To Tatopani: Nepal border to Family Guesthouse

May 26, 2007

In an instant, it's a totally different world.

Gone are the Tibetan skirts pleated in the back with colorful aprons and replaced with Indian style sarong and pants. The Tibetan-Nepal border crossing has to be the worst ever...8.5km No Man's Land between China Immigration and Nepal's...with a steep rocky descent.

The day starts off nicely with an "American breakfast" for Rachel of two fried eggs, french fries, nice thick toast with butter and jam, strawberry juice (made from powder) and milk coffee. Patrick chose to have a banana pancake. Then we set off for the world's longest downhill with a 1500meter drop in 33km... first we start with a climb out of town. At first there is a traffic jam, we have to walk around.

This was only the beginning of the traffic jams we would have today.

There is road construction all along the way with not much traffic except for the construction trucks and equipment. The road descends through a deep gorge and flowing river with waterfalls from side canyons. The road surface is rocky, sandy and occasionally water across the road. Twice we are stopped because there is someone above the road loosening rock. The first time the man told the worker to stop a moment while we passed. The next time the woman made us wait for half an hour, Patrick jokes, "could be an argument for not having women involved in road construction."

We reach China immigration about 1230 after slowly winding our way down the road and switchbacks through Dram. Patrick exchanges the last of our yuan for Rupees. Then we are told the immigration office is closed for an hour for lunch!!

So... we wait.

There is a land cruiser with a group of backpackers that arrive and we visit. They are from Denmark, Canada and Australia, and a couple of them are interested in cycle touring, it helps pass the time. Soon we have our exit stamp, then have our temperature taken at the next window of Health Inspection and we do a walk by of customs without anyone checking us. There is Xray equipment that must be for entry into Tibet/China.

Then suddenly we are in another traffic jam, with bikes we are able to work our way around the blocked trucks, minivans, taxi's and land cruisers. We get down to and cross the Friendship Bridge and suddenly a different world. We find immigration, Patrick takes both passports in while Rachel watches the bikes. There is a row of wooden shanty buildings of shops and another traffic jam.

Then, there are the Kiwis!! Applauding us...like our own private cheering squad. They are pushing on as far as they can today in order to make it to Kathmandu tomorrow. They say "see you in Kathmandu". Meeting them has made the Friendship Highway special, sharing the road with them.

The road is asphalt, we stop at Tatopani Village (Altitude 1567) and Hot Springs. We find a room in a clean basic family guesthouse and set off for the Hot Springs. It cost 10R each for foreigners. We are disappointed there is no pool, instead hot water from the Kali Gandaki River comes out of dragon head spouts, one side for gents, the other for ladies. Women are still covered up, Rachel wears her bathing suit, but keeps her sarong to cover up for modesty as others are doing to respect the culture. This is the first time Rachel could wash her hair since Shigatse!! The water was hot!

Nepal`s time is 2.15 hours behind Tibet, so we need to readjust our schedule. We started getting hungry at our regular time of 5:30pm, only local time is 3:30, and the cook is resting. We finally eat around 7pm in another restaurant. From the window of our room, we can watch the traffic: buses with people on the roof because inside is full, and trucks that have 5-6 people in the cab, pickup trucks with people stuffed in the back and of course, all are honking. Who invented the horn anyway?? All in all it's nice to be in Nepal and out of "China", Tibet with Han Chinese people taking over.

Two days to Kathmandu and the end of our cycling in Asia. We left Lhasa May 5th, an anniversary date for us, cycling 21 days with 3 rest days.