Tuesday, December 22, 2009

India to New York

Two weeks in India went by pretty fast. This was probably partly due to the fact that I got sick three times in the fortnight. We didn't want to try to do too much as we knew that getting around to different places would take some time. So we just checked out Varanasi, Agra, Jaipur and Delhi. It was winter time so the weather was pretty nice. It was warm most days and cool in the evening but there was quite a bit of pollution around, especially in Agra and Jaipur and I think this might be the reason I still haven't been able to shake the sore throat I got in Nepal.

Varanasi actually turned out to be the most relaxing of all the places we went. As long as you didn't venture out into the main bazaar it wasn't too crazy and you could just chill out. We took it easy and just walked along the ghats, took a boat ride, walked around the main bazaar etc.

In Agra we did the usual - Agra Fort, Fatephur Sikri (well, Paul did this one by himself as I was stuck in bed - again) and the Taj Mahal. In Jaipur we did a rickshaw tour of some of the main tourist places but to be honest it was a little disappointing (was I blind or was the pink city not even that pink?????). Jaipur was a little bit of a hard town to travel as the budget accommodation was spread out all over the place which made finding a place on the spur of the moment hard. Some of it was also not very central which meant we needed to get a rickshaw to go anywhere.

In Delhi we did a couple of days sightseeing - the National Museum, Connaught Place and a few other things. Our flight to New York was scheduled for 4.30am on the 19th and we decided to go to the airport the evening before and hopefully catch some sleep in the airport. We met up with Alex and Felicity for dinner before we left and unfortunately I started to feel sick (again) over dinner. I was so annoyed that I had to get sick again just when I was about to leave India. I ended up spending the whole evening in the airport with my head in the toilet bowl and Etihad almost wouldn't give me my boarding pass to get on the plane. Luckily they relented when I faked a miraculous recovery and we got on board where Paul promptly started to feel sick and spent most of the flight rushing to the loo! We were such a sorry pair. We were so excited about finally having a flight with food and free movies but we didn't get to eat hardly any food and Paul didn't watch hardly any movies!

We stopped over in Abu Dhabi for a couple of hours before getting back on the plane for another 14 hours to New York. We finally arrived at about 4.00pm (NY time) and had to find our way to our apartment, which luckily didn't prove to be too difficult.

The apartment we are staying in is really nice and has everything that we need. It is so nice to finally have hot water in the shower (and to not have to worry about keeping your lips tightly pressed together the whole time!). Actually it's just nice to be in America in general - everything just works! It's quite a relief after India. The only downside has been spending the first few days trying to recover from our tummy bugs - at least I've had time to do some cooking which I had started to really miss.

Today we finally roused ourselves and took the ferry to Staten Island to look at the Statue of Liberty and the view of Manhattan. I thought that the Statue of Liberty looked rather small in real life - obviously I have seen it close up on way too many cinema screens! Plus I thought it was way out in the sea by itself, not so close to other bits of land (probably movies again). After that we went to catch a glimpse of Ground Zero where the twin towers used to stand. At the moment it is still just a construction site. It just so happened that right next to this area was a huge discount department store and I stayed there for hours trying on jeans (and a few other things). The clothes were really quite heavily discounted but you really had to trawl through to find the good stuff. Paul eventually gave up and went home without me. And I still didn't even get a chance to look at the shoes.....

Thursday, December 10, 2009

We have a home!!!!!!!!!!!

Just a quick note letting people know that we found a home in New York City!!!!!! After a couple of weeks of stressful searching for a place we have found an apartment on Manhattan Island!!!! New York here we come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fingers crossed that it all works out.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Nepal

We all arrived in Kathmandu tired out from our trip through Tibet as none of us were really able to sleep well the whole time (altitude perhaps?). The first thing we did was head out for huge woodfired pizzas (terrible I know, but you would probably do the same after more than a week of yak meat noodles every day).

It was strange crossing the border from Tibet into Nepal. The border was a river and as soon as we crossed the bridge that constituted the no man's land between the two countries suddenly everyone and everything looked completely different. The trucks and buses were all colourful and instead of wearing Tibetan clothing the women were all wearing saris.

Kathmandu was polluted and crazy. We stayed in Thamel like everyone else and it was crazy there most of the time as the streets were so narrow there wasn't really room for traffic and pedestrians at the same time. Luckily our hostel was down a side street and ended up being quite peaceful.

We spent a few days in Kathmandu trying to sort out our Indian visa (a huge chore which we made even worse by trying originally to go on a Sunday when it was closed) and get our trekking permit. At first we didn't really know which trek we wanted to do - we just had an idea that we wanted to see some great scenery. Anais and Emmanuel decided to do the Helambu trek and Alex and Felicity were set on doing the Annapurna Circuit. Paul didn't really know much about Nepal and said he just wanted to see some big mountains. I remembered a girl I used to work with in my library job had done the Annapurna Circuit and said it was amazing - this, along with what I already knew about it and Alex talking it up so much decided me - we were going to try it too. (I only remembered much later that the gist of her story had been about how her boyfriend fell seriously ill on the trek and she had to hire a pony to get him down and out.  Perhaps it was just as well we had started the trek by the time I remembered this...).

Paul initially wasn't too keen as it seemed like it would take us 18 days. He thought he might like to climb a 6000 metre mountain but we didn't have time to arrange it and our insurance didn't cover mountaineering so I convinced him that could wait until next time and we should start with something a little bit easier (especially as we had spent the last two weeks sitting in a jeep for most of the day). I convinced him by saying the scenery was going to be great and we would get to go over a really high pass - I knew he would come around after the first few days. So we got the permit, packed our bags and set off still not really knowing what to expect.

Quite a few people we met on the trek asked us why we didn't have a porter or a guide. The main reason we didn't take a porter or a guide was that we knew that it was possible to do the trek yourself and we didn't want to spend the money. If we were to hire a porter only we would have to be fully responsible for them. We would have to check that they had the right clothing, we would have to insure them and we would have to work out a price that suited everyone. As we weren't even sure we could get ourselves over the pass, we didn't want to be responsible for someone else as well. Plus it seemed a little bit like cheating - it wasn't like we had to carry food or a tent - just our clothing and a sleeping bag etc.

