Traveling in the direction of our dreams

Hanoi & Sapa

So here we are in country no 4 in only our second month. We are both hoping to finally relax soon after being on the go since we left AND maybe find some sun!

All the blogs and books you read about Vietnam say it's an amazing place but you will get ripped off at every street
corner with many organised scams; the taxi at the airport taking you to the 'wrong' hotel as the one you have booked has burnt down or they have opened a new one etc. Arriving by plane around 10pm we took the hassle out of the whole arriving 'looking like a fish out of water' by booking a hotel with an airport pickup, that was easy. Guess what? Our hotel had been changed once but it wasn't a problem as we only intended to stay 1 night.

We then spent the next morning getting our bearings around the old quarter of Hanoi trying to find a nice room for the next few days. There are literally hundreds of hotels varying from $15 - $20 per night for decent rooms. After our positive experience of hostels in China we also tried a couple here, the first one charging $30 per night in a
double room! Luckily the last place we went into, Central Hanoi Backpackers, was very nice and after a little bargaining we agreed $20 a night for a huge room with 2 double beds and a pc!

The first thing to say about Hanoi is that it is absolutely crazy with motorbikes and people everywhere. Unlike Nepal, the city somehow works (the horns are still a little annoying though). The downside here is the constant barrage of people trying to sell you anything all the time from fruit to lighters and the constant 'do you want a taxi/
motorbike'. Still most people take a polite no thank you with a smile wishing you a good day.

We were hoping to relax for a few days, or at least as much as you can in a City but instead we spent 3 days trying to buy a Minsk and a scooter as we were considering exploring Vietnam by bike. Due to the size of our kit and the hassle of having to sell the bikes in HCMC, coupled with having to deal with the roads and the difficulty of
buying a scooter, we decided that we would leave that for a future trip (sorry mom, ps if anyone fancies a few weeks touring Vietnam in a couple of years on a bike let me know). Feeling quite knackered we booked a hard sleeper overnight train to Sapa in the North hills.

Another interesting train journey and after the return trip by soft sleeper I think we may try the overnight buses in future.

Sapa is the gateway to the hill tribes in the north of Vietnam where you can still experience traditional cultures even though they are becoming more influenced by the 'modern' way of life. It's hard to see the culture being eroded any further as the tribes are the main reason for coming to the North.

Arriving in Sapa, after dealing with the usual chaos of getting a bus outside the train station in Lao Cai, you are the faced with hoards of people trying to get you to rent a motorbike or stay in their hotel. Once you have fended this first wave of people off, the local tribal women start asking you to buy their handicrafts- all you want to do after a
night train and little sleep is get to your hotel and take a shower.

Once again the weather was against us as apparently the day before tourists were greeted with glorious sunshine, we were welcomed with pea soup! Surely it's only a matter of time before we get some sun.

This is the first time we have really had the chance to be 'independent travellers' or not taking the easy option or a
guide. Once we had dropped our kit off at our $5 a night hostel (that's more like it) we headed out to get acquainted with Sapa. No further than 100 yards we were approached by more tribal women trying to sell their
wares. There are several different tribes in this area of Vietnam, Black H'mong and Red Dao being the two largest, and are distinguished from each other by the type of headdress they wore.

All of the tribal women spoke excellent English (tourists have been coming to Sapa for 17 years or so), all learnt by just listening and talking to tourists. This made our life easy as after befriending a Black H'mong girl named Za we were invited to visit her home.

The next day we hired a motorbike and Za met us outside our hostel. We followed her to the village which was about 30mins away. We were slightly concerned that when we arrived that we might have to pay a lot of money to the locals - but no such thing happened. Her village was a 10 min walk by foot once we had parked the bike up. It was such a beautiful place. We were so surprised not only by the size of her home but how clean it was. It put some of the hotels to shame! As soon as we arrived she started to prepare lunch. We had bought a bag of vegetables with us as that is kind of expected. Lunch was scrummy -a feast of rice, vegetables and egg which was loaded with salt. We were slightly concerned that we might suffer from stomach ache a few days later due to the unclean water but amazingly we were ok. Before we left, we bought a few of her handicrafts to say thank you for her hospitality.

