The Last Resort

It was literally and physically, all down hill from Everest Base Camp. 
After driving out the long, winding road back to the Friendship HIghway we continued onto Nyalam for the night - a drive of about 9 hours and over the last of the high passes.
Later in the afternoon the road dropped dramatically off the dry and barren Tibetan plateau and back into lush green valleys with many waterfalls cascading down the steep river ravines, quite a contrast from the landscapes of the past couple of weeks.
Nyalam is only 30 kms from the border with Nepal so next day, we were at Zhangmou, the border town in time for a final Tibetan breakfast before crossing the border.
We knew food was not likely to be a highlight of this trip and so far we had dodged the staple Tibetan diet of yak butter tea and tsampa but our trusty leaders decided it was time for a test taste.
The yak butter tea is like melted rancid butter dissolved in water that has had old socks stewing in it for a few hours - disgusting! The tsampa is roasted barley seed that has been ground to a powder, you mix it with the tea to make a porridge consistency for breakfast and as it thickens you work it into dough balls with your fingers and continue eating. 
Tibetans must have the best digestive systems on earth as it is a far cry from the good old eggs and bacon or even tea and toast we are used to, and they eat it several times a day. They also eat yak meat, vegetables and rice and noodles.
Dirk, one of our group tried a yak steak in Lhasa and was surprised to find it reasonably tender with a bit of a gamey taste.
Seeing it on display in the butcher shops was enough for the rest of us. (see pic)
Those of  you who know of my staple diet of tuna fish will be pleased to know I was able to dine very well in Tibet. While they do not catch the abundant fish from the lakes to eat because eating fish is as taboo to Tibetans as eating pork is to Muslims and eating beef is to Hindus.
Tibetans don't eat fish for a couple of reasons; 1. Fish sometimes eat the bodies of the dead (water burial - in which the body is dumped in a lake where the fish can eat it - another way of disposing of the dead)
2. Water is considered sacred and fishing disturbs the water.
But they do import canned tuna fish and add it to anything and everything, I dined on tuna pizza, tuna fried rice, tuna and apple salad, tuna and coleslaw salad and curried tuna and vegetables - all delicious.
After our last Tibetan breakfast we bade farewell to our Tibetan guide Jhamphel and the bus driver and hauled our bags into the Chinese departure station. Again, we were warned to do our best to conceal our Lonely Planet Tibet guides or they would still be confiscated, even though we were leaving the country. They usually do very thorough bag searches so we came up with some novel concealment ideas like tearing the cover off and placing the pages inside another cover.
Fortunately they were having a slack day that morning and we all passed through with our books intact.
A short walk across the Friendship Bridge no-man's land and we were back on Nepali soil. 
The bus we caught from there was a far cry from the Tibetan one and we were once again at the mercy of the atrocious Nepali roads.
I swear there have been no road repairs since my last visit in '85. 
Huge landslides are just driven around and gaping holes on the steep hillsides just have a few rocks on the road to indicate the missing bitumen.
Actually there is very little bitumen left, it is predominately rough, stone and dust with many potholes large enough to swallow a small car.


Needless to say it took several hours to travel about 50 kms to our next stopover - The Last Resort.
It was quite a surprise as Gopal had led us to believe it was just another tent camp with external communal showers.
We had been three days without a shower so anything sounded good and we were pleasantly surprised to find a lush, tropical resort at the end of a large suspension bridge over a raging river gorge.
Our tents were very nice safari types with proper floors and roofs but with mesh fronts overlooking the fantastic tropical gardens with the sound of the rushing river and birds all around and a bathroom shared between four tents.
The bar and buffet-style restaurant were very comfortable and well stocked and there was a plethora of optional activities on offer - bungy jumping or Tarzan swinging off the suspension bridge, 160 mts above the river, canyoning, rafting or tubing.
A couple of girls in the group tried the bungy with my room-mate Louise, looking like she was executing a perfect a swan dive.