We arrived at Besisahar (which is technically the start of the circuit) on the afternoon of the 11th. Because it was a little late to start trekking that day we decided to cheat a little and take a local bus the first 9km to the village of Bulbule where most people stop the first night. We were hoping to catch up to Alex and Felicity who had started walking on the 10th (in the end we didn't catch up with them until Pokhara!). The next morning we met a nice tour group from Australia who were also starting their trek that morning. We said goodbye to them and set off thinking that we would probably see them along the way.

The first several days of walking took us up a river valley and we were never out of sight of the river for long. We had started from around 1000 metres altitude and got higher and higher every day. At lower altitudes the villages were lovely and green and there were a lot of water buffalo around. We crossed tonnes of suspension bridges (including one crossing where we crossed paths with some donkeys in the middle of the bridge - this taught us to always, ALWAYS give way to donkeys!) as well as some crazy bridges that were just a bunch of sticks across the river. At times the track was quite precarious and exposed, including some sections where there had been landslides and you had to navigate around them. Often these sections were high above the water and I wished I hadn't heard that some trekker had fallen off the track and died last year.

They were putting in a road up this valley and you could often see the workers blasting away at the cliff or chipping the stone by hand. There were donkeys all up and down the track carrying loads of goods and it was amazing to see them navigate the narrow path and the rickety bridges. We also saw so many people transporting huge loads of plastic pipes or lumber - bearing most of the weight on their heads. Sometimes you couldn't even see the people as their loads were so huge. I have no idea how they carried these loads uphill all day.

During this portion of the trek we walked between 8 - 12km per day. Although we were gaining quite a bit of altitude each day the track still went up and down all the time. This seemed to be the average distance most trekkers covered. In fact it seemed like most trekkers tended to stop at the same villages every night so we saw the same people over and over again. Still, if we had wanted to we could have gone much shorter distances as there were villages every hour or so an most of them had a least one lodge.

Throughout the trek (except the day we crossed the pass) we tended to wake up at about 6.30am, have breakfast at 7.00am and set off between 8.00 - 8.30am. We would stop for about an hour for lunch at around 12.00 or 1.00 and usually arrive at our destination around 3.00pm. This gave us a bit of time to do our washing and have a shower before the sun went down. I took two hiking shirts, two pairs of underwear and two pairs of socks, so one set could be washed while the other one was being worn. This worked really well and usually everything was dry by morning. The only times it didn't work was while we were above about 3500 metres. It just got too cold for things to dry overnight and often socks etc would be frozen in the morning. This just meant that I put them on the outside of my pack to dry during the day.

Most of the lodges offered hot water but as it was usually solar powered hot water it wasn't hot at all if there was no sun that day or if too many trekkers had already arrived before you and used it all. Cool showers weren't such a problem at the lower altitudes but when we got higher we always looked for places that had as few trekking groups as possible. Still, we had our fair share of frigid showers - by the time we got to Letdar and High Camp (both over 4000 metres) we had just given up on the whole idea of showers.

We arrived in the village of Manang (just over 3500 metres high) on the 7th day of the trek. Like most other trekkers we had planned a rest day here to help us acclimatise. The position of Manang was beautiful - you could see Annapurna III, Gangapurna and the Gangapurna glacier on the other side of the valley.

The morning of our rest day we got up to go for an acclimatisation walk to a lookout perched over the top of the glacier. I had been suffering from a cold for the last few days and it was hard work getting to the top of the hill - I was so slow and gasping for air and felt quite feeble. Paul was waiting for me for ages at the top. There was such a lovely view of the glacier and the mountains at the top and there was some snow lying around on the ground. The weather was really warm as long as you kept out of the wind so we stayed up there for some time to eat some chocolate and enjoy the view.

Paul was excited about staying at Manang as it was a larger village and he wanted to try eating in a local restaurant instead of always eating in the lodge. When we got back from our acclimatisation walk he said that he was going to find a local restaurant to eat in. I told him I wasn't going to eat in a local restaurant as I was worried about being sick - we had already met quite a few people heading down to Besisahar with stomach trouble. He told me that if I felt like wasting money eating in the guesthouse restaurant that was my prerogative and off he went. He came back later that afternoon bragging about how cheap his meal had been. "The sign on the restaurant said it was the cheapest food in town!" he boasted. "Well, good for you" I said.

Well, it might have been the cheapest food in town but our stay in Manang didn't end up being cheap as Paul was stuck in bed for the next two days with food poisoning! We had to watch all the other trekkers leave the next day to continue up the valley while Paul lay groaning in bed and I brought him toast on a tray. Luckily we had brought our antibiotics with us and I put him on them straight away. There was also a volunteer doctor in town who told us this type of thing was common. I was quite worried for a while that he wouldn't get better and we wouldn't be able to keep going up, especially because from Manang it is only 3 days until you usually cross the pass.

Still, there were worse places that he might have been sick than Manang. I used the extra days to go on another acclimatisation walk to a monastery high up on the hill over the village. The view of the mountains from up there was stunning. Finally, two days later Paul was finally sufficiently recovered to keep going up. That day we arrived at Letdar (about 4200 metres high). It was quite cold and miserable there and I was really glad that I had hired a -20 down sleeping bag before the trek. It was the best sleeping bag and the whole time I never got cold in there (I even had to stick my arm out occasionally to cool down). It was getting hard to sterilise our water as our Steripen didn't seem to want to work when the temperature of the water was so cold. I had to warm my water bottle up inside my down jacket for up to an hour before the Steripen would work - I was too cheap to buy boiled water because by this point the price was so ridiculous I refused. It helped that there were safe water stations along the way where you could buy drinking water but these were usually closed by 5.00pm so there was no water available at night to clean your teeth.