Za, Tribal girl from Sapa

We had organised to met another girl in the afternoon also called Za in a different village - Ly Lao Chai. We had decided to get there via the back roads which turned out not to be the best decision. The condition of the tracks were not the greatest for a motorbike! After getting pretty lost, we eventually met up at 3pm. Za started cooking as soon as we arrived. We said we had just eaten but she was not having any of it. We helped by grinding flour from sweetcorn. Apart from that we felt a little like spare parts. I (Sarah) asked if i could use the toilet - she took me to a paddy field in front of the house and told me this was the bathroom. So I had to go to the loo in full view of everyone at the house. After dinner, Za wrapped my legs (Sarah) in traditional Hmong costume. We got chatting about herbal medicine and within a few minutes her mum was ferociously rubbing plants on my skin. I have to say that my psoriasis improved significantly after that. Again, we were obliged to buy some handicrafts before leaving. We headed back to the hostel on the bike before it got dark

A couple of days later we visited a Red Dao village by motorbike. It had a very different feel to the Hmong villages. They live close together in communities whereas the Hmong people live away from one another. I (Sarah) wanted to find a particular person who is well known in the herbal medicine field. We eventually found her. Luckily there was a university professor around who translated for us. She has agreed to teach me which means I will need to come back and live with her in the village.

Halong Bay

We arrived back into Hanoi from Sapa at 5am - where are you supposed to go at that time of the morning? We sat in a cafe outside the train station deciding on our next move, knowing we wanted to head to Halong Bay; it was just a matter of deciding how to get there and where to go once we were there. Neither of us wanted to travel on an organised tour on a junk, as we were to find out later, these are just glorified booze cruises.

We decided to stop at Hai Phong on route and stay overnight here taking a hydrofoil to Cat Ba island. If only we had stuck to this plan!!! Unfortunately Hai Phong is a very large industrial city with little to see or do and not wanting to stay in a place like this we decided to catch the bus to Ha long city.

Staying overnight we investigated the various options available to us allowing us to see the bay and get to Cat Ba island. Visiting the dock we found out we could get to the island for 3 pounds. Settling on this as the best and easiest option we headed for bed after a shopping spree at late night market.

The following morning is where it all started to go wrong! Arriving at the dock about 11.30am we bought our ticket and waited for our 1pm boat. It was absolutely pouring down. It reminded us of a wet weekend in a awful seaside town. We didn't get to board until almost 2pm and then the crew decided to stop 500m out for their lunch. The boat we joined was actually taking tourists out for a 3 day trip. Having seen the condition of the boat we were very pleased that we were not staying on it for very long. There is absolutely nothing to do on the boat except eat and drink. The boat guide was also an unpleasant man who didn't go out of his way to help anyone.

Enroute we stopped off at Halong caves. These in essence were beautiful but was spoilt by the hoards of tourists and coloured uplighters. Our not so nice guide hurried us through in record time. The rain continued to hammer it down so our photos of the bay are not great. Our boat then broke down. We didn't actually reach Cat Ba island until 6pm instead of 4pm. We got of the boat in the dark having missed the local bus into town and was now stranded in a bus shelter 30km from the centre. We got chatting to some locals and asked if they would take us but they wanted to charge a stupid amount of money so we declined. We had resigned to the fact that we would have to sleep rough. We were also travelling with Sandra (hello Sandra!) who we had met at the dock in Ha Long so had to also factor in what she would like to do to. In the same shelter was a guy who had also been stranded. He was due to get on our boat but didn't as it had broken down. He was waiting for hís guide to organise a lift back into the town for him. We thought we could pay to join them but the guide said this was not possible. We later learnt that the locals were the mafia and that if we hung around there would have been trouble. The guide would not take us as he said he would be beaten up by these men. After a couple of hours, we did eventually get a lift with him but had to walk out of the shelter as if we had decided to walk to the town.

Sandra and us checked into a hotel and then grabbed some dinner. The following day we planned to go kayaking. No such luck as the rain was coming down so hard. After such a dreadful time, the 3 of us decided to cut our losses and get back to Hanoi. We took the hydrofoil and then bus back - it was a seamless journey!

Hue

We arrived in Hue at 7am after a night sleeper bus (for those who have travelled on one of these you will know our discomfort - especially due to the lunatic bus drivers who continue to use the horn excessively even though it's 2am!). Still not really finding the sun we decided to only stay a couple of days doing the DMZ tour and that's about it. The DMZ (de militarised zone) is a thin strip of land used historically to divide Vietnam, measuring some 5km across.

The tour included various stops, some interesting some not, the most engaging being the tunnels that were built by the local villagers to use as protection from the American bombs during the war. These are bigger than the more famous Cu Chi tunnels in Saigon but are just as impressive. The tunnels housed 400 people at one time and were used as more than a shelter with small rooms used as homes for up to 5 people. It's here where the human spirit can be truely seen. The tunnels are 1.6 - 1.9m high, 0.9 - 1.2m wide and the family rooms were 2m deep. There are three levels with the deepest 25m below the ground. They are an unbelievably oppressive and confined environment and to imagine what these people went through whilst the bombs were going off is almost impossible, especially the women who gave birth to 17 children inside the tunnels!