After all my adventure activities a few years ago in Central America I decided it was time to behave more in keeping with my senior status and opted for the rejuvenating one hour massage.
It all started out very pleasant until I realised I was not alone on the massage table. 
The masseur had joined me and I've since learnt this is a common technique in these parts.
Apparently to work on the shoulders and neck, they prefer to sit on you back!
Luckily, they are only lightweights!
After 24 hours of fun and a big night at the bar we had to get back on the bad bus and return to Kathmandu the next day - another 9 hours of road bashing.


Next Trekking from Kathmandu

Everest Base Camp and beyond

From Shigatse we moved onto Sakya, a small village with yet another very important, very old monastery.

Like the Roman ruins of past trips, the monastries are all starting to look the same and losing their appeal,

They are always dark, incense-smoke laden and very crowded places.

At 4,200 meters, Sakya was another good test for the lungs clambering around the hills and rewarded me with another blinding headache, once again relieved with lots of water and lots of Panadol.

Our guide, Gopal, is constantly reminding us to “Drink, drink, drink”. Naturally he would prefer it was water we were swallowing, but even he has been known to join the group in substituting a Tequila slammer occasionally in the evenings.

We started out early next morning on the long and winding road to Everest Base camp – a 10 hour drive over several more high passes and a very rough and tortuous 4WD dirt road for much of the way.

Tortuous because like good troopers, after drinking our three litres of water, our full bladders were bouncing along on the rough terrain with rarely a tree or rocky outcrop in sight.

We arrived at the tent camp at 6pm at night and set off on the 4km walk to the base camp straight away.

It sounds a bit late to be starting out but just another stupid thing the Chinese have forced on the Tibetans is Beijing time, giving them daylight hours between 8am and 8pm.

We huffed and puffed our way to the base camp in time to see the sun set on the star attraction – Everest.

Despite being rugged up in all the warm gear we could still walk in, it was freezing and my finger nearly froze pushing send on the text message to those of you fortunate to get one before pulling my gloves back on.

We have been really fortunate with the weather and have had clear blue skies on all the days that mattered providing fantastic snow-capped mountain vistas.

After making the return trip to our yak-wool tent for the night, we were served a simple dinner of noodles and vegetables by our Tibetan tent hoteliers.

There are a number of tents roughly grouped together on the stony ground in a cold valley with a couple of long drop toilets. (Tibetan toilets is another story to come)

The tents are heated by dung-burning stoves and a couple of very thick quilts per person. Hoteliers are not permitted to accommodate more than seven tourists per tent and the authorities even came in during the night to do a head count.

We awoke to a very chilly morning at -5Celsius , a breakfast of pancakes and omelettes and another day of beautiful clear skies.

After stopping off at the Rhongphu Monastery we were back on the long winding road. Rhongphu is the monastery you generally see in the iconic pictures of Everest, but it was just another monastery in that freezing temperature with most us barely getting off the bus to inspect it.

Unfortunately I accidentally dropped my gloves in the long drop that morning so struggled to press the shutter on the camera and had to spend the first few hours sitting on my fingers to keep them warm.

On a yak and a prayer

On Sunday we left Lhasa in  a very comfortable, air conditioned bus on the start of our overland journey back to Kathmandu.

The trip to Gyantse normally takes 8 hours but our fancy bus broke down – gear box or clutch problems I think and the trip took 10 hours.

We had to travel over three huge mountain passes, 4,600mts, 5,050 and 4,200 mts respectively. On the first pass we were met by the yak photo-op sellers ( not as intense as the Fez carpet sellers) but with the incredible turquoise-blue lake and snow-capped mountains for a backdrop, we couldn’t refuse.

The bus died just as we got to the top of the second and highest pass so we had to spend some time chilling in the cool mountain air checking out the amazing glacier right beside the road while the driver tinkered in the back of the bus.

I developed an almost instant headache and nausea, my first sign of altitude sickness, had to grab some Panadol and drink lots of water and hope to be heading downhill soon.

More good preparation for Everest Base Camp apparently.

The bus problem was not fixable but we were able to limp very slowly for the last half of the trip mostly downhill without needing too many gears, luckily the magnificent scenery was a good distraction.

My head was fixed quicker than the bus which required parts to be set from Lhasa overnight.

