Om sweet Om..

Bing! in 3 words i managed to tell you both that i made it to India and to my home.. I'm going way late on this blog but as you see, i'm doing my best to catch up!

So we were in Kathmandu, weren't we?
It was nice to see it in the sun after the past rainy week.. and i thought the rain season was now over.. I could admire the old royal palace and it's beautiful wooden windows.. and i never felt Kathmandu was as dirty as i'd been warned.
Actually I just learned that "Kathmandu" means "Wooden market", from "Kath=wood" and "Mandu=market".. thought i should share this recent discovery!

I also made a quick day trip to the old city of Bhaktapur, just 30km east of Kathmandu (although with the maoists demonstrating it's not that easy to reach!).. but the fee for entering the old town was way overpriced, so i gave up.. same thing in Kathmandu for free!

So from there, after finally managing to get my Indian VISA and shipping a new batch of photos to France (that one felt like the 12 works of Asterix!), i decided a last quick hop before reaching my parents in Lucknow..

Well, ok.. when i say "quick hop" i actually mean 20 hours by bus plus 10 by jeeps, all in pouring rain (including inside the bus).. from Kathmandu to Darjeeling.
When i picked my bag from the bus's luggage box, it was completely soaked in water.. the worst mess.. i'm so lucky i could ship the photos just before; that would have been a disaster!

When arriving in Nepal i had the firm impression i was in India already.. yet, when crossing the border to real India it seemed to me there were at least 2 major differences (not including the language since they still speak nepalese in Darjeeling): the density of population had just doubled, and so did the prices!

So i reached Darjeeling on my knees, damp and down! But Darjeeling is worldwide famous for it's amazing tea plantations with a direct view on the Himalaya.. and indeed i could totally.. hum.. imagine the scenary behind the heavy clouds!

So after 2 days of this crap i decided i'd had enough and i'd be much better off chillin' with mummy!

Caught the cute little hill train that covers the 100km track from Darjeeling down to New Jalpaiguri in 9 hours (!).. after 3 months of bus riding, this slow but funny train was a real pleasure!
One night at the station of 'NJP' and another 24 hours to Lucknow, but i'm home!

It's good to see my family again.. and i switched straight to the laziest mode! Haven't done anything, nor shot any pictures... i'm on holiday!! ;-)
So don't expect too much to happen in the next couple of weeks!

Here's bunch of old pics i'm dumping here..

Some last random shots of Kathmandu..

Day trip to Bhaktapur

Trying on the nepalese hat..

the rain stopped for 5 minutes on the way to Darjeeling!

Just to say i was there!

in a shop window.. i guess i'm still in hippies-land!
Darjeeling hill cart

Sunset on the way to Lucknow (you probably wouldn't have guessed!)

My cousin Tanu has just finished a new hand design.. pretty good what do you think?

Charlie Papa Zoulou Tango

Woohoo!!
Got my plane tickets today for the rest of the trip...
Mumbai to Cairns,
Sydney to Auckland,
Auckland to Punta Arenas,
and.. for all good things must come to an end..
Buenos Aires to Paris!

OneWorld alliance is the cheapest deal i could find.. still it's a good third of the whole trip budget that went in one day! Ouch!

Red is dead!

Today i witnessed a group of Maoists violently harrassing a rickshaw and beating it up.. after stopping some cars and forcing people out of taxis.. really looked like free acts of violence to me.. hard to figure out the why.. if any.

After travelling accross China and Tibet, of course, I wasn't too inclined to favor the Maoists.. but I talk to people and it all looks like the usual crap.. they're coming to "save the people", and in the process, they confiscate land, racket inhabitants, block the roads, beat up or kill people...

The problem is that the king is so unpopular that they look like the only alternative.. and his successor -already said to be a drug dealer- seems even worse..
On the other hand, communists are always good at sweet talking poor people.. and there's a lot of them around of course.. desperate people always tend to go to desperate solutions.

Maoists tell the press they'll be ready to give up weapons "as soon as the country's problems are solved"!.. who can name one country in the world where "the problems are solved"??
Personnaly, i just can't trust these guys..

"This is a violent civilisation, the civilisation where i am.."
Gil Scott Heron - Gun

5 days and 7 hours of queuing...

..is the time it takes to get an Indian VISA from Nepal!!

