China in your hand...

China, we'd been building up to this for weeks - Everest was our first port of call and then we'd head south through Tiger Leaping Gorge, Lijiang and Dali, not forgetting Lhasa.

A huge country, you wouldn't believe it until you got there - distances are measured in days not hours, the timezones are crazy as the whole place runs on Beijing time and the scenery was stunning. It took a few days to drive to the genearl area of Everest, another day trying to find someone to guide us and then success - leaving at 4am we piled into ancient taliwagons for the most bone-jarring ride of our lives with no heaters, chainsmoking drivers and chinese covers of the worst 80's songs at full blast on the stereo. several hours later we arrived at the monastery where we would start trekking. As we were at 5,400m people were coming down with altitude sickness, everyone was short of breath (Nick, however continued to smoke on the way up!) and muscles were aching from the start. My goodness it was worth it though, the sun was rising burning off the mist and we saw it so close you could almost reach out and touch it - the highest mountain on earth and we were there at basecamp! a quick strip down to the Beamish Mary Inn T-Shirts for photo's (Graham, we'd best get a free drink out of that!) and getting shouted at by the army for posing in front of their APC's. We can't describe how amazing this was - ok, we didn't climb to the summit or anything but just base camp was enough.

A couple of days bushcamping in the most amazing countryside before heading to Lhasa. Now this was a shock, we were expecting a medieval city with the Potala palace at it's heart - what we got was an incredible Chinese city that catered for every whim, Christine even found an Avon shop! One of our friends who is a trance DJ managed to play a set at a local club to great acclaim, we drank brilliant coffee and generally enjoyed ourselves wandering around and getting confused stares from the locals as they couldn't understand how Christine didn't speak mandarin and was married to a white bloke!

Our time in Lhasa was too short but we had a lot of ground to cover to make it to Tiger Leaping Gorge. We arrived there in a major rainstorm and many of the trails were washed out but we were assured by a crazy Australian woman that the next day would be fine, all the same, we decided to kick back and relax for a few days with the low trails while other brave souls headed up the high trails. They had a great time and got great photos but came back muddy and exhausted.

As we said earlier, China is huge so it was several days driving before we reached our next destination, Lijiang.

At the end of the Hippy Trail...

Well, we survived India with only the odd bout of Delhi-Belly and eventually crossed the border into the Himilayan kingdom of Nepal. Our first night was spent camping in the jungle (we thought that Nepal was all mountains) on our way to Royal Chitwan. An extremely hot and humid night, especially when you're cooking over an open fire for 30 people! The next day took us through fabulous jungle roads to our resort in the national park, this was the sort of place you would come to shoot Tigers in the olden days, in fact many did! there were photo's and accounts of old colonial types bagging 40 tigers in a single hunt - no wonder there's only a handful left.

We had several things to do over the next few days, we wandered around the local villages, ate buffalo steaks and then got down to the business of seeing some wildlife (through a lens, not a rifle scope, much to Nick's disappiontment!) On hearing the local elephants were going for a morning swim and wash in the river, we decided to tag along. This was one of the most enchanting times we have had so far, the elephants would let you climb on their backs before playfully throwing you off into the river and then spraying you with water. We scrubbed them with stones and generally had a great time. You know how a cat responds to being stroked by purring and rubbing into you? Imagine a huge elephant doing the same! When the current tried to pull Nick away, the elephant grabbed him with it's trunk and pulled him back, since then he has fallen in love with them (but still claims they are untrustworthy, just like the dolphins!!)

That afternoon, Christine went canoeing down the river to look for crocs and hippos, an amazing afternoon where all you could hear was the water and the sounds of the jungles - she also made new friends, a legion of leeches! Being caught in a monsoon downpour while trekking back through the jungle did nothing to dampen her enthusiasm (pun intended!)
From Chitwan we headed to Pokhara, this is a great little town where we spent a week riding motorbikes, white water rafting, fishing for carp and eating yet more steaks! A relaxing week before heading for the end of the hippy trail, Kathmandu.

Kathmandu was quite a shock, our first taste of east asian cities, noisy, polluted, frantic and full of people trying to sell you hashish and tiger balm. We looked for the pink curtain restaurant on freak street but were unable to find it and settled for lunch on a rooftop surveying the sprawl. It was in Kathmandu that some of our group left to do their own thing in SE Asia and skip China (one of which has yet to return!) This is where we steeled ourselves for several weeks in China.

On the way to the border we stopped for the day at "The Last Resort" where Christine decided to throw herself off a 160m high suspension bridge (with bungee attached, naturally!) There has been some debate as to whether this is the highest in the world or the 2nd highest - that will rage on but suffice to say, it was bloody high.