We also visited a war museum which wasn't that interesting. I only mention it as there were people selling dog tags from fallen American soldiers which we felt was very sad and sort of tainted the day.

The trip back was interrupted by our coach crashing into a concrete bollard after swerving to miss a cyclist. Even though our driver managed to avoid a head on collision, the cyclist still hit the side of the bus - just by where we were sitting. Finally stopping we could only get out of the coach after some locals had kicked the door in from the outside, and fearing the worst I headed outside with a Canadian firefighter (hello Lucas). Somehow the guy was standing and not underneath the coach. He was a very lucky man indeed probably saved as he was drunk! The coach driver handed over some cash as compensation and off we went, no emergency services or anything!

Apart from the DMZ there is not much to see or do in Hue. Two days later we were back on the road and hearing the weather forecast we headed South.... TBC

We stayed at Mix Hostel in Chengdu based on 7 Sages recommendation. It is better located that the other hostels in Chengdu. We spent the day wandering around to get our bearings. In the evening, we had an infamous foot massage. It was a bit indulgent of us costing 7 pounds each for 2 hours. We haven't had any treats so far but 2 months in we felt it was justified. It is also one of the 'must dos' while in Chengdu. The foot massage was a mix of foot rubbing with a bit of Thai Yoga Massage thrown in (Saz I thought of you!). We had a couple of blood stops and were manipulated in various positions - it wasn't the relaxing treatment we had hoped for.

The next day we walked about 10 minutes from our hostel to an old quarter. The buildings were fantastic. We visited Ai Dao Nunnery (free but not much to see). The best value place we have visited is Wenshu Monastery. It only cost 50p entry and there was lots to see. We had lunch at the vegetarian restaurant there and they had a traditional tea house/garden. We were curious to have a look at the guesthouse. Note to fellow travellers, if you are looking for accommodation, most monasteries have places to stay. the only stumbling block is the language barrier - if you can overcome this, you might just have an authentic experience staying with the monastery grounds. Not sure how the prices compare to hostels though. While we were at the monastery, Carl played badminton with the monks. In the afternoon, we headed to another 'must do' in Chengdu which is the 'People's park'. It is well known for its teahouses. When we arrived, it was pretty grey and cold. We weren't impressed with it all but I imagine during the warmer months, it would be a great place to watch the world go by. Whilst we were there, we found groups of people singing in karaoke style. Every corner you turned, you found people singing into mics and they sounded pretty bad. In some places, they tried to drown out their neighbours efforts. There was some strange dancing going on too - think Kate Bush!

They are VERY cute

On the 8th Jan, we went to the Panda Breeding Centre. You are told to go early in the morning as in the afternoon, the Pandas are sleeping and you won't get to see them. Apparently, this is only true in the summer. Anyway, we got to the centre about 8.30am. The weather wasn't in our favour as it was very foggy and pretty cold. Like People's Park, I can imagine the centre to be great in the summer but the downside is the amount of tourists. The centre is within a huge park which you could spend hours in IF the weather is good. We literally walked around, found the pandas, tried to take pictures of them through the fog and then wanted to get back. We did get to see a lot of pandas and they are very cute. If you want to cuddle one, you have to pay 50 pounds for an adult and 100 pounds for a baby panda!! Guess what? There are no photos of us holding pandas as much as we would have liked to done so. Had a great evening in the hostel. They organised a party where 20 of us sat round learning to make chinese dumplings. We got to eat our creations.

Dumpling Party

The next evening, we got to experience Chinese Opera which is well-known for face changing. I (Sarah) was looking forward to wearing a dress after being in trekking clothes for 2 months. Well, it was in vain. Opera to me means ornate buildings, chandliers and a certain type of etiquette. Well, nothing of the sort in China. Think of a room partly exposed to the outside, plastic 'bamboo effect' chairs and a stage you would expect to see in a school assembly hall. As you can imagine, I was freezing in my black dress and diamante sandals! Everyone else turned up in jeans and fleeces (including the chinese tourists). The show was a bad version of 'Britain's Got Talent' where we both had hit all three buzzes within the first 2 minutes! Anyway, the 1.5 hour show consisted of Chinese ditties, puppet shows and juggling (mum I thought of you!!). The last 10 minutes, however, was fantastic. The face changing was impressive. The refreshments throughout was local tea and monkey nuts which were needed to try and keep me warm! Not sure we would recommend this show to anyone.