The next morning we took off for Thorong Phedi (about 4400 metres) which was the next village. I was walking so slowly I felt as if I would never get there. I was finding it quite difficult going and breathing hard. Still, we seemed to make ok time and arrived in Thorong Phedi around lunchtime. We stopped for a drink and considered our options. We could either stay at Thorong Phedi for the night or continue going to High Camp (about 4800 metres) which was the next village (really just one guesthouse) about 1.5 hours away straight up the hill. The pass was around 5400 metres so if we walked from Thorong Phedi the next day it was going to be a huge altitude gain to cross the pass and at least an additional 1.5 hours of walking (more given my slow speed the past few days). We already knew that once we crossed the pass it would be another 4 hours downhill until we reached Muktinath, the first village on the other side where we would be able to find a lodge. I just didn't know if I could make it over the pass if we decided to walk from Phedi so we decided to push on and overnight at High Camp instead.

I was glad that we made that decision as soon as we started up the hill from Phedi to High Camp. I felt like I was walking very slowly and it just felt like really hard work. Throughout the trek I found that I was quite slow going uphillPaul would always be waiting for me for ages up the top of any hill. To make up for it though I thought I had quite good stamina and I could walk for a long time every day if I had to. This later proved to be useful on the day we crossed the pass. Just before you reach High Camp there is a rock ledge that you walk over. Once you have crossed this ledge you can see High Camp. When I finally crossed the ledge I was so relieved as I could finally see High Camp a couple of hundred metres away and I knew that I was almost there. But that just seemed to make me slower! It seemed to take hours to walk the last couple of hundred metres to the lodge (probably because I kept stopping to rest about every 10 steps). Paul had already negotiated a price for a room, checked in and made himself at home by the time I arrived.

High Camp was really, really cold. There was slushy ice all over the yard, snow on the roof and there was slick ice right in front of our bedroom door. The temperature in our room was -5 before the sun even went down. We abandoned our acclimatisation walk up a small hill behind the lodge as the ice up there was really slippery so we just got into our sleeping bags instead. At one stage I was in the room checking out the state of my blisters and I heard Paul talking to someone outside the door. When I went out I discovered that the trekking group that we met at Bulbule were there! It was so strange to see them again after all that time. We must have passed and re-passed each other over the days but we never saw them. There were 4 trekkers, Bob, Jon, Liz and Frank with their Australian guide Teresa and their porters. It was nice to catch up with them after all that time.

The food and accommodation at High Camp was really expensive and the dining room was really cold. Still, everyone had an early start in the morning so people were in bed really early. The trekking group were nice enough to say we could walk with them in the morning to cross the pass so we arranged to set off at 6.00am.

Waking up the next morning was really hard as our room was so cold. I always got so hot when I started walking because I was carrying the pack so I didn't wear any thermals, just my fleece and my waterproof jacket over my hiking shirt and just my hiking pants on the bottom. We set off at about 6.00am and straight away there was heaps of ice and snow on the track. Lots of the snow had melted and then refrozen which made it really hard to walk onin spots it was sculpted into strange waves created by people's bootprints. The flat ice was the worst as you could just slip straight off and quite a bit of the way there was a long drop on the right hand side of the track – I tried not to think what would happen if I fell off the track. Sometimes the ice under the snow was almost black and if you weren't careful you could think it was a rock and step on it – I quickly learnt that this wasn't a good idea.

Having never walked on ice or snow before it took us a while to get the hang of it. A few German tour groups raced past us in the meantimethey didn't seem to have too many problems with the snow. It was supposed to be about 3 hours to the pass from High Camp. We ended up getting there about 10.30am. I was so relieved when I got there as I felt like I had been so slow going up I might never make it. I was amazed at 73 year old Bob who was ahead of me the whole day! I don't know why I was so slowhopefully next time I go to high altitude I will improve. I kept telling myself to go faster but it seemed like my body just wasn't able to do it. It was quite hard to breathe at that altitude and I was taking one full breath in and out with every step. I don't know if I would be any faster without the pack but I don't think it would have made that much difference. Obviously I am just bad at going uphill, especially considering that I was slow going uphill even when we were at lower altitude. On top of the altitude, the wind was blowing so hard across the pass and it was right in our face which made walking really hard.

There was a teahouse on the top of the pass but the wind was howling through the cracks in the wall and sitting in there was worse than walking so we decided to keep going instead of having tea. We only spent about 10 minutes on the pass taking a few photos and having a short rest as we knew we still had a long way to go.

Going down the other side of the pass was really hard and almost as slow as going up as there was heaps of ice and snow. I wished that I had crampons as some sections of ice were quite dangerous. Paul ended up slipping twice (but not seriously) but luckily I kept my feet the whole time. And I was pleased that I started to come into my own. On the way down Paul got a really bad headache and felt really tired. On the other hand, once we were going down and not up, I felt great! Although I was obviously tired etc I still felt like I had enough energy to keep going. Paul seemed like he had completely drained his energy reserved as he kept saying he wanted to lay down and have a sleep! I didn't think this was the best idea when we were still so far away from the next village so I just made him have a rest, eat and drink and keep going. Luckily we had taken heaps of snacks to eat along the way.

We finally got down to another small teahouse about 2.30pm where we stopped for lunch with the trekking group. After lunch it was another hour or so to Muktinath. There was a temple just outside Muktinath which was supposed to be quite interesting and the trekking group went inside to check it out but Paul was so tired we decided to keep going straight to the village. We ended up getting there around 4.00pm which was pretty slow going compared to lots of other people (we later found out one Polish girl crossed the pass in 4.5 hours coming from Thorong Phedi!) but hey, at least we made it!

When we checked into the guesthouse in the village we were so excited as it had a really lovely hot shower and we hadn't had a shower for a couple of days as the water was too cold at the higher camps. Paul decided to have yak steak that night as I had promised him he could eat whatever he wanted once we crossed the pass (he was restricted to a "safe" vegetarian diet after his little incident in Manang) and I had lasagne (not very traditional, I know). After celebrating with the trekking group we fell into bed exhausted.

