And here we are, Nepal, maybe the country about which we know least before coming, the one we don’t know what to expect, to see, to smell and to live.
We were surely not expecting this. Holy monkeys stealing in people's plate.
As said in our previous post, we were already amazed by the change of climate, geography and vegetation while going dowm from the roof of the world towards Nepal. By going further down into the Kathmandu valley, we also were fascinated by the atmosphere and the people’s way of life.
The country looks like a rainbow has fallen upon it and its heart beats 50 years in the past in some respect. All trucks and buses look like they are coming straight from a Tim Burton’s movie, Disneyland or the Hippie years, so colourful. They also sound like they are that old. If you go to our videos (see the newly created page), you will be able to hear it in a few of them. You will also be able to see the way of driving we had to experience for 4 hours ….
Let's hope our ride to India will not be on top of one of these buses.
People’s clothes, food, houses which we saw along the road to Kathmandy (and it was the case the rest of the stay) all follow the same rule. Colours everywhere. This cannot be describe so just check out the pictures. Of course this makes you in a happy mood … But in the very first hours, we felt pretty sad actually for this country. It looked sadly poor to us which is something to say after being in Tibet, the poorest province of China. It looked like a mix of Cambodia, South of China, Peru, Tibet altogether. Nepal ranks 144 out of 182 on the scale of Human development index.
Nepal ranks 144 out of 182 on the Human development index, so forget about Nintendo.
Barefoot kids with t-shirts that they probably wear all year long walking along the dirt road (asphalte is pretty unusual on Nepalese roads which makes the atmosphere very dusty), goats and (suicidal) chickens everywhere on the way, people working hard in the rice fields, carrying huge loads on their shoulders, trucks and buses rejecting a 100% pure carbon monoxide smoke, people packed on bus roof tops, muddy road sides which turn into landslides every now and then especially at this time of the year during the mossoon (we got stuck for quite a while as the narrow road to Kathmandy was blocked by one of them), and we could already smell and feel lots of of pollution and religion around here. So this was our first impression of Nepal after driving from the border to the capital.
We were not sure how long we were gonna stay and what we were gonna do in the country and our planning was driven by the indian embassy in Kathmandu which had to deliver Ronnie’s visa. In the end, we stayed in the Kathmandu valley for the whole stay. It came across our mind to go trekking (Nepal hosts 8 of the 10 highest mountains in the world, among them the Everest and the Anapurna as well as millions of acres of lushy vegetation, lakes, gorgeous-looking valleys, etc. in a few words, a paradise for trekkers) and also to go tiger-watching in one of the national parks. But, we had our dose of trekking and we also heard that spotting tigers was more common in some parks in India (which of course we’ll try later), so we limited our excursions to the very heart of the Kathmandu valleys which already kept us busy for the next 8 days.
Very pittoresque street of Kathmandu on Durbar Square.
We stayed in Thamel, the touristy/backpacker area of Kathmandu. Of course you have travel agencies, restaurants, money exchangers, and souvenir shops every meter. But Thamel remains quite a nice district. It is very lively in the day. The night is however dead in Kathmandu, everything closes at 10 or 12 and exceptionally at 2 in some bars, thanks to the world cup. It is also very colourful as the rest of the country and it is enjoyable to be walking along its busy streets for a few hours, the only annoyances being the street sellers selling anything, from some piece of clothes, jewelry or music instruments to Hashich, Marijuana or Coke. But we don’t pay much attention on those anymore. Thamel and Kathmandu in general are immensely packed but relatively small and the streets are extremely narrow so this gives to the city a more human dimension, than say, Beijing or even Ho Chi Minh City. It also gives the advantage that when you stay in Thamel you are one block away from everything you want. Except the touristy things but those are not that far and you can pretty much see everything you want in KTM in less than 45 minutes walk which is really rare in a state capital.
Nepal, the rainbow country.