Face Changing and Fire Breathing

On our penultimate day, we wanted to visit another hostel for comparison plus we wanted to buy an international youth hostel card. We really liked The Loft Hostel - much more funky than our hostel but I imagine the rooms could be cold in winter as they have large single glazed windows. Here, we bumped into Thierry & Natalie, a couple we had met in Xi'an. We sat and had late breakfast together. In the afternoon, we had organised a Chinese Calligraphy lesson except our teacher decided not to turn up. In the evening, we chilled at the hostel and watched 2012. We loved the film except we never got to see the end. Obviously the copies are fake and the DVD had run out of space when they recorded it - so we don't know how it finished!! Anyway, the DVD only cost 25p.

The last day we went to Chengdu's Hospital of Traditional Medicine for a tour. It was expensive at 8 pounds each for an hour. You don't really learn anything but you do get taken into wards and treatment rooms. The acupuncture rooms were quite disturbing as they had attached electrical clips onto the needles. You would see people's faces or body parts flinch as the current went through. It looked like torture. Most of the people they were treating had facial paralysis or had had strokes - apparently these conditions are common in China saying that the weather has a lot to do with it (especially the winds). In the afternoon, we caught the airport shuttle bus to get our flight to Hanoi via Guangzhou.

We are now heading of to warmer climates! - Hopefully

Ps the reference to a bad round of golf - When you are having a bad round of golf you always seem to have a great last hole which brings you back for more. China has been like this in many ways, on our last day everyone was very friendly and helpful, almost a different place, although was it enough to want to go back? time will tell.

So here we are (28th Dec) on one of the most impressive train journeys in the world heading to China one of, if not, the powerhouse of the world. We are expecting good things after the developing nation of Nepal.

I think now is a good time to sum up China before you read the rest of the blog. Easily done in one word - 'frustrating'. In fact, probably the most frustrating place we have both visited (although Guatemala comes a close second!).

It is such a shame that we have found China to be such a battle because it is an amazing place with so much to see, but that's all we could do, see things. It was almost impossible to interact with anyone, and even the tourist spots didn't really cater for visitors from outside China. You'll see what we mean.

First part of the trip into China was on the Qingzang Railway. We left for the train at yet another early hour with the owner of the hotel acting as our taxi driver expecting the modern station to be relatively accessible. Being dropped off outside we followed the crowd into the station as there were no signs in English; this was a theme throughout, luckily our ticket had the number 28 on it and were the only recognisable characters in the station. Boarding the train in good time, we found our 4 bed soft sleeper cabin (there are 4 classes; soft sleeper sleeping 4 people; hard sleeper sleeping 6 people; soft seat and hard seat. The latter 2 looked horrendous with no room for luggage and everyone smoking - not a place to be for 37 hours).

On train to Xi'an

We thought our luck was in as when the train pulled out of the station we were alone in the cabin, so we spread out into all four corners of the cabin. This is where China gets it so right, and then so wrong. At 11pm we pulled into a station and having hit the sack half an hour earlier we were woken by a young couple trying to get into the cabin! No issues with this but why couldn't the train staff have mentioned this over the last 15 hours or as they do at home put reserved tickets on the cabin doors or something?? Having to get dressed and re-pack everything wasn't what we really wanted to do at 11pm. Our fellow travellers then tucked into fried chicken feet for breakfast!! We had more issues with a middle aged woman trying to come into our cabin about 10 am the following day who had decided to buy several laptops and a TV before getting on the train!! All got a bit cozy with five of us in a space 8ft by 8ft!

We arrived in Xi'an about 10pm later in the day and after 10 minutes of trying to get a taxi driver to take us to the hostel we headed into the bright lights of a quite huge city. Now we found out the following day, the hostel we were trying to stay at had moved to brand new premises and the old premises (where we had turned up) were now being used as university student digs (remember what they looked like!). Being greeted by two Chinese girls who spoke not a word of English (we did think this was odd for an international youth hostel at the time) we were thankful for the iPod mandarin guide as we somehow agreed to take a room for £8.

Before we carry on we must point out neither of us had stayed at a YH before so we didn't know what to expect, although reviews of 90% for most of the hostels in X'ian gave us high hopes of decent accommodation. Please think of the film 'Hostel' and that gives you a rough idea of the room, especially the bathroom. The redeeming features were its cleanliness and warmth which made up for its tired state.

The following day we tried to find a different hostel that we had saved into the maps on the iPod. Unfortunately the address was wrong again and after much searching we ended up on the top floor of a government building in the tourism section - where a nice helpful man (who could speak English) called the hostel for us and arranged a pick up.

