London - overland from Kathmandu, complete.

The Eurostar slid effortlessly into St Pancras Station, London. Suddenly our rucksacks felt weightless as we skipped down the platform. Our families were waiting for us at the exit and a group of friends who mentioned they would come along for the celebrations. There were also a few surprises. Friends who had followed the blog and taken an interest in the trip. Mark who entertained our exploits in Tajikistan and Jo who we met up with in Azerbaijan were there and Adrian and Giulia from Vienna, surprised us by flying in for our return. After a few glasses of champagne to celebrate at the Champagne Bar we headed to a more affordable venue. I asked a group of guys if one of the bar stools was a available. They joked with me about their friend needing a seat as he'd just travelled a long way......... they let me have the bar stool.

So, a final summary of the trip, overland from Kathmandu to London, via a couple of mountains:

# of metres ascended on foot     25800
# of Kilometres travelled            17000
# of days travelled                     265
# of pounds within budget          50
# of countries travelled in           20              (+3 unofficial ones, Tibet, Abkhazia, Nagorno Karabakh)
# of vehicle break downs           12              (all in Kyrgyzstan)
# of flights taken                        1
# of bribes paid                         0

Arranging a Tibet Tour In Kathmandu - The good, the bad and the ugly

So, with the benefit on hindsight, I can reflect on the experience of organising an overland tour from Nepal through Tibet and into China. Hopefully this post will help those trying to do this trip themselves. Two main problems have to be overcome, firstly, the whims of the Chinese regarding border closures and regulations and secondly, the aggressive sales tactics and misinformation given out by the Kathmandu travel agencies. I will tackle these one at a time.

It is important to understand that the border between Nepal and Tibet is often closed. This is a regular occurrence in March but can happen at any time without warning. It is only possible to travel in Tibet as part of a group tour. Group tours come in several forms. The private tour which involves a group of up to four people travelling in a jeep or a budget tour which is a group of 20-30 (22 people in our group) travelling in a coach. The Chinese border can be closed to a certain type of tour – especially budget tours, whilst not to others, so to be more certain of getting into Tibet take a private tour. We had to wait an extra week in Kathmandu for the border to open to budget travellers; it was open during this time to private tours.

The next thing to understand is that to travel in Tibet from Nepal a group Tibetan permit has to be obtained. This is a piece of paper with the names and passport details of the group. Nothing is stamped in your actual passport. All those people on the group permit must enter Tibet together, travel in Tibet together and then exit Tibet together. It is, however, possible to travel in a group but on different group visas and it is also possible to be a group of one. For example out of the 22 people on our tour the majority of people were flying back to Kathmandu on the same flight and hence were all on the same group permit, but there were also at least 5 different other ways people were travelling on from Tibet; flying to Chengdu, getting the train to Beijing and, for us, getting the train to Chengdu, and therefore we were all on different group permits. If travelling onto China the Tibetan permit allows you to travel in China without the need for a Chinese visa, but you will have to travel with everyone else on the group permit and exit China with them. No matter what the agencies in Kathmandu say it is impossible to extend a Tibetan permit or change it for a Chinese visa in China. You have to make sure you leave China by the time the visa expires. If you want to spend more time in China the easiest thing to do is to go to Hong Kong where it is easy to get a Chinese visa. There is no point getting a Chinese visa before a Tibetan tour as all Chinese visas get cancelled when a Tibetan permit is obtained. The normal length of time for a Tibetan permit is 14 days; this time includes the time on the tour (usually 8 days) and therefore only gives 6 days to travel in China. It is possible to get 21 or even 30 day Tibetan permits in Kathmandu for an additional fee but we were told that it wasn’t possible on this occasion. The fine for overstaying your Tibetan permit is 500 Yuan a day (the same as for overstaying a Chinese visa). So to summarise, make sure your travel agency puts you on a group Tibetan Permit with the people you will be entering and exiting China/Tibet with and if you want to travel in China ask for the longer permit. And don’t listen to what they say about it being easy to extend a permit - it is not possible!!

