Greetings to Sydney
Trip Start
Jul 16, 2008
1
18
31
Trip End
Jun 30, 2009
Chitwan,
Nepal
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Now is the main season in Nepal for trekking, which means that tourist buses are all booked well in advance. So we took a local bus. It's quite like in Australia, driving on the left. But with a significant diference of actually speeding in the middle of the winding road and dodging other vehicles. It is said that people find religion on the way... we tried to sleep most of the way. It's hard to imagine what it is like in South America. Buses are full to the top (and over- the roof is occupied too) and a lot of people are vomiting out of the windows all the time. ALL public vehicles show vomiting history on their sides.
Chitwan NP was worth the ride. We had our elephant days in the jungle: spotting rhinos from the back of an elephant, elephant bathing and visiting little Dumbos in the breeding centre. Bathing in the river was a bit strange though, seeing a crocodile resting 200 meters up the river ...
Back to China. Our last leg in China was Yunnan. We simply adored Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge on Yangtse river, which was our first and only real getaway from urban China. It is actually another Chinese site of future river dam construction.
Our next stop was Shangri-la ("Tibetan border") with its beautiful and peaceful rural Tibetan surroundings. We did a cycling day tour at 3300 m which proved to be quite exhausting. From here we continued to Dali, Kunming and finally Guangzhou (Canton), from where we had our flight to Nepal. So much for the well known international airport: the Chinese check and double check your luggage at the entrance of every bus and train station, but here you could bring a small nuke right to the security check before boarding... But there they confiscated two toothpastes and a spray deodorant, which were in our hand luggage - stupid us! Did we mention before that the Chinese already took away our gas stowe and a knife?! If this continues, Australia might see us bare naked ...
About "drugekrati" - nope, you both lost the bet (those suggestions were very appealing). No drugs, tut tut. It means "another time".
Amy, give the vote for us too and happy Haloween, may you be tricked!