After taking VISAs for so many countries around the world, this is the most ridiculous procedure i've ever seen! And all the well travelled people around me kept looking at each other, bewildered.. The first one to actually get his VISA today was even applaused by everyone!

I guess it's not the first nor the last time India shows to be the most inefficient country in the world.. but still, everytime it hurts!

AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

The mosquito hell has started and it's not ending anytime soon!!

I'm sure you'd find some stupid scientist to tell you that mosquitos are part of the eco system and the food chain and blah blah blah... I'm telling you: Mosquitos are the most useless nasty evil annoying stupid hateable creatures ever, and if i was president of the world i wouldn't hesitate one second to erradicate them all at once!!

Arjun for president!!

Teaching volunteers needed in Pokhara!

In a heavenly environment..






..you get to teach the most lovely students, and help them learn the basics of english, math, computer manipulation...



..and live with them in the village.. surrounded by rice fields and jungle.. experiencing true nepalese village life, with a most welcoming family..

So please come for a great and rewarding time! (and tell them i sent you!)

(man! i should work in advertisement!)

Contacts:

Janajagrit Higher Secondary School
Sarangkot-2, Kaski, Nepal
Emails:
Yam Bahadur Thapa: Thapayamchhetry@yahoo.com
Krishana Timilisina: krishna_25@hotmail.com
Organisation website: http://www.acdfnepal.org.np/

China's Tibet rail line likely to touch Nepal

"The railway line is one step of china's foreign trade policy of 'go-global'"
I read in the Himalayan of Aug 29..

That.. and the water from the Tibetan lakes they're bringing down to the "motherland", the exploitation of precious minerals like Lithium or Gold... not to mention the strategic missile "view point" over India from up there.. and the extra living space...

And the chinese still honestly believe they're doing all this to help tibetans??

Rather like one chinese asshole at least honestly said to my face: "Just wait another ten years and Tibet will be a chinese province like any other; you won't see the difference! Who cares about the tibetans anyway??"

Indian Hero!!

For the first day -mostly- without rain.. I rented a motorbike to go around town a little..
I have to admit, i had pretty much never ridden a real motorbike before.. so it took me a little while to quit stalling every other time! But after a couple of test kilometers, i felt like i was the true indian hero of a Bajaj TV commercial!! (or any other commercial for that matter; there's always a super cool guy riding a motorbike.. in place of the naked chick we put everywhere in europe)

If i look like a hunchback it's just cause i have my backpack under my jacket..

Which is Witch?!

In Zhangmu, i shopped around for a while before changing my remaining Yuans, comparing exchange rates to not get robbed to badly for once!
In the process i had to foil the many tricks they use; like the ones who give you a good rate but don't give you all the money, or the ones who have modified calculators that don't really multiply like they should!! ..So in the end i was pretty happy with 9.6 rate and my Nepalese rupees ni my hand!

Well, as i was paying for my photos in Kathmandu, i got caught handing a fake note of a 1000 rupees! A pretty cheap fake actually (no pun intended!), but in the middle of the stack, it just went unnoticed.. i should be glad there was only one!

Kathmandu, Nepal

So i made it out of China without even passing through jail! I'm pretty glad i must say.

As soon as i passed the border i had a strange feeling.. for the first time in months, i felt like i was in a well known environment; the smells, the sounds, the music, the colors, the language.. Looks so much like India already.. and it's the first bit of home feel i get in 5 months..
I even start to understand bits and pieces of what people say! It's been a while since that happened!.. not quite though, cause nepalese is different from hindi.. yet close enough so i can communicate with people.. plus everyone speaks good english, and that also is quite a change from the past 3 or 4 months!

At the border I was very luck to meet Bharat, a really nice nepalese guy (which already starts to sound like a pleonasm!).. we hitchhiked together our way from the border, and after a few hours of riding the roof top of a bus, he invited me to his home in Dhulikhel.. sitting on the edge of town, in the middle of a splendid green valley surrounded by hills and snow mountains on the horizon, his house is a very nice and cosy traditional one, with an old style kitchen with an oven made of dirt (i loved the kitchen!). Bharat's family is lovely and extremely welcoming.. I had the greatest time there and couldn't have dreamt of a better introduction to Nepal!.. Thanks a lot Bharat! :-)

The next day we made it to Kathmandu and he helped me find a cheap hotel.