So, next to the travel agencies in Kathmandu. Nearly all travel agencies are middle men who take your money, get you to fill out a form and hand over your passport and then pass it onto an agency which organises the permits and tour. The initial agency then tend to lose interest in you. The prices for a budget tour did not seem to vary much between agencies but I think the service you get does. A budget tour including B&B and permits costs around $360 there will be an additional cost for onward transport out of Tibet. I can only speak regarding the train tickets but the mark up on these is huge – over double. The agencies will tell you that having one is a requirement for obtaining the Tibetan permit. However, we now know that our tickets were only bought by the Lhasa agency once we got to Lhasa. I’d recommend buying the train ticket yourself online to save some money. For example using http://www.chinatravel.com/. Again, the Kathmandu agencies will tell you that you can’t do this – but other people had. The travel agencies will also try to charge more for an express Tibetan Permit. The cheapest permit is when the paperwork and passport is submitted 10 days in advance. In reality all Tibetan Permits are obtained the day beforehand. Knowing this may mean that you can negotiate the price of the ‘express’ service. 

Despite the struggles beforehand in Kathmandu and then afterwards in China, when we had to make a dash for the border, the tour itself was very enjoyable. We began the tour in a typical Nepalese bus with a Nepali guide provided by Tibet International. At the border we left this bus behind (thankfully) and carried our luggage through Nepalese immigration, over the Friendship Bridge to Chinese immigration and our next bus. In total the distance from bus to bus is about 1 km and it took us about 4 hours to get through all the checks. It is possible to hire a porter for about 250 rupees to carry bags from one bus to the other (they should carry ID to get across the border themselves). There are also plenty of money changers about to change money. The Chinese searched our bags fairly well (although if you are not first in line and bury things deep enough they won’t find them). They took particular interest in all books. The guide warned us not to bring any books about Tibet across the border, especially the Lonely Planet. However, the Chinese also took a disliking to the Nepal Lonely Planet. This was sent back to Kathmandu with the Nepali guide for the owner to pick up on their return. We met our Tibetan guide at the border and transferred onto a much nicer and very comfortable coach-style bus provided by Tibet Tashi Delek.

Once in Tibet we saw all the usual sights – spectacular views and beautiful monasteries. Our guide was very good and the bus driver was only a maniac on a couple of occasions. We had an additional guide in Lhasa who was very enthusiastic and even took us out to a local nightclub one night. The accommodation we stayed in varied from truly awful improving throughout the tour to bordering on luxurious on the last couple of nights (The Trichang Labrang Hotel). Breakfasts were basic but OK. Another point to note is that the tour gains height very quickly, on the second day you are at 5200m! It is therefore important to know how to act at altitude in order not to get sick and to be prepared. Our guide gave us no advice on this but did have oxygen at hand - and this was needed!

It is much easier to travel from China into Tibet and on to Nepal rather than this way around but if you are in Nepal and don’t have the choice this is still an opportunity not to be missed. I hope that these tips have been helpful and please feel free to write any comments of your own experiences below.

This information was correct on 14th May 2011, 9.11am and 47 seconds!!!!

The Budget Bus

Kathmandu - City of Temples (and Traffic)

The Nepal/Tibet border was closed to foreigners and had been since February. Rumour was that it would open in a week’s time. This meant that we had a week to kill in Kathmandu. Apart from delaying us this wasn’t such a hardship there were still plenty of places we hadn’t yet visited in the city. So we went on a temple binge, visiting all of the temples mentioned in our guidebook. Durbar Square a short walk away and on the way to was the best cake in Nepal at Snowman Café on Freak Street. We went to the Hindu holy sight of Pashupatinath, where open cremations take place. It felt a little it uncomfortable paying to walk around a temple site seeing funerals taking place. The site is next to the holy river of Bagmati River which was all but a trickle and disappointingly non-Hindus were not allowed into the temple itself. We peered through the gate and saw a huge gold statue of a bull or a least its rear end, complete with balls the size of space hoppers. A more worth while trip was to the Durbar Square at Patan. Cleaner and tidier than the Durbar square near Thamel we spent a pleasant afternoon there. We decided not to eat in the interestingly named ‘Third World Restaurant’ next to ‘Third World Guesthouse’ and found a quiet place with a pretty courtyard garden. On another day we marvelled at the urban sprawl of Kathmandu from Swayambhunath Stupa and enjoyed the Buddhist calm at our favourite Stupa of Bodhnath. But these sights were just a handful of temples, stupas and holy sites in Kathmandu. We saw many more on our ambles around town, tucked away down little streets or surrounded by traffic jams. In between this, Gopal, our trekking guide, invited us to dinner at his flat in a suburb of Kathmandu. We had a lovely evening, although dinner was so late that at one point we thought we’d misunderstood and were about to thank him for the tea and head back. Later in the week we learnt how to cook Dal Bhat ourselves when we went on a mornings cooking course.

