All in a day’s play
The night we spent in the yak hair tent at 5,200 metres was fairly grim. The room was warm thanks to the heavy tent and the yak dung stove in the middle but the combination of sleeping in our full clothes and the exceptionally thin air made for a restless night. Dawn could not come fast enough.
But what a dawn it was. As the sun slowly rose its light crept up the huge mountain face of Everest and made spectacular views (and photos) for those few brave enough to leave their tents and brave the sub-zero weather. After photos and coffee we left the camp on what we knew would be the longest day of our journey, not just for the distance to travel but for the change in elevation, weather, terrain and culture of our final destination – Bhaktapur Nepal.
The long morning drive on new shock absorbers (which seemed about the same as the old ones) followed the dirt track out of the valley until we turned west on another rough track, a short cut of about 100 km that would take us through virtually uninhabited high altitude land. As we climbed the valley opened up into a moon-like environment save for the few mountain tops covered in snow and ice. The vast scope of what we were driving through was astounding – high brown rocky mountains all around us, no sign of human life except for one village that was half abandoned because most of the men folk were nomadic herders looking after their flock somewhere else.
We saw large birds soaring above us and a couple of rabbits scamper here and there but we were also fortunate enough to spot a small herd of majestic long horn goats near the road and a fox-sized cat watching us carefully that Kelsang identified as a wolf. Wolf or fox, it was a rare find and even our driver Pemba took a keen interest in this spotting.
We bumped along the rough track across this desolate terrain and eventually went over a nameless high pass, then slowly descended into a new valley with stunning geologic designs in the twisted mountains all around us. We crossed glacier-fed rivers, through another village which was desperately trying to grow barley in its small plots, until we finally hit pavement at the grimy small town of Old Tinghi, the end to a great off-road adventure.
Now we were heading south through the valley where Kelsang’s village is and a few more crops and mixed herds of sheet and goats could be seen. But then we climbed again, switchbacking away from fertile fields back up into those rolling brown mountains, back over 5,000 metres for one pass, then more ups and down until we hit our final high pass of our journey, Tong La Pass at 5,120 metres. We stopped to enjoy the Himalayas that dominated the horizon in front of us, a timeless view that we couldn’t take our eyes off.
After quickly descending down steep switchbacks which made our water bottles suck in with the change in pressure we hit more fertile ground again with a few homesteads eeking out a marginal existence wherever Barley would grow (which is in more places than you might think).
We stopped at Kelsang’s brother’s house, the third such family stop we have made on this trip (also Kelsang’s sister house and Pemba’s sister-in-law’s place earlier in the trip) for yet another hard-to-stomach yak butter tea. But thankfully for us (as it meant less tea) her brother and wife were away and only the mother-in-law was there so our visit was short.
We eventually arrived at the district capital of Nyalam, a scrappy town stuck to a steep hillside, where we had another bowl of noodle soup with yummy momo’s (stuffed dumplings) before continuing down the steep winding road, losing serious elevation down a narrow canyon but gaining trees and heavy foliage in the warmer and more hospitable elevation.
This was a Tibet we hadn’t seen, green hillsides, large trees, kinda normal if it wasn’t for the steep roads, constant landslides and scary narrow canyon. Eventually we made the border town of Dram which was built on a series of switchbacks on the steep hill, its extreme geography the only interesting feature. We passed miles of huge transport trucks parked on the roadside waiting for their evening crossing into Nepal and eventually made the border gates.
Kelsang warned us the Chinese border guards would be looking for our Tibet Lonely Planet book so we hid it amongst dirty washing (where no one would dare look). Why the Chinese would want to confiscate a guide book when we were leaving the country knowing we could buy another one later and at the same time not worry about souvenirs or photos or any other items absolutely confounds us. Another example of Chinese twisted logic.
But we made it through Customs and Immigration, smuggled book and all, said our final sad goodbyes to Kelsang who had been a good guide to us and walked across the so-called Friendship Bridge that spanned this deep crevasse. Julie stopped for a look down into the ravine just before the official border line across the road where a young Chinese guard officiously stood. But he angrily waved her away, no stopping to take in the views. She cheekily crossed the line, stood right next to him but this time on the Nepal side, and casually paused to enjoy the scene from the railing. The guard could do nothing because she was in Nepal. That Julie lives on the edge, I tell you.
It only took a couple of minutes, one form and one photo to get our Nepali visa, then we hired a local driver named Dorje and his clapped out old car to drive us the four hours to Bhaktapur. And suddenly we had left China and Tibet, now in the beautiful country of Nepal, land of Namaste (Hello!), an impoverished people living in one of the most mountainous countries in the world. And also living, most confusingly, in a unique time zone that was 2.15 hours behind China and 15 minutes ahead of India. Why a country would decide to have a time zone on the quarter hour instead of on the hour like almost everyone else is completely beyond logic.
Nepal is an intense land of people crammed into small living conditions, squeezing out a living in difficult circumstances. It is one of the poorest countries in Asia, which is immediately obvious as we drive down the dirt and mud single lane track which started at the Friendship Bridge and slowly winds down through tiny communities built on the side of the steep mountains. People are overly friendly, including at the numerous police checkpoints, but living a very simple life. We frequently saw mud huts with dirt floors while people manually tended to their small plots on steep mountain terraces.
The contrast between the slow-moving, government controlled tame life of Tibet and the fast moving chaotic colourful life of Nepal could not have been more telling. Crossing a single short bridge created a great cultural jump from an ordered society to a chaotic society, like Julie crossing a line in the road and being able to stop at the railing to take in the view (now that’s chaos for you!).
The drive to Bhaktapur was just spectacular, down a long beautiful canyon with steep terraces, small poor villages, people everywhere going about their daily business. Women wore beautiful colourful saris, children wore grubby clothes, men worked the fields. It was a scene repeated for centuries, although sometimes hair-raising as we passed slow trucks on tight turns without any consideration for the consequences. Such is Nepal.
At long last we pulled into the ancient capital of Bhaktapur, nestled in the Kathmandu Valley by the rivers and amongst the mountains that make Nepal famous. We found our boutique hotel in the old quarter of town, attributed entirely to our daughter Anna who found it last year for our Everest Base Camp trek, and enjoyed an evening stroll through the ancient courtyards and squares of this former capital with dinner in the former royal palace. The long day ended with a well-earned pillow and a lifetime of memories.
Taking stock of this surreal day, we woke up at Everest Base Camp in Tibet, 5,200 metres above sea level with stunning views of the highest mountain in the world in one of the most remote places of the world. From there we went up and down and around until we dropped 4,000 metres, changed countries, changed cultures and philosophies, changed religions and national dress, we went from high altitude brown plateaus to low altitude lush green steep mountains and canyons, from a cautious suppressed people to a vibrant carefree people all in one day. These dramatic changes from simply walking across a short bridge are quite possibly the most extreme of any border crossing in the world. A fabulous experience and all in a day’s play.