The first 2 nights we had booked in the Silver Home hotel which had a dorm but the dorm was empty, it was on the 7th floor, there was no locker, the fan was not working properly, it was full of mosquitos and the internet was bloody slow. The staff was nice but that was about it. We changed later for a double bedroom (which was actually a triple bedroom we figured as a friendly cockroach which I found dead on the last day would come and visit our bathroom every night) in another hotel which was quite nicer but of course more expensive. As a matter of fact, this hotel had a very good internet connection and computers so we took the chance for uploading lots of videos which you can now watch by going to our video page (link in the upper menu). We probably spent 50-60 hours to do that, update the blog about Tibet and Nepal and take care of some stuff concerning our upcoming trips in Africa. You can imagine what the hotel staff thought of these 2 idiots spending so many hours on the net. We were pretty much the only guests in this hotel with another chinese couple as it is low-season around here because of the monssoon which also means that we got soaked wet a couple of times. The later being another one of these #$%!@&? experiences which is remembered as a fun memory when you think about it later lying down in your comfortable sofa back home watching weather forecast in Asia (unless you have thought for all the people suffering from it) …
Anyway, during these 8 days we basically watched all the football games remaining in the world cup, supporting the Netherlands of course, as Sweden was not qualified and France … Hum, and went to some temple and old-quarter-seeing.
On Friday night, we made sure we watched the quarter final: the Netherlands - Brazil. Oh boy, that was a hell of a game. It was really cool to be watching this in a pub loaded with Nepalese crowd. We made some friends there, who were even bigger fans of the Netherlands than we were, hitting the ceiling whenever there was a goal or a foul. The very same evening we went out (but not long as I said everything closes late) and we met a troop of French guys, doing an internship in the Kathmandu hospital. They are really nice, had very interesting stories to tell and we hanged out a little more with them the days after. Let’s keep in touch les amis ! It was very nice to meet you.
Ronnie sneakily trying to take a picture of a Holy man (this one turned into a business man as you have to pay for his photo)
We visited four main sites. Three of them being in KTM, and as I said, within walking distance from Thamel. On Saturday we went to Durbar Square, a UNESCO world heritage site, in Kathmandu itself. This is the beating heart of the city which hosts the palace where Kings used to live (no more kings in Nepal). Plenty of beautiful temples and courtyards of reasonable dimensions and original architecture. This small size makes it very nice for the temples are adapted to human dimensions and do not look too much like some sort of God-only worshipping places … and also because you can visit the whole thing is less than an hour.
The day after in the evening we went to Pashupatinath in the East of the city. This is definitely one of the most special places we have ever been to. It is a Hindu temple, the oldest of Kathmandu, but there basically …. people burn their dead… So when you get near it, you see and you smell plenty of smoke due to the ongoing cremations (done outside the temple so in totally open air visible by anyone, meaning that you actually do see the bodies burning even though parts of them are covered by straws and grass) being done at the feet of the majestic temple (built in honor to Shiva) and on the bank of the Bagmati holy river, also called the small Gange. Once the cremation is done, the ashes are being thrown into the water. You do see people bathing there or washing their clothes in the very same river and you see monkeys everywhere, running on the electric lines, around the cremation sites and the hundreds of statutes. Needless to say, you go through lots of feelings on this visit: sadness, embarassment of being there, glaucous, shock, fascination, feeling like a voyeur, emotion … hard to identify what you exactly feel.
Pashupatinath, the temple of Shiva, but also a cremation site. We only took pictures from far away of this place for obvious reasons of respecting the funerals.