The next day we woke up late and started walking down the valley to the village of Kagbeni. We wished that we could have had a rest day at Kagbeni as it was such a lovely village. But since Paul had used up our spare days being sick we had to keep going. It was on a cliff at the confluence of two rivers and was really Tibetan in style. Actually, quite a few of the villages at the higher altitudes were Tibetan in nature and had a lot of people of Tibetan heritage living there. They wore Tibetan-style clothing and there were many Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and temples. All the houses in Kagbeni were made out of mud bricks which were whitewashed and the houses had red roofs. There was a really nice temple with a lovely view of Nilgiri (7061 metres high) in one direction and into the restricted Upper Mustang valley in the other direction.
In the morning we dragged ourselves out of bed early and took a short walk upriver to visit the village of Tiri. We had to cross the river bed to get therethe bridges that the locals had put there were all icy as it was still cold and they were a little bit slippery. Tiri was just a small village but it was interesting to visit as it used to be part of Upper Mustang, meaning that it was off limits unless you bought a really, really expensive permit.

After Tiri we headed down the valley towards the village of Marpha. Marpha was another pretty village and was famous for its apples so that night we had apple cider, apple brandy and apple crumble. The only annoying thing about that day was the wind that was still blowing straight up the valley. As much of the track was in the river bed we copped the wind right in the face all afternoon. We were so relieved when we finally arrived.

The next few days we kept heading down the valley. Gradually we started to see trees again and the scenery became greener and greener. We had lovely views of Nilgiri, Dhaulagiri (8167 metres) and the Dhaulagiri Icefall on the way down. There was a road on this side of the pass and sometimes you had to walk along the road. It was just a dirt road and occasionally a bus, truck or motorbike would come along. It didn't really bother me that I was walking on a road (although it was dusty when a vehicle came past) but a lot of trekkers didn't like it. Still, there were quite a few places when you could walk on the other side of the river if you didn't like the road. We ended up walking on the road most of the time as it was faster.

We caught up with the tour group again at a village called Lete (we had parted with them in Muktinath) and we ended up walking part of the next day with them to Tatopani. This ended up being our longest day – we walked about 20km and got in quite late. We had run out of time to finish the whole circuit so we had decided to pull out at Tatopani and get the bus to Pokhara. (The circuit officially ends at Nayapul which was probably another 2 – 3 days of trekking but we decided that we could always do this as part of another trek next time). We were getting worried about our Indian visa and getting out of Nepal on time. There were some hot springs at Tatopani but we got in a little late so we didn't end up checking them out.

The next day we found a local bus which agreed to take us to Beni (it seemed like they were supposed to go somewhere else but changed their minds when we turned up as we were the only ones on the bus at the time) where we would change buses. From Beni we got another bus to Pokhara and arrived about 2.00pm.

Pokhara was nice but we didn't really do much there as we were pretty tired from trekking. Next time I go to Nepal I will definitely get a longer visa as 30 days is just not long enough. After that it was back to Kathmandu to sort out our visa and do other chores. We finally booked our tickets to South America and managed to get a stopover in New York over Christmas and New Year so we needed to try to book some accommodation for that.

Leaving Nepal turned out to be an adventure in itself. We left it until the day that our visa was going to expire to leave the country. Perhaps this was tempting fate as our bus trip turned out to be a disaster. We left on the bus from Kathmandu at 7.30am imagining that we would be at the border at around 3.00pm. About 1.00pm we suddenly stopped behind a huge long line of trucks and buses. We didn't know what was going on – Had we reached the border already? Was it a Maoist blockade? We finally worked out that a bridge had become unstable up ahead. It seemed like there was no other route around the river so we had to sit in the bus and wait for it to be fixed. We waited for hours, only moving ahead when one of the trucks ahead of us decided to give up and turn around. All the time, small cars and motorbikes were still crossing the bridge – this was totally frustrating. We didn't know what to do as our visa was expiring at midnight and we didn't even know if the border was open 24 hours. It got darker and darker as we sat there waiting for something to be done about the bridge. A haystack in the field next to the road became the designated ladies toilet – I wished that I was wearing a sari like everyone else as it at least gave you a little extra privacy while doing you business.

We finally started moving at about 10.00pm but there was still a couple of hours to the border. We didn't end up getting to the border until 2.00am. Everyone else just got off the bus and went into a hotel on the Nepali side of the border. But we had already overstayed our visa and we didn't know what would happen to us if we didn't try to cross straight away. Luckily by this time we had worked out that the border was open 24 hours so we started walking down the road towards the border. We walked down the road and saw that there was a boom gate across it. There were two guards there so we asked them if we could cross and they said yes. They told us that immigration was on the left so we walked down the road trying to spot it. It was in a grotty little building which you could easily have walked straight past (and nobody would have tried to stop you). Still, we went in and banged on the window yelling "Namaste!! Namaste!!".

A sleepy border guard dressed in a towel poked his head out the window to see what we wanted. "We need an exit stamp" we said. He gave us an exit form and took our passports. We sneakily wrote on the exit form that we exited the day before (the day our visas expired) and hoped he wouldn't notice – hey, we were only a few hours late! He did notice but he just stamped our passports with the correct day and gave them back to us without saying anything. We had seen on the board outside the office that the fine for overstaying was US$30 plus US$2 for every extra day so we felt like we had just dodged a bullet.

Having successfully exited Nepal, we now felt we had no choice but to try to enter India (although we could have quite literally walked back up the road and stayed in the hotel on the Nepali side of the border – we later wished we did do this as the Indian guesthouse was so foul). We kept walking in the dark down the dusty road and eventually reached another boom gate and another pair of guards. This lot directed us to another dingy building which constituted Indian immigration. We couldn't wake anyone up there so we decided to just wait until morning (well, later in the morning). We checked into the dodgiest hostel we ever saw and spent a few hours getting some much needed sleep. We hadn't even had any dinner.

The next morning we got a bus to Gorakhpur and then a train to Varanasi. We didn't arrive in Varanasi until about 6.30pm and we still had to find a hotel. We headed straight for the hostel that Alex and Felicity were staying in (they were a couple of days ahead of us) and thankfully managed to find it down the crazy maze of alleys along the river. We all went out to dinner that night to catch up. Unfortunately I woke up later with a really sore stomach and spent the whole of the next day laying in bed with some weird kind of food poisoning. My whole body was aching like when you get a really bad flu. I couldn't believe I had lasted less than 24 hours in India without getting sick! As well as this I was still trying to recover from a cold I caught from Paul in Kathmandu. Plus while I was in Kathmandu I had already had a bought of food poisoning – when was it going to end? I felt so sorry for myself laying sick in this dingy guesthouse with dirty walls. At least the view out the window was nice, when I had the strength to sit up and look at it. I could see everyone out on their rooftops washing their clothes, flying kites, kids playing... Sometimes heaps of monkeys would run across the roofs and everyone would come out with big sticks and try to chase them away.