At first i thought that idea of Kathmandu as a hippy freak heaven was obsolete.. but walking up and down "freak street" (officially named like that!) i found some specimens, stuck there since the 70's between drugs and "spirituality", just like i had i Goa.

Aside from that, Kathmandu is a charming city.. beautiful old buildings and tiny streets and alleys, and friendly people everywhere.. too bad it's raining so much these days!

And today was special nepalese festival.. all the women of the country are dressed in beautiful red and gold dresses and sing and dance in the streets and by the temples, and pray for the long life of their husband... (how'd'you like that macho man?)

Two days here to prepare for the Indian VISA, develop some films and check out the city, and i'm already on my way to Pokhara, 200km north/west... i'll let you know..

Happy to be out of the hands of the chinese government!

Tibet as seen (or not) from Kodari, Nepal..

and waterfalls everywhere!
Kodari, first nepalese town coming from Tibet

Kathmandu, down town


Masks on Freak street

Bharat in his office of Kathmandu

Quizz

In China, where should you expect to find toilet paper?

a) in the toilet.
b) on the table of restaurants.

A hell of a ride!

So i did make my way hitchhiking through Tibet.. the rule is simple enough for me to keep forgetting it: don't believe the hype! go your way and you'll be fine.. patience is the key!

Yet i didn't really know what i was up for, and the past week has been pretty hectic!

I started off walking for a bit out of Sakya.. just as i was starting to think it wasn't that easy, my first driver stopped to take me.. well, "driver".. it's a horse carriage, that took me to the next village! But it was a start, and from there everything went faster and faster..
A truck took me straight to Lhatse, the main intersection from where i had to decide.. should i try the western road to mount Kailash or just head towards Nepal?
What the hell.. let's try Kailash and the Manasarovar lake..
Some kind of -over crowded- lawn tractor with a trailer took me to cross Lhatse and put me on the road to Kailash..
Well, it actually dropped me just a few meters before the police check point.. they only stop the vehicles; so i just walked accross with my big pack and my guitar.. and noone could care less!
Just as it was starting to rain, a truck stopped and took me to Kaga, 50km west of Lhatse.. waited 20 minutes at the gas station and a new truck took me again..
Ha! it's almost too easy, i thought.. at this pace i'll be in Saga tonight!

..couldn't be more wrong!

As we travelled west, the road -in construction- was getting worse and worse.. probably worse than mongolia! (although i didn't travel mongolia in a 20 tons truck!)
Climbing passes over 5000m, crossing rivers and mud fields.. it was all fun at first, and i was quite impressed by the ability of the drivers, but after a while my bottom started to cry for help!
The evening was coming but Saga was nowhere to be seen..
When it got pitch dark it looked like we were going to drive all night.. until we got stopped in front of a bogged truck blocking the road and we couldn't go any further.. we would just sleep in the truck and wait for the road construction engines in the morning.

That's when it started to not be funny anymore!

The night got freezing cold and i wasn't quite equipped to sleep in a truck.. i spent the whole night rubbing my frozen feet.. impossible to sleep.. one of these nights you think the morning is never going to come!
When the morning finally came it was raining.. i was dead tired and started to feel sick.. We waited a few more hours for the truck to free the road and could finally continue our way, but with the non stopping rain, the road was getting even worse than the previous day.. we could barely ever shift to second gear, and we got bogged ourselves at least 3 or 4 times in the day.. spending an hour everytime to get out of there..
Again the evening was coming and no Saga in sight! I started to be scared i'd spend another night in this truck!

Around 9pm as the night was falling, we finally reached the tiny town of "22 tao pa", where my drivers dropped me because they were going the northern road to Ali, whereas i was to continue on the southern road to Saga and Kailash..
Good! i was so relieved i would spend the night in a bed!

All dressed up and with 3 heavy yak wool blankets, i fell right asleep!
The next morning i thought for a while.. i had planned 3 days to reach lake Manasarovar.. it's been 2 rough days and i'm not quite halfway.. on top of that all the traffic goes the northern route to Ali.. not much going to Saga..
I just won't have enough time, and i'm tired.. So i finally decided to rest here for a day, walk around -after all it's just as beautiful here as anywhere else!- spend some time with the family hosting me, play some guitar... and just head back the next day!