But in the end, you gotta realize that this is natural to the Nepalese and it is THEIR way of saying farewell to their beloved. Amazingly enough the local guide who took us around was proposing us to take pictures. But for one we did not feel like it, and also it seems to us very disrespectful to do so, thus we did not. If that was not exotic enough, on the opposite bank of the cremations, just 20 m across, there is a ceremony every evening at 18:30 which is mix of happy dancing, praying and singing while the families of the dead are mourning on the other side. But those two events are decoupled and somehow the happiness of the ceremony balances out the heavy atmosphere emanating of the other bank. Finally, when you keep walking up on the hill of the ”happy” bank, you end up in a remote courtyard which we probably would not have found on our own without the guide. This yard is home to tens of holy men, called “Sadhu” having chosen the life of a wandering monk, which solely purpose is to find Liberation in the Hindu religion sense of the term (?) through meditation and contemplation. They basically own nothing else than 3 square meters in this courtyard, some blankets, very weary and old clothes and they earn nothing, so they eat what they are being given generously, said our guide. You surely have seen them before … on postcards. They are these Nepalese guys that have their face entirely painted, usually with very long hair and beird and colourful clothing.
David enjoying the view and a coffee in the very old, quiet and charming old quarter of Bakthapur.
On Monday, we went to visit Bakthapur. This is a small city which old quarter with its temples and old houses is still preserved. It kind of looks similar to Durbar Square in KTM and has three main squares to visit even though just wandering around its streets is worth the trip from KTM (only 30 minutes away). It is a very cute old district, again very colourful where you get to see a way of life totally different from Europe and the whole things feels very authentic. There were very few tourists and contrarily to Durbar Square in KTM we did not feel too much in a touristy place and finally stayed there for a few hours, just enjoying some coffee in some old cafes overlooking the squares.
Cows are holy but they still can't compete with the kids in dribbling properly.
We had also heard of a major Bouddhist temple, Swayambhunath, in KTM located on a hill where you can see thousands of monkeys playing around and living their life, which is why it is called Monkey temple. We went there on Tuesday and it is also very much worth the visit. The monkeys, which are everywhere, are funny, and is a never-boring experience, the temple itself is quite okay, and, most of all, it is interesting to get an overview of KTM from atop.
Nepalese food is not only colourful but is also pretty good and we have not yet been food-poisoned. Don't worry, India, here we come !
On all these sites, you could stay there for hours and just watch life, which is so drastically different from what we are used to, passing by. People, whether they are Hindus or Bouddhists, from a high cast or a low cast, are busy doing their own daily activities through the small streets, around the temples, praying, burning encens and candles, not even paying attention on the holy cows and monkeys walking and jumping among them. A world of wonders, a world of fantasy, a world where the Buddha was born, a surnatural world for our European eyes. Disney could not do better.
This guy was so young and tiny, it couldn't even climb the stairs on its own. A few seconds later, its mummy took it on its back.
On Tuesday night I witnessed the victory of Holland in a huge bar, appropriately called the Dome while Ron, feeling a bit ill, fell asleep in front of TV back in the hotel. Tonight, we’ll definitely watch the last semi-final game and after 3 hours of sleep we head tomorrow early morning to India by bus on a trip which will be a hell of one. Since they have no toilets onboard, let’s hope we don’t get the tourist’s most common illness on a trip…
We will try to put comments on most of the photos to give some more background. At the same time, the posts might be a bit shorter. Also check out our new page in the upper menu which has a linksto the videos we put up on YouTube (or go directly to http://www.youtube.com/user/DavidAgnolon).
After reuniting in Beijing and having a couple of days to recuperate from our separate adventures, we visited some not-to-be-missed sights such as the Forbidden city and Tiananmen square. The square is really big. As in really, really big. It is always interesting to hear the history behind famous places such as the Forbidden city and so we decided to get an audio tour (you walk around with headphones and a pre-recorded speech about the place you visit). I usually ask, as a joke, if they have Swedish as a language. Turns out that for once they indeed had it. I should have gone with English though, since the heavily accented Chinese-Swedish was hard to understand. The Forbidden city is pretty interesting and huge but somehow we were expecting more. It is not very diversified within the city wall. Or maybe are we just too exhausted of visiting temples and monuments. David joined Fred, his friend who lives in Beijing, for a last farewell party the day before flying to Lhasa in the memorable “Propaganda” bar in the student district. Consequences: no sleep until taking the plane at 7 am the day after, not great when over 50% of the people are struck by altitude sickness upon arriving in Lhasa. But everything went very smoothly.