First impressions of a 'proper' hostel - 7 sages - were good, we had a dorm room for 4 to ourselves and Peter (his English name) managed to book flights to Chengdu for us as they were as cheap as seats on the train. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around getting our bearings and trying to find a restaurant with either an English menu or some photos of the food on it, we went to pizza hut ( I know the shame of it!)

Our room at 7 Sages International Youth Hostel

On the 31st Dec we went to the Terracotta Army. Taking an hour bus ride from the train station we arrived at the center to be faced with the usual touts wanting to give you a guided tour. In hindsight, we should have taken a guide, even though they were two and a half times the price of the entrance fee, as most of the information within the park was in Chinese. This was a common theme throughout China, in the attractions, train stations, restaurants etc there was English over the entrance doors and then hardly anything inside. Frustrating indeed... The Terracotta Army is an amazing sight and still the reasons for its construction are unknown, each figure was individually made and even though there was an element of standardisation in the 5 types of warrior each one had a different head and face. Along with the general army were horses and chariots, and found in other digs and on display in the museum were general people, farmers etc along with many animal, mainly birds, all again made in amazing detail. We won't bore you with what we can remember of the details but Wikipedia is worth a read on the subject if you are interested.

Any guesses?

Our days in China followed a general pattern, day sightseeing, day ambling around in the various markets and taking in the craziness of the place.

In Xi'an we hit another couple of tourist spots, the first being the city wall that surrounds the center of the city, the other being Huaqing Spring - on the same bus route as the Terracotta Army, in fact one stop before - why didn't we get up earlier the day we went to the army? The wall is very impressive, rectangular in shape some 12m high, 12m across at the top and 14km in length. We hired a tandem bike to travel around the wall along the top so you could get a great view of how big the city actually is. Unfortunately you are only given 100 minutes to use the bike, and on average if you ride the wall without stopping for photos or a rest etc it is just about possible to get all the way round in the time given otherwise you have to pay more money.

Us on tandem bike around Xi'an City Wall

The Huaqing Springs were situated in beautiful gardens with ornate buildings but unfortunately you couldn't bathe in the water- which is why we went - unless you went into a sort of private room measuring 10 ft sq where there was a sunken bath which was filled with hot spring water - another 'Hostel" type experience. You could get a bath for about 6 pounds for this very scummy room or could pay 80 pounds for a more luxurious bath (but you only got 30 mins!) There was another way to experience the hot springs, in Jinsha's Hole, its not as bad as it sounds. Inside a small cave there were 20 or so small buckets where the hot water fed into them out of dragon's mouths. It was a bargain for 2 pounds each and you could stay there as long as you liked. We tired to squeeze our legs and arms into these buckets since we weren't going to take a bath. It was really relaxing and hard to face the cold air after this. The water was 42 degrees.

The last couple of days we headed back to the markets - the Muslim Quarter was our favourite. It comes alive about 6pm with hundreds of street vendors mainly selling food. We tried mung bean cakes, some kind of dessert made of sago, honey, black syrup and hazelnuts served cold (not great) and fried bread with various local vegetables and meat (greasy). We bought a couple of local games Majong, Chinese Chess and Fortune Telling Sticks. We also ended up with a gorgeous painting which we hadn't planned on buying. As it is low season, the traders are desperate for money and so sell things at a much lower price than in the high season. The painting was good quality but her usual price is 200 pounds!! We eventually got it for 20 pounds. We have learnt that when buying something, always offer 10% of the asking price. It also helps if you don't carry a lot of money on you. She asked us how much we had. On that day we had about 20 pounds between us - she agreed on the price as she saw how little we had on us and she really needed money to pay her rent. We also visited Shaanxi History Museum which is free (we like free!) It is a much smaller version of the British Museum. It is a good place to go if it is cold/raining and if you are running out of money.

We left Xi'an on 6th Jan for Chengdu. We had to be up at 5am to get a taxi to the airport. We flew China Eastern and were impressed with them. Lots of leg room and a good breakfast.

We thought we would write our blog in time for everyone's first day back at work. We hope you all had a good Christmas and New Year. At least you have something to read with your first cuppa of your work day.

We left Nepal for Tibet on 19 Dec with another early start at 5.30am - again, this time to catch a bus to the border. On the way, we travelled on probably the worst road so far with a driver who was trying to be the next Lewis Hamilton. The journey wasn't helped due to the quarrying taking place above the road which meant every few hundred meters or so the road resembled a stage of the WRC. Anyway, we reached the border around 12noon to go through the formalities. I must admit we were slightly apprehensive as our Nepal visas had expired and we weren't too sure if this would cause an issue for us trying to get into Tibet. We paid $60 to our guide who managed to get our visa extended so off we went joining a massive queue to pass through immigration. Unfortunately we also had to pass a health questionaire and test. Sarah desperately tried not to sneeze, cough or blow her nose due to the cold she had been sporting for 2 weeks. After an hour or so we were all through with no issues (except if you have any books in your luggage, you need to get them out of your bag as if you are unlucky enough to have a Tibet Lonely Planet guide with you it gets confiscated [the version with the Dalai Lama foreword]).