Tuesday morning we visited yet another very important monastery in the freezing cold sleet coming straight off that glacier. (Still more good preparation for Everest Base camp aka EBC)

We completed yet another kora with the donation-giving, prayer-wheel twirling, praying, prostrating pilgrims.

The good karma must be building by now.

The Tibetans are amazing in their generosity, (and another way of gaining more good karma).

They bring offerings to the monasteries each day in the form of yak butter for the lamps, food or mostly money which they stuff in every available nook and cranny .

Each monastery has numerous chapels containing huge effigies of various buddhas, lamas, past kings and their entourages.  The maos (currency notes) are poked everywhere; in the edge of  the glass frames, under lamps, on tables, chairs etc with much of it ending up littering the floor.

Just as well the buddhas and co are inside glass or wire cages or they would be putting it in their orifices.

No one ever helps themselves to all this available money, they only ever seem to help themselves to change and shuffle the notes occasionally.

Not surprising, the monasteries have most of Tibet’s wealth. They also own much of the real estate, a bit like the old English fifedom where the locals pay rent to the monastery – along with all that generosity, it appears the monasteries are on a good thing.

From a mountain in Tibet

Before leaving Lhasa on Sunday we visited a couple more monasteries (just for a change) The first was Sera just 5kms from Lhasa were the young monks were busy debating. The topics were supposedly from the scriptures but they appeared to be having way too much fun for a serious debate, it was a bit more like a pantomime.

The next day we traveled 50 kms out to Ganden monastery, another very important monastery ( as they all are, apparently) Clinging to the side of 4,200 metre mountain, it made quite a sight as the bus chugged up the hill.

Ganden was almost completely destroyed during the cultural revolution so much of it has  been under reconstruction for many years, not that I could tell, it all looks ancient.

After eating our lunch sitting under the prayer flags on the side of the mountain, we joined the pilgrims on the kora (circuit of the monastery) to try and earn some more good karma.

 The path was about 4kms and took us right around the top of the mountain, past a sky burial site and many pilgrim shrines. Walking on level ground at that attitude is fine but when the track rises, we were soon gasping for air.

Good training for Everest Base Camp our leader Gopal assures us.

Back in Lhasa we returned to out favorite watering hole, the Dunya bar and restaurant run by a Dutch guy and his American wife. We ate there the first night and found the menu contained a lot more than yak burgers and curried lentils. They also serve icy cold Lhasa beer (The beer from the top of the world) a very light (3% alcohol) but refreshing drink. It must be the only place where the cocktails and spirits are cheaper than the beer. 
Heading up the cocktail list was a Yeti ( Red bull and vodka) didn’t try one but it sounded interesting.

We got into a game of darts and ended up winning, - three non-dart playing females versus an inebriated Irish geologist who fancied himself as a darts champion. Loser had to shout the drinks.

Next; On a yak and a prayer

No internet service for the next few days as we head for the really big hills, so will catch up soon

Moving onto Tibet

I met up with my Intrepid group on Sunday night, we are 14 plus our Nepali tour leader, Gopal. All Australians but one Austrian with her aussie boyfriend. Three others were born outside Australia in Sri Lanka, Malaysia and China.

Although it was only a one hour flight it took most of Tuesday to get here due to the all the red tape and  procedure.

We left the Kathmandu hotel at 7.30am for our 10.05am flight. Getting through the Nepali departure procedure took three pat-downs and two luggage scans but at the very new, modern Lhasa airport it took considerably longer and involved numerous passport checks and bag searches. Anyone found carrying a Lonely Planet Tibet guide book had it confiscated – the problem apparently is the preface by the Dalai Lama. I did manage to get mine in undetected inside a jumper under another book.

First impressions of Tibet as we flew over were the huge snow-capped mountains, deep valleys and turquoise blue lakes.

Lhasa  airport is a one hour drive from the city so we saw a little of the valley as we drove in.

Lhasa city was nothing like I imagined, it is not as old and scrupulously clean with uniformed street cleaners on the job sweeping up every leaf and piece of litter daily.

The weather is at last sunshine and blue skies.

We spent our first day getting used to the altitude of 3,900 metres, all suffering a few mild symptoms with some suffering a little more than others.