Arriving in Lhasa and getting our "good-luck" scarfs
Then it was time to head off to the last place in China, namely Tibet. On the early flight we could see some of the peaks of the Himalaya range (Ron) unless you were sleeping (Dave). After a few turns here and there to avoid the mountains on final approach we touched down in the area of China that is still shrouded in mystery, at least in my book. I was expecting Lhasa to be an ancient city with dirt roads and small stone houses with monks giving you blessings as soon as you walk by. I should have realized, after 5 months of the trip, that places are rarely like you expect them to be. And sure enough, Lhasa turned out to be a fairly modern city with cell phones ringing everywhere (we even saw a monk stop his prayer in a temple and scramble for his ringing cell phone).
We were picked up by a guide from our tour company at the airport. Since we need special permits to enter Tibet (China is still careful not to let tourists travel on their own outside of Lhasa), we had to sign up for an expensive tour. First of all they wanted their money so we were taken to their office. Since we had taken a flight and landed in Lhasa, the altitude difference was 3490m compared to Beijing. We were a bit worried about altitude sickness, but we felt OK once we arrived and thought the rumours were not true. After climbing the stairs to the second floor of the tour company, I found that I could indeed feel the altitude as I became very dizzy and almost passed out. A guy siting in a chair in the office must have seen how pale-faced I looked because he offered me his seat right away.
Once finished with the boring details of paying a lot of money we got a ride to our hotel. It was quite fancy and not what we are used to, we feel more at home in tents and hostels. But it did have a TV which was good, since the World Cup in football was entering into the round of 16.
Potala Palace
The next day our guide – Lobsan(?) -met up. There was an American couple joining us on the tour. Ruth and Randall travel around the world in their own boat, currently anchored in Singapore or Malaysia. They had taken the train up to Lhasa a couple of days before and were a bit more used to the high altitude but still suffered from it. Lobsan took us to the famous Potala Palace. A huge palace built on a hill. It used to be the residence of the Dalai Lama until 1959 when the 14th DL fled to India. Today it is a museum. But the Chinese won’t allow any paintings or photos of the current DL. It contains over 1000 rooms, 10 000 shrines and 200 000 statues! Finally we got to experience some genuine, mystical Buddhism feeling in a temple/palace. We followed up that visit with a visit to the Jokahng temple in the heart of Lhasa in the afternoon. The Jokhang temple was founded in 647AD during the time of the Tubo King with the easy-to-remember name Strontsan Gampo It was a Buddhist holiday when we were there, so the queue was very long, but we cut in since we weren’t going to pray in front of the different shrines and statues. This temple is located in the centre of the old town in Lhasa and so we went around after the visit and took in the atmosphere. We also had a nice lunch on one of the restaurants. Yak Kebab, yeah! The military presence was very conspicuous in the centre of Lhasa where the tourist districts are. We could see soliders marching in groups around Barkor Street as well as positioned on roof tops. There were civilian unrest in Lhasa during 2008 where monks protested peacefully for the release of imprisoned monks. It ended in violence and bloodshed, and the Chinesee goverment has kept Tibet in a tight grip since then.
Ani Sangkhung Nunnery tea house
Experienced monks ask the young monks questions in this debate session
The first days of our stay in Lhasa we needed to take it easy to get accustomed to the altitude, so we spent most evenings watching football on TV and having a dinner somewhere. We also visited a nunnery, the Ani Sangkhung Nunnery tea house, in Lhasa as well as the Sera monestary where we got to watch a philosophical debate between monks. Young monks sit on pillows in a courtyard while older, more experienced monks (but still between 18-25) hammer the young ones with tough questions that they have to answer. The older monk stands in front of the young one and violently clap their hands together and “shoot” the question with their extended hand to the younger one to make them more stressed.