Our first stop was at a village called Kodari. We stayed here for a few hours because we had to wait until the road construction work had finished for the day. Here we met up with the other members of the group who were travelling with us (we were in our own private group but when you stopped for lunch and in hotels you met up with other groups) Nothing really to see here and unfortunately we ended up paying a lot for food and didn't get a lot in return. We left about 6pm for Nyalam heading off on the Friendship Highway, a road of some 5000 km stretching from Shanghi to the Nepal/Tibet border. The road from Lhasa to the border (1200 km approx) was built in the last 2 years. When you see it, this is an amazing feat as the road twists and turns up and down the sides of mountains (think of the roads in The Alps). There is hardly any traffic and the road surface is so smooth, a welcome change from the roads in Nepal! We arrived in Nyalam about 8pm, nothing to see here at all - only one guest house was open due to it being off season. We ended up eating with the rest of the group in a tiny restaurant where the locals were gathered around playing ma jiang. Sarah and I and two others from the group went from here to a bar, which was a sureal experience, just ordering food had us rolling around laughing as even when you point at something you aren't guaranteed to get what you think!

We left here the following morning and stopped at a village called Tingri where we had night without the other groups; this was because our trip included a visit to Everest Base Camp (EBC), the road of which was accessed from here. This was an amazing village and it's hard to imagine how tough life could be in the depths of winter being some 3700m above sea level. The village stretched for some 1km along the main road and we both agreed that to see so much cultlre in such a small area was quite a surprise. A night spent huddled together in as many clothes as possible with 2 down sleeping bags and as many extra blankets as we could plead for. The outside toilet didn't help matters either! Well, when we say 'toilet' what we should say is a hole in the ground and the ladies didn't even have a door.

Photo of general life in Tingri

We had an early start on the 21 Dec to EBC, 7am it was still bloody freezing as the sun didn't rise till about 8:30am. We did manage to see some amazing stars as once outside the village there was no light pollution. It felt like you were inside a dome of stars as they seem to reach the horizons of the land around you. You felt very alone as there were no houses, people or animals. Just you and the car travelling across barren land with no identified road or track. It had a presence about it when it was dark almost like aliens were going to land their ship alongside you. Anyway, back to reality, we were told the trip to EBC was one and a half hours, which wasn't too bad even though we were just travelling across a dirt track, however, when we thought we were almost there, we were told there was another 1.5 hrs to go. With nothing to do and little to see in the back of the Land Cruiser we spent the remaining time trying to keep warm.

EBC Tibet Side. We will post some photos in due course, not much to see and it was that cold i could see my hands burning as i was taking the photos! We thought the journey was worthwhile due to the promise of 'exploring' Rongbuk monastery - the highest in the world!; However, our exploration of the monastery consisted of jumping out of the car and taking a couple of photos! :-( From here we had the trip back along the track for another 2 hours. We missed a stop out and headed straight to Shigatse.

Shigatse, two nights here, we visited Tashi Lhun Po Monastery which is the largest 'yellow head' sect monastery in Tibet. It's difficult to go into the Buddhist religion (and as religion isn't my [Carl] greatest subject) as even though it seems quite simple, it is quite indepth with much history to it. You kind of feel that you can only see so many Temples, but each one is unique with so many things to see. Unfortunately you want to engage with the monks but due to the language barrier it is almost impossible to do so. We did a bit of shopping afterwards, but in all honesty we just wanted to get to Lhasa.

We arrived in Lhasa on the 23 Dec and headed to Spinn Cafe with a few of the others; a very small and smoky place where many travellers head as it is a good source of information and the owner does great magic tricks. They recommended a restaurant called 'Namaste' where we ate on several days as the food was great and very cheap.

We had the 24/25 Dec free, so on the 24 Dec we had a good day walking round getting our bearings and taking in the culture of Lhasa. The city is, as many are, divided into the new and old areas. We were staying in the muslim quarter within the old part of the city so didn't have far to walk to get into the real heart of the city next to Jokhang Temple. We felt very priviledged to be here during December as Lhasa explodes into a cultural haven as the farmers and local people from the far reaches of Tibet head to the city for an annual pilgrimage to visit the Buddist sites within the city.