Our first day began with the ritual circuit of the Jokhang temple and monastery in Barkhor square. Tibetans make this circuitous pilgrimage at least once a day, usually morning or evening, always in a clockwise direction.

Many of them prostrate themselves on the paving in front of the temple for hours on end.

Almost all the older generation carry a spinning prayer wheel and finger their rosary beads as they go. Each temple has a couple of  big incense burning chortens out the front giving it all a mystic (and smoky) atmosphere.

Lhasa has a population of 300,000 of which only about 75,000 to 100,000 are Tibetan, the rest are Chinese nationals relocated here since the cultural  revolution. The big-brother Chinese presence is everywhere with at least five, armed army sentries posted on corners every 400 metres.

In Barkhor Square they even line the rooftops with their guns and cameras trained on the square after an uprising there in 2006.

Naturally it is taboo to photograph them. To be perverse they march anticlockwise around the Jokhang circuit.

On our second day we visited the amazing  Potala Palace, with 1000 rooms, it is huge. To get there was quite a climb up 360 steps, quite a test at this altitude but good preparation for greater heights and stairs to come in the next week.

The red and white palace dominates the skyline in the old quarter of Tibet and an incredible feat of architecture considering it was built in the 7th century.

Till next time

Monasteries, monsoons, and momos

My few days in Kathmandu were spent amid all of the above. The monsoon season has continued un-seasonally late this year so the heavens open up every afternoon for a downpour. Except on Monday when they stayed open for 24 hours resulting in plenty of mushy mud, mess and mayhem

On Saturday I went on a spiritual tour of Kathmandu with my own personal Bob Marley look-alike guide. He spoke good English and was a devout Buddhist so I learnt a great deal of their philosophies.

Our first stop was at Pashupatinath Monastery, dedicated to the god Shiva, it is one of Nepals most sacred monasteries, revered by both Hindus and Buddhists and dates back to the 12^th century. Shiva is regarded as the supreme self who delivers humans from worldly afflictions.

It is a World heritage Area and also happenes to be the main funerary site for Nepalis.

Located on the edge of Kathmandu on the banks of the Bagmati River, in front of the temple are large ghats where cremations take place 24/7.

Although cremations contain a lot of rituals, they are generally very matter of fact, business like affairs without much display of emotion.

The deceased is delivered to the site on a litter by family or mortuary vehicle within hours of their demise wrapped in a saffron coloured cloth.

The eldest son carries out the majority of the rituals which include undressing the deceased from under the cloth (the clothes were hurled into the river) washing the feet to cleanse the mortal remains (the spirit has already left the body at death). The body is then laid on a pyre built of logs and containing chunks of butter and other heat accelerants. The eldest son lights the pyre and the body is covered with long grasses. Each cremation takes about 2-3 hours and the ashes are then swept into the river to return the body to the earth.

While there is little emotion shown , it didn’t feel quite right being a tourist site and the pall of smoke hanging over the site everyday is a bit sobering.

While they don’t use coffins, they probably use the best part of a tree in firewood.

On Sunday I took part in a cooking class, once again I was the only participant so got one to one tuition making momos. Momos are little Tibetan dumplings filled with vegetables and chicken or yak meat. They are very labour intensive requiring lots of chopping, dough kneading and fancy folding and filling. It took awhile to master the folding and filling bit but in the end I was happy  my dumplings looked nearly as pretty as the experts. We also made a spicy sauce to go with them and three hours later sat down to momos for lunch. The class cost a whopping $10..

Monday it rained all day but we did visit the Boudanath Buddhist stupa in the rain. Can’t say the photos are what I was hoping for but will have a chance to return there later

Kathmandu has had a number of incidents over the past week, an earthquake a few days before I arrived and on Sunday, a plane crash and a bomb scare t the airport, so will be glad to move onto Tibet on Tuesday.

Meet the sadhus

A couple of sadhus (holy men) at Pashupatinath.
Note the water bottles and radio, guess they have to do something between tourist photo shoots.

Preparing the oil lamps for offerings at Annapurna Temple, Ason Tole, Kathmandu