We don't have long in India so we'll probably just check out a few places before we fly to America on the 19th. We're worried we won't enjoy ourselves if we try to cram too much in and it's such a big country we could never see it all anyway.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

30/11/2009 – Kathmandu, Nepal

Firstly, sorry that the blog hasn't been updated for ages by me. It was virtually impossible to get a good connection in Tibet (plus all the government web restrictions!) and in Nepal as well.


Tibet

The train ride from Chengdu to Lhasa began in the typical Chinese style. Loud, smoky and busy. It got worse after 3 hours on the train when the toilet in our carriage was already blocked. I didn't think it was possible that the big toilet hole in the floor could be blocked by human waste. But then again, China WAS full of surprises. It wasn't long until the toilet in the next carriage was blocked too. We thought it would be an interesting ride when this happened after the first 5 hours of our 44 hour train journey.


Honestly though, the scenery dramatically changed soon after we crossed onto the Tibetan plateau. Hooray! No pollution! You could actually clearly see the mountains 150 metres away from your train window.


I think we spent most of the time playing cards and chatting with other backpackers during the day and as soon as it hit around 8pm, most people were in bed. Bunch of oldies I know!


The railway was a pretty amazing construction though. It's the highest railway in the world and the track passed over 5000m in altitude. By the 3rd day on the train, some passengers had oxygen tubes stuck to their nostrils. It was pretty hilarious seeing these people in their compartments or in the hallway having tubes coming out from their noses. I felt like I was in a hospital ward.


The facilities on the train were generally good (besides the toilets of course!). Apparently the train was pressurised when it went through 5000m and there were constantly salesmen going pass with trays of lunch/dinner sets and drinks for purchase.


The scenery was very beautiful on the 3rd day. We woke up in the morning with snow everywhere on the ground outside the train and high peaks in front of us. Everything was white and vast. It looked so remote, yet stunning. We took some really awesome pictures from our windows.


We were greeted by our Tibetan guide, Dolker, as soon as we left the station in Lhasa. She was young (23) and had been a guide for 3 years. She put this white scarf around our necks as it was a traditional Tibetan welcoming ceremony. We later found out that it was also a Buddhist blessing gesture – you put the white scarf on Buddhas in the temples.


Lhasa was quite an interesting city. It was sort of divided into the new Chinese settlement and the old Tibetan area. I found that there was a huge contrast between the 2 areas and there was a clear division among the people. We were told that it was quite difficult for normal Tibetans to get proper jobs in Lhasa as you either need to know someone higher up or marry to a Chinese person. It is a sad reality for Tibetans.


There were police and military everywhere on the streets. All carried heavy weapons and machine guns and grenade launchers. Police were also present at the monastries, although usually they were busy taking photos themselves.


We were not used to the high altitude in Lhasa (3600m). When we first got there, we had trouble even to climb stairs in our hostel. Every step we climbed was a struggle. We were fully puffed when we climbed from the ground floor to the third floor. This was nothing compared to the altitude that we later achieved.


We had free traditional Chinese breakfasts in the hostel in Lhasa. It always amuses me that some tourists just seemed not to be able to eat congee at all. I mean, if you love rice and water, surely you gotta love congee. Or if you can eat porrige, you surely can eat congee. But, not with the people in our group (except Naomi of course!). These American, French and British tourists constantly complained about the watery rice (congee) and how bad it was. Naomi and I ate it alright and we thought it was quite delicious. The weirdest thing is the French couple, Anais and Emmanuel, couldn't even eat boiled eggs. Apparently they don't have it in France...hmm...bizarre.


In Lhasa, we went to quite a few monastries and temples. The most impressive one was the Jokhang monastry just in the centre of Lhasa. It was built around the 7th century. When we got there at around 9:30am, there was hundreds of pilgrims lined up in a queue to get in. Many were either prostrating or spinning their prayer wheels in the queue. Some people spent days there just prostrating themselves. It was really amazing to see how devoted they were to Buddhism. It was an eye-opener for me.


We also visited Sera monastry where we saw monks debating. It was more like a question and answer time where the monks were divided into many groups and one monk would stand and clap his hands as he asked scriptural questions to his group. They were very animated. It was quite comical from our perspective but some monks took it very seriously. We saw this monk in his late twenties nearly cry when he couldn't answer questions asked.


There were a few other holy monastries we visited including Drepung monastery. There were individual in their own ways. But by the time we visited the third monastry, I was just confused which one was which.


Oh, we observed this team motivation exercise by the Tibetan workers. When we were walking around the monastry, we heard this marvellous singing coming from one of the construction buildings. We went to investigate and found these Tibetan workers making a new floor by singing and banging sticks with rocks at the end in unison. They all seemed so joyous. Maybe I can introduce that as the new work culture in the Bank for morning briefings. At least it would make work more interesting and fun!


Potala Palace was a beautiful structure from outside. It was the home of Dalai Lama and was built by the former Dalai Lamas. All visits to the Palace were restricted to one hour. But really it was a bit over-rated inside. Dolker was just going, "this is the seat of Dalai Lama....this was his throne.....this was his living room....etc." as we didn't have much time. It would probably be more interesting to Tibetans who fully adored the Dalai Lama. I didn't get too much out of it to be honest, probably as there were no monks and not many pilgrims around.


On our 3rd day, we went to the famous Nam Tso Lake. It was one of the 3 holiest lakes in Tibet. Apparently when the Dalai Lama passes away, holy monks come here to seek guidance on where to find the next Dalai Lama. No one was allowed to take water from the lake or fish there.


On the way, we crossed a pass over 5190m in altitude. The view from there was stunning as it was such a bright sunny day. The lake itself was quite beautiful. It was turquoise blue. Naomi and I had a nice picnic lunch by the lake side as we brought our own lunch.