It was very interesting to watch and observe the daily life in Lhasa. Overall, I think the people in Tibet are very religious, which the long queues to the temples give testemony to, and there were quite a few monks and nuns around. Albeit they seemed to live quite modern lives with cell phones, discussions over some tea in restaurants etc. And why shouldn’t they? The world changes.
After a few days it was time to start our journey through the Himalayas from Lhasa to Kathmandu in Nepal. We stuffed our luggage as well as our guide into the back of the Landcruiser before heading to the first stop of the day – the Yamdrok Lake – one of the largest in Tibet. It provides a beautiful scenery, framed by the peaks of the Himalayas. At this point we were almost at 5000 meters and any walking made you instantely tired. The road went back down after this and we passed several glaciers, i.e. the Karola glaicer where desperate Tibetans tried to sell you everything from stones to tea, or simply begged. As soon as we came outside Lhasa we could notice the big decline in modern houses and facilities. The poverty is really striking. The Chinesee government has modernized Lhasa to make it look good to tourists, but the rest of the Tibet they don’t care as much about. We finished the sight-seeing of the day by going to the Pelkor monastery. David coughed up some money in order to be able to film and take photos inside the monastery. He got so caught up in his filming that he didn’t notice when a monk locked him in, in one of the rooms – the monk didn’t notice him sitting there and filming the inert statues for 3.5 minutes During the evening we searched for a higher meaning of life by meditating together with some monks on top of a windy mountain….or…we just watched football on TV, which some people (us) say could be just as meditative.
Some poor kids along the road, trying to get money
Woman and horse somewhere in the Himalayas
We saw countless Buddha statues and relics during these 7 days
The following day we continued the journey through dry valleys and rocky mountains. On our way we saw Yaks every now and then, looking for some eatable grass in the dry ground. We visited…that’s right…another monastery – the Tashilumpo monastery – which has the tallest Buddha statue in Tibet – 25 meters and is also the traditional seat to Panchen Lamas. They’re basically the top guys after the Dalai Lama in Tibetan Buddhism. The current Panchen Lama was just a kid when he was selected and was arrested by the Chinese together with his family. He is currently the youngest political prisoner in the world. If you want to know more about the in’s and out’s of Tibetan Buddhism I suggest you go to www.wikipedia.org or think about if you can’t do something more useful with your time. During these three days where we were going through the Himalays we spent most of the time in the car. We’d liked to do more trekking but time didn’t allow for it, and neither did our physical fitness
The day after we finally reached what was maybe the high-light of the trip – Mt Everest base camp. There is one on the Tibetan side and one on the side of Nepal. Although the Tibetan side might not be as crowded or touristy, it was really amazing to see Mt Everst. While driving there, the weather was rainy and the sky overcast. But we were in luck(!), the sky cleared up and the highest mountain in the world stood in all its might in front of us (actually still some 10’s of kilometers away, but it looked very close). The afternoon sun shone on the snow-covered sides and made it glow and stand out from the rest of the Himalayas, which were cast in evening shadows. David and I went bezerk with videos and photos. Some of them turned out OK and are posted in the photo and video section. At this point, we had gone from a 28 degree Lhasa to a 5 degree Mt Everest base camp that had a cold wind blowing on top of this. It was good that we had extra blankets for our beds.
Mt Everest
The Project-7 crew with Mt Everest in the background
The day after we drove the 4 km to the actual base camp, which in Tibet (China) of course was a military outpost. We fired off some more photos and headed back to the car to start the journey to the border town of Zhangmu. The last leg of this tour really impressed us, we drove on winding roads on sides of steep mountains covered with forest and hidden behind clouds. Again the climate had changed abruptly. Sometimes it was a good idea not to look toward the edge of the road facing the drop, it was too nerv-wrecking. Zhangmu is a town built on the side of a mountain. Basically it has just one road that winds its way downward toward the border-crossing. We had some dinner and went to check out the little town. After deciding to have a beer in a “bar” we enjoyed the view and felt uncomfortable as every time we took a sip out of the small glasses, the waitress filled them up to the brim again.