We'll update some photo's soon, when we get a decent internet connection; there are some great photo's of us fishing, rafting and the elephants.

Last days of the Raj..

India, what a difference from Pakistan (well almost); the women still have to dress modestly but the headscarves came off and the T-shirts went on. Within seconds of crossing the border we had traders offering us cold beers – that man made a mint!

The temperature didn’t drop much but cold beers made it more bearable. Our first stop was Amritsar, home of one of the holiest sites of the Sikhs – the golden temple. If you think Durham or York cathedrals are impressive, come to Amritsar. If you think we are charitable in England, come to Amritsar. This was a real eye-opener, the temple is plated in gold and shimmers in the strong sun, there are thousands of pilgrims and visitors walking, socialising and praying. Once all this has sunk in, a group of visitors approach you and invite you to eat. We go upstairs to find a hall seating hundreds, all being fed by volunteers who donate food, time and effort. They don’t care if you are a Sikh or not, simply by being there they are happy to invite you into their hearts and look after you. We had amazing vegetarian food, surrounded by happy, smiling people – all of which would talk to us and show interest and amazement in us and our journey. Leaving the temple we took a rickshaw around town where we were given fruit juice from more Sikhs offering donations to pilgrims and travellers – truly these are incredibly hospitable and friendly people!

We stayed at Mrs Bhandari’s guesthouse. Mrs Bhandari is a 100 year old Hindu woman who has run her guesthouse since 1930s and is a local hero due to her age and being the first businesswoman in the state. Her guesthouse is an old colonial mansion and entering is like stepping back 100 years to when we ran India (and everything worked, presumably). A wonderful way to relax after some hard driving and even harder weather in Pakistan!

From Amritsar we headed to Dharamasala and McLeodganj which is the current home of the Dalai Lama in exile – unfortunately he wasn’t home, preferring to travel to NZ than meet 30 scruffy travellers. Great place all the same, a 4x4 taxi costs 7p for the 10k trip up the mountain where we visited Buddhist monasteries, temples and shrines (as well as shops filled with tat). Some of us stayed on the roof of one hotel watching the monkeys and eagles in the treetops while the rest of us settled down in our hotel only to find our balconies and rooms under siege by the monkeys who were after our food and drinks!
Delhi was our next stop for a few days, We’d like to say we absorbed the culture of the city but instead we went to TGI Fridays to celebrate Danny’s birthday and suffered both with a hangover and shock at the size of the bill for days! We spent most of our time around Connaught Circus where it was possible to forget you were in India for a moment and just drink cocktails, eat decent food and shop at the Levi’s store amongst others! We did very little apart from rest and recover after the last few weeks which have been quite a hard slog, great city though, just a shame we didn’t see more of it. Some people went to see a Bollywood movie but the thought of a 2 ½ hour song and dance routine in Hindi was too much for us. You can see why India is going to be one of the next economic superpowers just by spending time with people in Delhi; they are very single-minded with a great education behind them – it’s not just call centre jobs that they’ll “steal” from us in the next decade. Saying that, paying for a UK call to speak to the bank and instead speaking to a girl based 20k away from us in Delhi was a bit irritating!

Jaipur was our next destination, named the pink city because of its beautiful pink sandstone marble palaces that are around every corner in this amazing city. We hired a rickshaw for £3 for all day travelling round the city visiting Mughal temples, British forts and shrines taken over by (more of those bloody) monkeys. The elephant garage was fun, they’re still used to transport goods here so we went to their “depot” to take some photos and have a quick ride – let’s just say they’re a little less smelly than camels and leave it at that! Oh, the Subway was nice as well, only 50p for the sub of the day.
Moving on to Agra and the Taj Mahal, The Taj is a beautiful, soaring monument to love; Agra is a rival to Dalbandin (see “Bandit Country”). Well it’s not that bad but it is populated by the world’s supply of rogues, thieves, vagabonds and dodgy dealers. Every transaction is a hassle, from getting a rickshaw to buying food; everybody wants to get their hand in your pocket even after being told to FCUK OFF repeatedly! Still, we’ve been to Pizza Hut for lunch – who said globalisation was a bad thing?
Moving on again (can you see a theme here??) we went to Varanasi on the banks of the Ganges. This is a very holy site for Hindu’s and where their dead are cremated. We were honoured to be able to observe bodies being burned and the ashes spread in this holy river. For those less affluent Hindu’s, your body being placed in the river is the order of the day. Sailing at dawn only to have a dead body drifting by 5 yards away is quite a wake-up call. We then retired to the hotel pool where we stayed during our first real monsoon downpour. A couple of days here saw Christine having a facial and Nick getting his head shaved ready for the adventure sports awaiting us in Nepal.

We’ll update soon (and add some photo's - Nick's got a beard!)…..