After lunch, unfortunately I developed a massive headache and had to lie down on the pebbles next to the lake and rest while others took a stroll around the lake. It didn't go away until we were back in Lhasa.


Oh, on the way there, we stopped for a toilet break. But the toilet was locked, so one of the guys in our group, Alex, decided to go around the back of the toilet and find a tree. 30 seconds later, we saw him screaming and swearing at some old Tibetan and ran towards us. All we could hear was "The toilet was locked man. Why the f**k you punch me for??? I'll f**ken kill you". It turned out that the old man deliberately locked the toilet so that tourists would have to go to the toilet in the field. He would then comes out and fine tourists Y100 (nearly A$17) for urinating in public.


I would be pissed off myself if he tried to fine me. I would probably get the cops involved. I think our tour guide later on just gave him Y10 to keep him happy. Alex apparently still had to go to the toilet after the event as the man was too fast for him to actually go.


Tibetan food was really boring compared to Chinese. Every lunch Dolker took us to Tibetan restaurants. The choices were limited to yak noodles, yak dry noodles and steamed yak dumplings (momo). There's no way that I could eat that every day for lunch and dinner. Dolker even said that they weren't very delicious herself. Luckily we had freedom over dinner. Every night all of us just went out to Chinese to satisfy our taste buds.


Although Dalai Lama has been gone for 50 years, most Tibetans still regard him as their leader. It's weird that his pictures were not allowed to be displayed in public. After we left Tibet, we found that he is still very popular and famous in Nepal and India.


We went to Gyantse and Shigatse before we went to the Everest Base Camp. We visited few more monastries in Gyantse and Shigatse. I was a bit templed out at that stage. They pretty much all looked similar to me after awhile. We visited the Panchen Lama's palace as well where all previous Panchen Lama's been buried etc. It was here that we had the privilege to walk through a hall of chanting monks. It was surreal because it sounded like whole heap of men singing some song in different pitches. I felt like I was intruding on a solemn choir when I walked among the monks all in their formal lama outfits. Obviously not for the Chinese tourists who were talking louder and louder on their mobile phones because they couldn't hear the other end properly because of the singing.


In Gyantse, we also stopped by Kharola glacier. The mountain was over 7000m high and the glacier started at 5020m in altitude. It was a very beautiful day and we could clearly see the top. I was delirious in thinking that I could just put crampons on and climb up there.


Everest Base Camp was one of the highlights of the trip. It was pretty amazing that we could pretty much drive all the way to the base camp and we only had to walk up this small hill for a grand view of the world's highest mountain. It took us 8 hours to drive there. We arrived there at around 6pm and the temperature on my thermometer was -10 degrees. It was freeeeeezing cold to say the least. I could hardly open my eyes. People in our group thought I was so touched by the view that I had tears in my eyes. The truth was that I constantly had tears running at the Base Camp because it was that cold that it was hurting my eyes. The wind chill probably meant that the temperature was around -15 easily at the time.


We struggled heaps climbing up the small hill from the altitude. It took me literally 20 minutes to get up this small hill that was probably only 15 metres high. I felt like I was 85 years old at that altitude. I took few deep breaths for every couple of steps. It was the biggest struggle! I was so puffed after walking up the small hill. I was surprised that the Chinese hadn't built a cable car yet to go from the carpark to the top of the hill. There seemed to be cable cars everywhere in every single mountain in China!


It was only October, but rivers were starting to freeze just near the base camp. Naomi had a ball breaking ice sheets off the river and throwing them like freesbees on top of alrady frozen river and watch them breaking into thousands of pieces. She had a LOT of energy even in minus temperatures breaking ice.


Unfortunately we couldn't see the very top of Everest clearly. It was very windy that day and there was a faint ice plume over the very tip. It was very windy down where we were. The wind speed up the top probably would have exceeded 150km/h.


We had heaps of fun getting lost in the car driving down the mountain in the dark. The drivers decided to take a short cut through some unmarked back roads and got us lost in the dark a few times. Luckily they got us out of it eventually, but the bumpy ride and the high altitude made everyone really sick. Naomi and I were the smart ones by taking diamox tablets in advance :)


Once again, throughout the trip, I was taken by locals to be the tour guide on heaps of occasions. But luckily it came with advantages. I was able to ask discounts on every single meal we ate alone. One waiter even asked me how many years have I been a guide.....seriously....


We had an amazing Tibet trip. Pity that the government put in so many restrictions which meant that we could not move freely or even talk freely to the locals on our own. But Tibet certainly was very different from the rest of China that we know.


The immigration at the border were suspicious with my passport. We just had no luck at all with the Chinese Immigration. In the Mongolia-China border, they were suspicious of Naomi's passport. And now at the Nepal-China border, they were suspicious of my passport and had to take it inside to get it examined. They probably thought I was Tibetan and got a fake passport on eBay! In fact, our guide told us that she was not allowed to get a passport although she's a Chinese citizen because the authority thought Tibetans would just run away and never return. She said that the patrol told her that if she stepped on the friendship bridge to Nepal, they would shoot her.....seriously hardcore...
 
I will update the Nepal post in my next blog :)

Monday, November 2, 2009

China - 09/10/2009

Beijing - 09/10/09

Gosh, China is a lot more bearable this time around. Beijing's day temperature was around 25 degrees and 15 degrees at night. We spent 4 days there just to relax and plan where we wanted to go. I have to say that the quality and taste of food in China is so much more superior than what we had in Mongolia. We actually had some real vegetables and decent fruit.


I also bought a camera in Beijing. Since Panasonic Lumix is the best the market has to offer right now, I decided to buy a Lumix ZR1 for 2250RMB (A$375). It was a pretty good price and it seems to work well so far.


Naomi also had to visit the hospital a couple of times for some injections. Poor girl, a scratch by a cute kitten cost her around AU$350. She's still hearing back from the travel insurance company. Hope that she gets some $$$ back.


We visited the Forbidden City (again) and the Great Wall. The Forbidden City was pretty quiet compared to last time we were there. We actually got to see some sites in there this time! It was so crowded last time, all I could see was flags from tour guides. We were absolutely exhausted walking around for 5 hours in there. I am not sure how the emperors had the energy to walk everywhere in the past. It was HUGE. It's a real pity that golf buggies weren't invented earlier...