Part of the mountain road we drove on, through the spectacular scenery in the borderlands between Tibet and Nepal
The morning after we went to the border along the narrow mountain road. We had to wait for 30 minutes while the guys at a road-work, by the Chinese army, decided we could be let through (and that was only because there was a VIP behind us). We said goodbye to our guide and went through the border control. It went smoothly, even though David had overstayed his 30-day VISA period with one day. Ronnie was expecting to be able to make a funny video of David being led away by Chinese Military Police for a character-strengthening 5 nights in prison. Oh well, you can’t have everything. The tour had been nice, and with 7 temples/palaces/monasteries in 7 days, our temple quota has been filled for a while.
Once crossed the border we were in Nepal, but that is another post. Tune in next time, same place, same(ish) time!
It’s been a while, huh! Don’t worry, we’re still alive … somehow. We both survived our respective stays in China for David and Alaska for Ronnie which we will describe in our next posts, hopefully before heading out to Tibet, which will be the 3rd act of the Chinese experience for David and the 2nd for Ronnie.
Riding trains is cool, but the trans-Mongolian/Siberian goes beyond that
Our time in China started in the trans-Mongolian train. After crossing the border of Mongolia and get the passports stamped and the visas checked, we still have another 14 hours to get to Beijing which went smoothly.
However, we rushed like hell upon arrival as we wanted to apply for the Indian visa. We did our best yet we did not manage to apply that day because there was lots of traffic and we didn’t make it on time. Besides, there was some complication. We spare you the details, but eventually only David was able to apply the day after while Ronnie will have to wait til we are in Nepal.
We were told that the Happy Dragon Hostel in the very heart of Beijing, a few blocks away from Tien An Men Square was a great place to be so we went there and indeed this is a cool hostel. Staff is very friendly, the place is very clean, there is a cool bar, a cinema round the corner and we had a huge and very classy place next door to play pool, hosting tens of professional tables. Needless to say we spent quite some time there, hitting the ball with our cues.
Mao said: `Only after you have climbed the Great Wall, you can be considered a man`
We basically stayed in Beijing from Monday afternoon through Saturday morning. In a nutshell we visited the Great Wall, the Mutianyu site, which is a little bit less touristy than some others but still surrounded by shops and street vendors selling a large amount of souvenirs and drinks but we did not have the time to head far away from Beijing. The Wall is of course impressive especially when you know when it was built and how many workers were involved and how many got killed doing it, but we were unlucky with the weather so the scenery was not as good as we thought. We spent a few hours there as only this small part is huge and there are thousands of stairs.
Then we spent most of the time wandering around in the city, in the typical streets of Beijing and chilling out at our hostel, reading, watching movies, playing pool and relaxing. It was interesting to see life in Beijing far from the touristy areas, very colourful small streets, lots of food around and lots of bikes. Beijing is a huge city so we obviously only saw bits of it, but it gave us a flavour of what the city has to offer. This time, we did not feel like visiting more temples, gardens or other monuments as we had our dose of it so far. We’ll do that again but for now, we needed a break.
Then, we spent some time in a few pubs and clubs of Beijing with Fred, a friend of David, who he has not met in like 12 years or something. Fred lives in Beijing so he took us to great places, among them, the Propaganda, a cool place in the student district, filled up with students, these being Chinese or foreigners. The amazing thing was the Open Bar. You basically pay 50 Yuans for the entrance and then the bar is yours all night long for free. Then, we went to club high up in the Hyatt Hotel, called the Sue Bar.Very fancy and classy, it was very different from the Propaganda. It was pretty good despite the posh atmosphere, especially when out on the terrace we were looking out the city by night.
So, we now can be considered as men or what?