The next day i found a bus going straight to Lhatse.. and here in the wild, far from the official ticket sellers, you can take the bus!
So the ride back felt incredibly easier.. we just had to get off the bus and walk every once in a while, to pass the deepest mud holes, and it went fine.. we even stopped in a hostel for the night.. luxury!

In Lhatse, the bus dropped me off just in front of the police check point! and again noone cared.. aside for making it difficult to buy bus tickets, these restrictions are bullshit.. and don't buy the stupid travel permit; noone ever asks for it!

Played some guitar on the side of the road near Lhatse until a truck picked me up, and then a bus and in the evening i was in Shegar.. the gate to the Everest base camp.. I wasn't even sure i would reach Lhatse that morning; i was doing good!

But the travelling machine was launched and i couldn't stop it! In Shegar there was a group of people trying to get to the base camp.. so i joined them, and after a few hours of bargaining we were on our way to the base camp already..

Got to the base camp at around 1:30am, and the guesthouse was full, so we decided to all sleep in the car.. i was quite afraid after the previous experience but this time it went fine and i slept.. and it was actually perfect to wake up at dawn and try to get a view on the Everest!
We even got extremely lucky: all the echoes i had were that the weather was always bad and people would stay there 3 or 4 days to get to see something!.. Well, after 2 hours of walk, we reached the base camp around 10, with a beautiful sun and the Everest below!

I thought i may spend a couple of nights at the base camp, but the place is mainly the highest tourist trap in the world, and i got lucky already.. and it was starting to rain!.. so i went straight back with the others..

Back in Shegar, we were all pretty tired.. yet i thought i could maybe push to Tingri, the next town in direction of Nepal, and spend the night there..
At first i couldn't find a ride to Tingri, but there was a bus to go straight to Zhangmu, at the border with Nepal.. and Zhangmu is supposed to be a beautiful area..
Well, why not after all...

Wrong! When i'm tired i should just learn to give up and rest instead of making stupid decisions!

When the bus came, the driver wanted to charge me 3 times the price, because i was a foreigner and he was risking a fine.. i know it's bullshit now, and it all started to piss me off again.. i made a scandal to finally pay "only" twice the price.. only to find out, when i got in the bus, that it was already over crowded, and my seat, like others who got on with me, was actually a plastic stool on the central corridor of the bus!
So instead of just getting some rest, i was in for another nightmare ride; all night on a bending and sliding plastic stool, on horribly bumpy beat up roads.. the scene was worse than the train ride from Beijing to Lanzhou..
and not only was i skipping Tingri and Nyalam, but the beautiful road accross the Himalayas to the border, i was doing at night, missing all the scenery..

Anyway.. i made it to the border.. spent two days sleeping and chilling here.. it is beautiful indeed, hanging on the side of the mountain, with waterfalls all around.. although too much into the rain season!
Typical border town, Zhangmu is a funny mix of Tibetan, Chinese and Nepalese.. only here can you find tibetan girls in salvar kurta and chinese guys speaking english with an indian accent!

One last night here and i'll head to Nepal tomorrow morning..

One of my taxis..

The Himalaya range as seen from 22 Tao Pa.. somewhere in the middle of.. nowhere!

dunno.. cool light i guess..

stuck in the mud again!

some more toilets.. the real thing.. (although most of the time there were just no toilets at all.. it's "behind the rock")

sunrise..

Zhangmu.. sitting on the mountain..

Nepal as seen (or not) from Zhangmu!

Life is a succession of small victories!

Against all hope i finally managed to make it to Sakya, my first leg to the south..

After an easy trip to Gyantse for which it is still possible to buy tickets i came back to Shigatse trying to figure out how to move south..
The officials, like the clerks at the bus station, are final: no individual travelers allowed south of Shigatse!
This morning however, the clerks, eventhough they couldn't sell me a ticket, advised me to try asking directly to the bus driver.. which i did, but the driver didn't like the idea as he could then be denounced by his collegues!
To make a long story short, i finally walked for a while -with my 200kg of films on my back!- on the road to Sakya.. when the bus caught up to me, far from sight of his collegues, he accepted to take me..

So my trip across tibet will essentially be hitchhiking.. others manage; i should too!