The Great Wall was pretty amazing too. We decided to join a tour from our hostel rather than doing it independently. It was 180RMB each for us to hike for 4 hours from one section of the Wall (Jinshanling) to Simatai. The hike took us through both crumbled and restored sections. I was genuinely impressed by the craftsmanship and the enormity of the construction. The sections we were in were pretty much built on top of the mountain ranges and cliffs. The view on the top part was amazing as you could see the Wall winding through the mountains. Some of the crumbled parts were very sheer to climb. We had to use our hands to push ourselves up.


The tour guide just nodded her head when I asked her whether the restored part of Simatai was where Angelina Jolie rode on in Tome Raider 2. But I think she had no idea but just wanted to please every tourist who asked the same question. :)


It's really weird that people in China all think that I am Naomi's translator or tour guide. It's great because I often use it to my advantage to get discounts. We caught up with a French couple whom we met in Mongolia and all of us went out for dinner. As I was the only Asian-appearance person in the group, this restaurant owner automatically assumed that I was their tour guide. He firstly asked me whether I was paying or my customers. When I said I was as my customers already paid up-front, he offered me a 10% discount on all the food and 2RMB per beer consumed. I could not believe my luck. The Frenchies were amused with the whole transaction and said that they had never had a 2RMB beer before! Seriously.....


The night before we left for Mongolia, Naomi and I went into the backstreets to buy some fruits. I was between the fruit lady and Naomi when I asked how much were those peaches. She told me 2RMB per kilo. The fruit lady noticed Naomi for the first time when she elbowed me and told me that in English that she wanted 2kg worth. The lady was so surprised that she was with me and asked that whether the peaches were for me or for Naomi. When I told her that they were for her, she was like, "Why didn't you tell me they were for her, I could've charged 10RMB for 1kg and she would still pay for them". I mean, seriously.....


The worst was when they were doing it in front of me to other travellers and told me in Mandarin not to say anything to them.


I had the funniest converation when I was talking to this camera salesman when I went shopping for my camera. It was like this:

Salesman : "Where are you from? Sounds like you are from the south."

Me: "Yeah, a long way south".

Salesman: "ME TOO!!! Where abouts in the south?"

Me: "Oh, a long, long way south".

Salesman: "ME TOO!! We're probably from the same town!"

Me: "Oh, I don't think so. Where are you from?"

Salesman: "I am from this town in Fujian (Hokkien)".

Me: "Oh, no.....I'm not from there".

Salesman: "Oh....".


Oh, when we were in Beijing, we also went to see Nadal vs Safin in the China Open. It was pretty much a one-sided match, but I was excited to see two former No 1s playing. Nadal was too good for the veteran in the end, but the crowd was mainly going for Safin as it was his last China Open (He's been there for 7 or 8 years straight). We sat in front of these fanatic Safin fans. It was so embarrassing that they just yelled out crap during the point. After the match, the tournament also did a huge farewell ceremony for Safin. Poor Rafa was ignored most of the time and was asked only question by the commentator. They hit the balls pretty hard....and accurately. I can probably hit the ball as hard as them, but I am probably a little rusty with the accuracy side of things :) Oh, we also were on TV too. It was so weird seeing yourselves on the Chinese national news the next day.


After Beijing, we caught an overnight train to the ancient capital, Xi-an. As all the train tickets were again sold out, we were fortunate enough to find tickets on the internet.


Xi-an

Xi-an was very interesting. It was where the terracota warriors and the tomb of the first emperor of China are. Because it was the ancient capital during the ancient silk road trade, there were a lot of central Asian immigrants there. We stayed near the Muslim quarter and ate heaps of their hand-pulled fresh noodles. I could not believe how different they tasted to not-so-fresh noodles. They are Naomi's favourite now.


We spent the first day exploring the Big Goose Pagoda, the amazing Shaanxi Provincial Museum and the Drum/Bell Towers. The Pagoda was big time over-rated. It was expensive to get in (luckily I had my student card), and there was nothing in there. It supposed to be this ancient pagoda built in 652AD, but it was renovated a few times and most of the ancient paintings, budda scultures and calligraphy were all moved to the Museum.


Now, the Museum really was amazing. I actually enjoyed it better than the museums in Beijing and Shanghai. All the artefacts were very well presented. There were a LOT of artefacts as this place was the capital city for so long and they kept discovering these ancient civilisations all over the place.


We went to see the terracota warriors on our second day. They were pretty good too. Not much to report here really. I love how they were all looked different fom one another and were so beautifully preserved. It was so amazing standing in front of these terracota horses and chariots and soldiers knowing that the last time they saw sunshine was probably more than 2000 years ago.


We also went jeans shopping for Naomi. It was very exhausting for me as I had to sit there and wait for her to try many jeans on and she didn't buy anything in the end anyway. Aaaaaarr.


Xi-an was an interesting city. I thought it was pretty well developed. It had its old areas and its modern areas. The Drum and Bell towers were well preserved and looked quite romantic at night. We caught the buses everywhere and it was simple. Generally speaking, it was good by Chinese standards.


We then did another overnight train to Chengdu.


Chengdu

Chengdu has so much history once again. It seemed that most cities in China have at least a couple of thousand years behind them. Chengdu was the old capital of a Chinese kingdom back almost 2000 years ago. It's also the centre of Sichuan province, the home of pandas.


I quite like Chengdu too. It seemed that people were friendly and would try to help you when you were lost. It's quite different in Beijing and Shanghai. The only issue about Chengdu is its spicy food. Gosh, we often had to ask them not to put too much chilli or no chilli in the food. I don't know how the people handle it. We had this hot pot thing that was seriously one of the most spicy things I've ever had. My lips were burning for hours afterwards. The restaurant people gave us aloe vera chewing gums to soothe our mouths afterwards.


We went to visit the pandas, Wenshu temple, the Da Fu cottage, the Ginsha relics museum, and the Wuhou temple when I was there. All of them were peacefull and well decorated in their own ways. Da Fu temple was especially tranquil with bamboo forests, beautiful Chinese gardens, and many out style Chinese buildings. It was like a walk in the past there.