Photo showing the pilgrimage around Jokhang Temple

For Christmas Eve, we headed to Snowlands Restaurant with some of our tour group (hello Jess, Andrew and Shan). It was packed out and the first time we had really seen other Westerners. We each got given a token Christmas pressie which was lovely (sweets and hair bobbles).

We spent the best part of Christmas Day trying to find a santa outfit! Pretty difficult in Tibet. We went to a crazy indoor market and scoured the aisles. We came across a toy stall and found one santa costume! Can you believe it? All for the princely sum of two pounds eighty. We also had to stock up on tea and hot chocolate for our train trip to China. Each train cabin has boiling water so you can drink as many hot drinks as you like. They originally wanted to charge us five pounds for a box of black tea!! Anyway, when we got back to our hotel, we spoke to some friends/family to wish them a Happy Christmas and then got ready for our night out. Sarah wore a makeshift costume out of a red dress, black leggings etc to become Miss Santa and I had a full on Santa outfit complete with beard. A few of us headed out and literally stopped traffic - seeing Westerners in Lhasa is strange enough enough in Dec but white people in santa outfits was something to behold. All the people around the temple who were praying - stopped! It was bizarre. In the end, 16 of us met up at Namaste restaurant for our Christmas meal - but alas no turkey and yorkshire puds in sight. About 10pm we headed off to a Chinese nightclub. Again, we were the centre of attention. In both Tibetan and Chinese clubs, they don't really buy beers singly at the bar - you buy in bulk, usually by the case! They are big drinkers. About 2am we headed back to the hotel which was locked up. After banging on the window and waking up the night porter, we eventually made it to our beds.

The 26/27 Dec were sightseeing days for us in Lhasa accompanied by our guide. On 26 Dec, we went to the famous Potala Palace. It was built in the 7th Century by the 5th Dalai Lama (the current Dalai Lama is the 14th). It has over 1000 rooms but only 30 rooms are open to the public. Like most monasteries, the exterior of the buildings are painted either white or red. The former indicates living quarters and the latter where the monks pray. It was a very impressive building, if not too many stairs which is not great at altitude! In the afternoon, we went to Jokhang Monastery in the heart of Lhasa. It is the equivalent to Mecca to the Tibetans. There are hundreds of pilgrims praying outside the building as well as walking around it in a clockwise direction from dawn to dusk with their prayer wheels.

Potala Palace (and a photo of us!)

On 27 Dec we went to Drepung Monastery. We were pushed and shoved out of the way as pilgrims jostled to pay hommage to Buddha. It was like being crushed at a concert! In the afternoon, we went to yet another monastery - Sera Monastery. Here we crawled on hands and knees under prayer books which was a blessing in itself. This monastery is famous for the largest protection God in Tibet. Many people bring their children here to receive a blessing in front of this God. You see babies with black smudges on their noses which come from the butter lamps burning alongside this God. The adults can bend down into a hole and touch the statute which is what we did. Immediately afterwards you are man handled and chucked out of the room - how very Buddhist! We received another blessing by climbing up a few steps and putting our head against a large Buddha statue. It made both of us feel very lightheaded - strange!

After our sightseeing, we headed back to the hotel to pack for our 37 hour train journey from Lhasa to Xian (China).

Note, part of this entry is our 2nd attempt of writing after the hostel manager lost some of the text for us. Not pleased!!!

So our time in Nepal draws to a close. We leave on Saturday 19th for Tibet (with expired visas) and have spent the last few days back in Kathmandu after spending a week relaxing in the peaceful lakeside city of Pokhara.

Pokhara is a major city of about 1 million people situated 7/8 hours by bus from Kathmandu. Our trip to Pokhara wasn't too bad and the time passed relatively quickly. There are no facilities onboard so you need to be prepared - I (sarah) spent a good 2.5 hours in agony as I couldn't go to the loo! Anyway, Pokhara was a welcome respite after our trek. It is much calmer than Kathmandu, less traffic and shop keepers don't pester you as you walk past. We stayed at Hotel Crown after some fellow travellers recommended it to us. It cost Rs600 per night (about 5 pound sterling) with own bathroom, hot water and terrace. Things generally were much cheaper than we were used to in Kathmandu.

