempts to hitch a ride in a dump truck.  The guy considers it but says (pantomimes, actually) that, no, he's not willing to risk fine or improsment by the police.  But, he does introduce me to a Tibetan bus driver who offers to take the 5 us to Nyallam for 1200 yuan.  Wahoo! 
 

dead goat about to board 'our' bus

So essentially I hired an entire bus for the five us to go to Nyallam, 30 k from the border.  Just this bus ride alone was an adventure.  A few km out of town and the pavement ends.  We can see why no car or minivan would take us.  The drive takes forever but passes through spell bindingly beautiful passes, valleys, rivers, villages, mountains, etc.  Of course our empty bus turned into charity transportation as the driver stopped and picked up countless Tibetans who payed a pittance to ride in our hired bus.  Neal, Harriet and I figured there was no point in arguing and it didn't really cost us anything...except time.  A dead goat accompanied us most of the way.
 
We spent some time having a flat tire repaired as well.  I mention this because we were hoping to make it to Nyallam before 7 PM because the 30 km road from Nyallam to the border is under construction all day and opens for just a 2 hour window at 7.  That means there's all kinds of Land Cruisers, buses, and trucks queued up for the drive and we figured we could walk the queue and find a ride.  Well, with all the dead goats, Tibetan hitchhikers and flat tires, we pulled into Nyallam at 10 past 7.  Just in time that the last of the trucks could be seen disappearing through the now open gate to the highway beyond.
 
We wandered around looking for rides.  We eventually had an offer for 600 yuan ($80) which was ridiculous for only 30k, we thought.  We were going to have to spend the night at the border anyway, so we got rooms and called it a night.  Neal, Harriet and I decided we'd walk the 30 k, all downhill, to the border.
 

Views while walking the closed highway

And that's what we did.  It turned out to be a beautiful walk and it was fun being on the highway with no cars.  The workers were all amused and surprised to see us of course and greeted us with waves and cheers and Tashi Delek's and Hellos the whole way. 
 
I started a half hour behind Neal and Harriet because I had hoped to ship about 5 kg of crap home so that I wouldn't have to walk with it for 20 miles.  Unfortunately that didn't work out.  I caught up with Neal and Harriet around 11:30 and had some snacks with them. 
 
We had hoped that eventually we would find a worker or dump truck or tractor or something that would give us a lift.  But very few vehicles other than a couple of slow moving dump trucks passed me.  The dump trucks were going so slow due to obstructions that I eventually overtook them. 
 

Neal and Harriet

Right after I caught up with the Brits, though, a couple SUVs went by and the second one stopped and gave us a lift for free.  We think the passenger was some government official.  His driver sucked at driving...like he kept stalling because he refused to use 1st gear and, like all fucking Chinese, didn't ever turn on the defroster, preferring to wipe the windows, futily, with a rag.  At one stall he somehow flooded the fuel-injected engine so badly that the car, a brand new Toyota Prado, sat stalled for 10 minutes, causing a maddening traffic jam of dump trucks behind us.  Eventually a mechanically abled soldier got it started for the idiot driver.  But we were highly grateful for the lift, saving us probably 15 km of walking, cutting the ordeal in half.
 

Neal, Harriet and I, at the end of the ...

They dropped us about 4 k outside town to avoid police entanglements.  We walked the rest of the way down Zhangmu's switchbacks, passed through Chinese immigration with no problem, and hired another mini-mini-van to shuttle us to Nepal's immigration, 6 km away.  Once through Nepal's immigration we were accosted by the cacophony of Nepalese public transit.  Somehow we eventually ended pirating seats on a bus hired by some Polish mountaineers, returning from a Cho Oyu expedition.  The Polish guys liked and welcomed us but were ticked that the driver was selling more seats on a bus they'd already hired.  We just laughed silently as we were all too familiar with this scenario.
 

Nepal on the left, China on the right

Ah, Asia.  Anyway, now I'm in Kathmandu which is just lovely.  The workers overwhelm you with excellent customer service and English.  I can hardly believe it.  And it's just crazy in an India way with people and pandemonium everywhere.