We also did some shopping there as it had apparently the best outdoor gears in Western China. I bought myself a good LED head torch for AU$40. I have started to come to the realisation that you do pay more for good quality stuff. The head torch that I bought on eBay for $10 was just a piece of junk. It worked, but it drained so much battery power and it wasn't very bright compared to some other ones I've seen. I wish I had this head torch when I was in Mongolia. It would have been perfect!


We spent much time organising Tibet when we were in Chengdu. It was a LOT of effort trying to get everybody organised. In fact, we started organising as soon as we got to China. But we found 6 other people who were keen to do the same trip. With 8 people all over the place, it was extremely difficult to cordinate everyone. I was so frustrated at one stage that I nearly wanted to ditch the 4 new people we met in Chengdu and just go with the French couple we met in Mongolia, even for 500RMB more expensive. In the end, we had to ditch a Malaysian girl as she was too slow responding to our emails. We also only got our permit on the day of our departure. So as you could imagine, it was all very, very stressful.


The pandas were pretty cute. Naomi couldn't have enough of looking at them. They were just like giant teddy bears and all you wanted to do was to hug them. And you can, for the small price of 1000RMB per person. There were many many pandas: the infants, the 1-2 year olds, the teenage ones (in panda age) and the adult pandas. They were all black and white like what you see in the picture books too. It was so easy to get there. We caught 2 buses with no trouble at all.


We found out that we could have got some panda cards which cost 1RMB and we could have gone to 12 sights including the panda base for free! I bought one later and used on temples etc.


Langzhong - 23/10/09

Now, this was what I thought China would look like with old architectures from hundreds of years ago with wooden roofs and old bricks. It was really nice taking a relaxing walk in the old town just to absorb the atmosphere. There were many tea and vinegar (its famous for) houses on the street. And old style restaurants with wooden tables and benches.


We even had a vinegar cocktail at night in a vinegar bar. It was really nice. Apparently the town was very famous in the old times and it was well known for its scenery and the art. Langzhong was surrounded by mountains on all sides and had 2 rivers ran around the town. If not for the constant pollution as you often experience in China, I am sure the scenery would have been top class.


Again, this was a town filled with history. It was a well-sought after place between the 3 kingdoms around 220AD. We visited the remains of many beautiful ancient towers and examination halls. I could picture the place was once full of scholars, poets and artists.


We had the Zhang Fei beef – another speciality in Langzhong. It was just salted dry beef, but quite expensive though.


It was probably the only town that we've been to that was relatively free of tourists and still had the old China feel to it.


We actually found that people in the west seemed a lot nicer than people from Beijing to Shanghai. People in Xi-an, Chengdu and Langzhong were very helpful in terms of giving us directions when we were lost, or just voluntarily coming up to see whether we needed a hand. We also found the atmosphere was slightly more relaxed than the Eastern coast. I actually really like Chengdu and Xi-an. I think many torists would agree with me on that.


Chongqing - 25/10/09

We came here for pretty much 2 day s and 1 night just to see the Yangtze River and the 3 Gorges Museum. It was either very polluted or very misty when we were there. As it was slightly raining, I tend to think it was mist, but Naomi was very persistent that it was DEFINITELY pollution. Either way, it was very bad. We could barely see past 10m.


I went to see the ancient Luohan temple and where the 2 rivers (the Yangtze and the Jialing) meet by myself the second day as Naomi was a little ill. It was really weird as the Yangtze was so brown and muddy and the Jialing was green and seemed clean. Oh, this is also where the 3 gorge Yangtze cruise starts. I really wanted to do the cruise, but we didn't have enough time.....Vida and Gintas said the scenery was beautiful but a lot of it was ruined because of the dam project.


My Chinese friend Cheng told me that Chongqing has the most beautiful girls in China. I am not sure where she got her intel because it was clearly wrong. Naomi didn't even like the fashion of the people here. It clearly was over-exaggerated then. :)


We went back to Chengdu on the D5130. We really only had 1 seating (first class) ticket and 1 second class standing ticket. Fortune was on our side as we both got seats in the first class section for the whole 2 hours. It was so comfortable sitting there. Not many spitters in the aisle and the toilet was super clean with toilet paper and handwash. Man, that was really really luxurious for trains in China. The attendants even came around to make sure the bag straps didn't overhang from the overhead rack. That was so weird......they must had too much time on their hands. The leg room was enormous on the deluxe class. When I stretched my legs out, I barely touched the seat in front me. Angus Ball – if you ever come to China, D class deluxe train is the way to go mate.


Chengdu – Round 2 (26/10/09)

We were back to Chengdu the day before our train departure. It was so stressful as we still had no permit yet and it and all our berths on the train were all over the place and not in the same compartment. And I was the only person who could speak the language I knew I would have to try to talk to other passengers on the train to change beds.


We had organised to go and see the Sichuan opera the night before we left for Tibet. We got some really good discounts from this online travel agency and it ended up costing us 100RMB each (saving of 80RMB). It was very exciting to see the real Sichuan opera. We saw hand puppets, hand shadows, Chinese Hu-ching (ancient viola like instrument) performance, some acrobatics and the face-changing act. The secret of Sichuan face-changing is regarded as a national secret. It was like they have many masks and dresses on and with one swing of their sleeve, they have a different mask on and/or different dress on. It was like magic. I was so impressed by it. It was definitely the highlight for me. In fact, most of the performances were top class. It was definitely worth the money.


On the day of our departure to Tibet (27/10), we did some boring stuff like getting travellers cheques and buying blank DVDs for photos. I managed to squeeze in some time to visit the Wuhou temple. It was celebrating Chengdu being the capital of the Shu Kingdom back in the 3 Kingdom days (220AD). They had the tomb of the king and his generals there. It was pleasant to walk around. But if you are not into history too much, it may be bit boring.


By 8:15pm, all 7 of us were sitting in the train station waiting for our train to go to Tibet. We were sooooo excited. We were finally going to Tibet, after weeks of stressful planning! Hopefully the 44 hour journey would be as beautiful as the Trans-Mongolian...