The highlights

We got friendly with a Tibetan street seller after buying a couple of things from her. She invited us to her home at the local Tibetan Refugee Camp. We were invited to a special day in their calendar - the anniversary celebration of the day the Dalai Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize. In their community hall, we were asked to put a blessing scarf on the Dalai Lama's picture for good luck and then sat down to watch dance and listen to local music. We went back to her home which consisted of one room about 8 foot square. It was the first time that we had sampled Tibetan tea - made with butter and salt - it was disgusting!!! There are many Tibetans living in these kinds of camps as they say there is nowhere for them to practice their own form of Buddhism in Nepal. The camps allow them to keep their culture alive. None of them have Nepalese citizenship so have to be street sellers as they can't get a formal job.

Photo of our Tibetan friend Kelsang who kindly invited us into her home.

When we left the camp we headed to a couple of caves. At this point, I should mention that we had hired a motorbike to get round for a couple of days. It cost 9 pounds sterling for 2 days to hire plus petrol. Everyone whizzes around on 180ccc Indian imports. The roads are horrendous, full of potholes and covered in gravel, so I would say that using a motorbike here is only for experienced riders. The cave that deserves a special mention is the Bat Cave. When we arrived, we were asked if we would like a guide - we refused thinking this would be another means of taking money off of us. Well as we got into the cave, we realised why - it was totally pitch black and our little head torches weren't cutting the mustard! Coupled to that, you had to climb up and eventually squeeze yourself through a pothole. The exit was a pothole! Having seen what you had to get through, we decided the best course of action was to head back to the entrance - bearing in mind we had to climb down on slippery rock in the dark with the whole place covered in bats. I (sarah) was getting slightly claustrophobic at this point. Anyway, we are here to tell the tale but not one we would like to repeat.

The following day...guess what we did? Visited another cave! Gupteshwor Mahadev Cave is the largest in SE Asia. This was well lit!! When went through you ended up at the back of a waterfall - Devi's waterfall (which we saw from both sides). In the afternoon, we travelled to the World Peace Stupa. We were determined not to walk up to it as we were sick of walking after our trek. We found a steep dusty path leading up to it and revved the motorbike pretty much all the way to the top. At the stupa, you get a view of all of the lake (Phewa lake) but it is quite hazy due to all the pollution.

For anyone travelling to Pokhara, we can recommend 'Bamboostan cafe' for breakfast and 'Sweet Memories' restaurant for dinner. There are a few German bakeries around - we personally think the one next to 'Boomerang restaurant' is the best.

On our last day, we hired a rowing boat. It was a huge boat for two and had to sit opposite ends to one another to balance it. We went across to a small island with a temple and then rowed to a little settlement called Anadu. For a couple of hours, we chilled on the boat reading and tucking into our pastries from the German bakery. We then realised that we had quite a long way to row back before it started to get cold (about 3pm).

Our return coach journey wasn't as great - it took 10.5 hours!!!! We got caught in a massive traffic jam which apparently is a daily occurrence on the approach to Kathmandu. Anyone taking the bus, note that it leaves Pokhara at 7.30am (not 7am as per the Kathmandu departure) and it doesn't drop you back off at the American Embassy. You get dropped off near Paknajol (North of Thamel). Lucky for us, we were planning to stay in Paknajol anyway as it is cheaper than Thamel and slightly quieter. We are currently in the Family Peace House - RS500 per night with own bathroom/hot water.

Today we headed to Pashupatinath, about 4km from Kathmandu. We walked there as we wanted to take in the sights along the way. If you have a guidebook that was written about a year ago, it won't mention that there is now an entry fee of Rs500 each, so be prepared! Pashupatinath is the Varanasi of Nepal; it is one of the most holiest places in the country and people go there to die. We saw a cremation on one of the ghats today. The ghats are divided up according to caste and the person today was in the 'poor section'. For them it costs about eighty pounds sterling for the cremation. It takes 2.5-5 hours for a male body to burn and longer for a woman. They cover the body in hay and ghee and underneath wood is stacked. Wood is put into the mouth and this is lit too. When in mouring, the son shaves his head and wears white. Within the complex is a hospice where people are waiting for their time. The doctors take their pulse and can tell how long a patient has left to live. If they are close to death, they take them to the river and dip their feet in the water. It all sounds morbid but I (sarah) didn't find it disturbing - especially seeing a dead body burning.

Photo of Pashupatinath with the smoke in the background from a cremation.

We then walked to Boudha to see the world's largest stupa. I (sarah) was very excited that her lunch only cost Rs42 (30p) for a veggie burger and tea (check out Mate's cafe on way to Boudha from Pashupatinath). Carl played a ludo type game (Carram Board) with the locals outside.

Me getting stuffed at Carram Board

We feel that although we have been here a month, that we haven't had long enough in Nepal. This in part is due to our trek which took 16 days. We don't feel like we have 'got under the skin' of the place and have felt more like tourists.