Finally, we went to a place which standard was in between in a nice district surrounded by pubs and restaurants, where it feels good to chill out with street vendors every 2 meters. There we had the typical Chinese dumpling. For the equivalent of 2 euros, we had loads of dumpling and 6 large beers. Try to beat that. All in all, we had lots of fun. Thanks a bunch Fred for making yourself so much available and showing us around.
Shanghai's finanical district seen from the Bund
From there, we headed to Shanghai which is a 10 hour train ride from the capital. Our minds were set to see the Finanical District and its symbolic Oriental Pearl tower from the Bund and the World Expo. This is what we saw mostly but we also had a bit more time to see the Yu Yuan gardens (Chinese gardens, small ponds, tea houses, beautiful pavilions, etc.), the nearby Yu Yuan old market, the amazingly lively and modern Nanjing road and to enjoy a few drinks in some of the highest skyscrapers of Shanghai (Jin Mao tower). The latter was quite fun as we were not prepared for that, so went up while wearing our backpacker trousers, flip-flops and old, weary t-shirts enjoying our expensive cocktails surrounded by people wearing fancy clothes, i.e. women who could barely walk due to their high heels and men who could barely talk because of the tie they were wearing. But there, foreigners are highly considered so we could have come with only our underwear, we were welcome anyway. Try that in Europe and see the bouncer’s reaction when you show up in such a place dressed like a clown.
The same by night
We thought it was very interesting to go to Shanghai during our time in China, but when we also heard that it was hosting the World Expo this year, we surely were convinced to go eventually. The world expo was very interesting to see and a masterpiece of architecture. All pavilions are all amazingly designed, sometimes some are more funny than others in their design, but always impressive. We had to face a major issue, the queuing time. For in the biggest pavilions, like Germany, Japan, France, China, the US, etc. the average waiting time was 3-4 hours, it was hard to believe but true. So, we skipped most of these big pavilions. We tried to sneak in as VIPs in the Japanese pavilions which was supposed to be very interesting with lots of futuristic exhibitions, but the guardians of the VIP entrance, even though we had lengthy negotiations, would not let us in.
The Project-7 crew in the World Expo with the Chinese pavilion in te background
We however managed to do in the French, United Arab Emirates, Moldave, Czech Republic ones, etc. We pretended we were Czech in that Pavilion which granted us a discount on the drinks but the waiter started talking to us in Czech. The deception did not last for long and we eventually had to pay full price…;-) Besides those, we visited lots of other pavilions for which the queues were much shorter: most African countries which were all in the same huge pavilion, Iraq, North Korea, San Martin, Albania, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, etc. plus also the Pavilion of the Future and the Pavilion of Space. Earlier in the morning we had the chance to attend a show by Shaolin monks. The show was impressive, but it was short and this is the sort of show you want to see in a temple or a training room up there in the mountains not out on a stage in a concrete-like environment…
Watching the Shaolin monks
All in all, and as we said already the architecture as well as the light shows with huge screens and modern design inside the pavilions were really impressive. However, the whole Expo was quite disappointing from the point of the view of content, and countries surprisingly and disappointingly barely show any of their culture. As an example, the French pavilion was showing 6 random (even though beautiful) paintings from the Orsay Museum, and lots of pictures and explanations (really lengthy texts on a wall….great!) about a few companies which of course funded the pavilions… we were a bit speechless.
Overall, we’d say Shanghai is a bit more attractive than Beijing in our view. Its river, its skyscrapers, its old districts, its temples, its huge contrast between the old quarters in the foreground and the ultra-modern Shanghai in the background and the fact that is close to the sea gives it some more character than Beijing, but well, we only saw parts of these cities. You judge for yourself. China is a huge country with lots to see, a very special culture, food, habit, way of living, but it is true that in these big cities, we felt that China is changing at an amazing pace. The metro in Beijing is the best example. 4 years ago, there was 4 lines in Beijing, now there are 13, all ultra-modern with LCD screens all over the place.