It wasn't until we left Kathmandu to go on our trek that James said 'oh, so they do actually drive on the left here.' Most of the time in the city it is impossible to tell which side of the road cars are meant to be driving on. And with the traffic comes the pollution which chokes the whole of the Kathmandu valley. When Kathmandu got a bit too much we headed to the Garden of Dreams on the edge of Thamel for a picnic. An afternoon in this oasis of calm where you leave the chaos and smog and traffic at the gate kept us sane, in between visits to Snowman Café. 

Apart from the traffic and consequent pollution, there are piles of rubbish and the stinking clogged rivers, amongst which people try to navigate the streets, tripping over each other, it is desperate poverty which is so difficult to come face to face with. But whether it is street children picking though the rubbish, the leper begging in the street, the horrifically burnt woman asking for a rupee or the man in the wheelchair selling newspapers trying to adjust to plastic bag he is using instead of a catheter. The poverty is overwhelming and although individual situations are desperate the saddest part of the poverty in Nepal is the lack of opportunity. Illiteracy is 70% and families have to sacrifice everything to try to put their children through school, but for what? Many people are trying to seek work aboard, a brain drain which just exasperates the situation. The government, nearly a year after the first constitution amendment deadline, is still squabbling. The next deadline is on the 28^th May and despite the government parties promising that they wouldn’t call strikes during Nepal’s ‘year of tourism’ this looks unlikely. Combined with fuel shortages it is creating yet more hardship for the people.

There was a strike on today and the roads were wonderfully quiet and Thamel was actually pleasant to walk around. We waited around nervously as it was the day before we were meant to be leaving on our Tibet tour. The day had not started well with our tour agency changing the goalposts again and more misinformation. We decided the best option was to spend the day in the Garden of Dreams and have a picnic there. Unfortunately, whilst trying to leave the hotel a power cut struck, trapping us in the lift. Trapped in the darkness of the lift, with nothing to do but wait to be rescue, I ate the picnic. We eventually made it to the Garden of Dreams.

We couldn’t afford to stick about whilst the inevitable strikes crippled the country but no one knew if the border would open the next day. If it didn’t then we would have to fly and this would mean our overland dream back to the UK would be over (and we were pretty worried about how much the excess baggage would cost us).

Hindu holy site - Pashupatinath

Golden balls at Pashupatinath Temple

Patan Durbar Square after some rain

Monkey at Swayambhunath Stupa

Our sanctuary the Garden of Dreams

Boudhnath - my favourite stupa

On a Dal Bhat cooking course - adding the spices

Kathmandu

As we discovered last night, clubs in Kathmandu don't simply turn on the lights when they are closing, they send in the Army. It was, however, very effective, everyone went home. This was probably a good thing in hindsight, if my headache was anything to go by this morning.

We have been able to catch up with lots of friends over the last couple of days, hence the drinks last night. And have also managed to do some sightseeing. But most of our time has been taken up with organsing our trek and climb. We are planning to do the Manaslu Circuit and then climb Pisang Peak. As is the way in Nepal, nothing is impossible to organise and we have arranged porters and a guide as well as the 4 different permits we require. We have also sent a change of clothes on to Pokhara, where we will be heading after the trek, organised the food for the couple of days camping we will do when climbing Pisang Peak and bought a load of fake mountaineering gear to supplement the kit we brought from the UK. In total we will be trekking for 24 days or there abouts, so I won't be blogging for a while now. But here are some pictures:

James gives the rickshaw driver a break!

Vicki and James in Durbar Square

No pain no gain

OK, so two sleeps was a little optimistic. We were up all night packing, right up to the point when our taxi came to pick us up at 4.50 am. During the day James had finished and posted his Master's dissertation, we had sold the car to 'webuyanycar.com' (and I can confirm that they do in fact buy any car), gone out for dinner with James's Mum and packed up our lives into the attic. We were still finishing packing our rucksacks at the coach station.

A National Express coach followed by Heathrow is never a good start to any journey but, apart from being unpleasant, everything went to plan. I am pleased to announce that Delhi airport has been transformed since pre-commonwealth games times and cricket fever had gripped India. Then finally Kathmandu and sleep.

Unpacking our rucksacks was like unwrapping a Christmas present from a distance relative, unable to look at what was awaiting us. At the moment we haven't found any major omissions due to our seriously rushed packing but the true damage my take a couple of days to reveal itself.

 

James on the hotel rooftop terrace with sprawling Kathmandu in the background