Back to Nepal

I felt a bit like a fugitive today- we had 2 checkpoints to get through, one of which appeared out of nowhere, a landcruiser on the side of the road marked: Border Defence Police' (we were nowhere near any border at this stage). The 2nd checkpoint was cleverly by a petrol station so you couldn't get past it if you wanted to proceed any further along the road (petrol stations are few and far between). Interestingly, at the petrol station there was also a very large truck full of Tibetans all heading towards Kailash...or trying to. None of them had travel permits so they were stuck where they were. It turned out that several of the people on board actually wanted to go further than Kailash, according to Tenzin, by which he meant Indis...i.e. they were in the process of escaping! So now I've seen all aspects of the journey of Tibetans who escape from Tibet right up to their new homes and lives in exile. Full circle, so to speak. Quite sombering...

It was a long drive today and tee car broke down at one point and had to be push started (Rik & Tim tried but were too breathless to have much effect- we had to wait for the truck and our superheroes Gyaltsen and Prem who managed with no trouble. Due to really heavy rains, the river was swollen and a disgusting colour, so we decided no camping tonight (I didn't fancy having food that had been cooked in that water). Instead we headed into Saga and checked into what could've been their version of a 5 star hotel...except that they had no running water at all. Gyaltsen and Prem set up kitchen int eh hotel garage while Si-Shi-la went to ge th car fixed and Tenzin ed us to the public showers round the corner. Rik managed to break his shower and at one point had both the owner and the owner's wife in there with him (!). And to our amazement, Gyaltsen served up our usual 3 course dinner...in the hotel lobby. And to our extreme amazement, Prem managed to produce a chocolate cake with icing! That man is a genius!


Our 5 star lobby

...with compulsory washing machine


The following morning 'Excuse me, tea please' was served in the hotel rooms and breakfast back down in the lobby. We then had a delightful journey back to the border via a shortcut road from Saga to Zhangmo. It was a lovely journey- hardly any traffic at all-in the first 2 and a half hours of driving we saw 1 other car, 2 trucks, a handful of tractors, 1 motorbike, 1 marmot, several sheep, many nomad camps, quite a few yak...and no Chinese! Bliss! There were a few high passes, then it was all downhill. We dined at Nylam at 6:30, hten joined the queue of cars waiting to drive to the border town of Zhangmo- apparently hte government were working on the road here too, so it was a case of only being able to drive along it after dark or early in the morning. Our driver was determined to get us to the border asap. And what a fantastic journey- I've always loved this part of any journey to or from Tibet- the landscape changes dramatically, going from dry desert landscape to lush tortuously winding narrow roads, passing under waterfalls, completely tropical, fresh air, tons of oxygen, and high spirits. And it was misty which lent a certain magic to the situation. The boys loved it, I could tell. We had a minor delay when the car in front of us lost a rear wheel- we saw it falling off which was quite dramatic. All the drivers stopped to help, and refused to return to their cars when a Chinese official looking person came and barked at them. They stick together, out of necessity- trips to Western Tibet are hard going on any vehicle, so when one breaks down, they all help each other out (unless you're Chinese).

We stayed in a mildewy hotel on our last night, no dinner from Prem tonight (we'd dined in Nyalam earlier) and were accosted by the 'money changee' man a few times until we told him to come back in the morning. Good thing we'd dined earlier- the truck arrived really late as a tyre had burst and they'd had no spare on board. They'd had to send for one by a passing motorbike!

Some views on the way...






...including a bizarre jumping sheep


The last high pass


signs of life again


greenery appearing again



view from Zhangmo hotel room