And admiring the awesome design of the pavilions. Here the one of the UAE, symbolising a sand dune.
Now, for the first time in 5 months, it was time for both of us to go separate ways for more than one day. Ron was going to Alaska and step on the 7th continent on this trip and Dave was heading West and South to explore China further. Read about our separate adventure and then we’ll meet again in Beijing in about 2 weeks ready for our Tibetan experience.
See you on the other side of the Himalayas, after one hell of a leap!
Not even one lifetime is enough to see the “World”,. And we have only 6.5 months, so unfortunately we had to make choices and to select a few countries and places. The way we solved it was to make a list of places we wanted to see and things we wanted to experience and then chose the countries that happened to be on that list. It remains a very long list for such a short duration.
So here is the plan for our grand journey - let’s see how well we stick to it.
Dates and destinations
You can also find the detailed itinerary where you can see when we plan to be in each country in the Microsoft project sheet below this paragraph. Just click on the image to view it in a larger format. It will open up in a new window and by clicking on it several times, you can zoom in to view the text.
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Ushuaia, Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina
Ushuaia - The end of the world
So, we depart from London on January 27th 2010. From there we head to Ushuaia, via Buenos Aires. We will wonder about in Tierra Del Fuego in Ushuaia for a couple of days. There is no particular plan for that. Besides, we will have stopped working only a few days before, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we just stay in town and get some rest.
We might end up in the same hostel where David was a few years back. It was quite a cozy one, with nice hosts and great view over the Ushuaia bay.
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The white continent
Antarctica
On February 2nd, we get onboard a cruise boat to Antarctica. 2 days to get there, 6 days cruising around the Antarctica peninsula and landing there with small Zodiac twice a day for little hikes and 2 days to come back.
We hope that the cruise is not one of these old-fashioned stuff, with lots of boring and complaining people. We need some adventure and young people there too !!
It’s a French boat, called “Le Diamant” cruising under the French colors, but we expect/hope to meet some non-french speakers there too which would be nice.
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Rio, one of the mot stunning cities of the world
Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, Carnaval
At the end of the cruise, we fly to Rio de Janeiro and get there right at the beginning of the Carnaval. We also meet Caro, a friend of us, who will catch up from Peru where she stayed two months to work in a surf school.
It’s gonna be lots of fun and parties but we also want to see of course the city landmarks such as the Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf) or the Christ Statute, Copacabana beach, etc. David wants to try surfing again after a few trials in Lacanau, France.
Party all the time ... in Rio
We would’ve liked to try “couchsurf”, but did not manage to find accommodation as most of them seem to be full, so we had to go for hostels, which is a pain, because at the time of the Carnaval, is it bloody expensive and completely full.
We finally went for one of the cheapest, the Samba Villa hostel, which seems to have a great atmosphere but we had to book for 7 nights despite we are gonna stay only 4 nights.
From there we take a 25 hour ride to Iguazu at the border of Brazil and Argentina. For such a bus ride, and we have many of those, we will need to be quite comfortable as we need to be fresh the day after. So, sleeping bag, bed-like seats, eye shades, ear plugs, cross words, book, iPod and sleeping pills will be our best friends, but we won’t forget to stare at the landscape of course.
Iguazu are the one of the greatest natural wonders on Earth. It’s amazing. David saw both Niagara falls and those and clearly prefer Iguazu, much bigger and located in a much nicer environment, the jungle surrounding Iguazu being much more attractive than the Niagara “Las Vegas” city even though Iguazu already has its bunch of 5 star hotels around.
From Iguazu we’ll fly to Bariloche in Patagonia via Buenos Aires again.
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San Carlos De Bariloche, Patagonia, Argentina:
Bariloche became our main stop in Patagonia, except Ushuaia, because it is one of the northernmost cities in Patagonia and because we come from the North, we didn’t want to go back South too much. We ended up with this strange South-North and South again itinerary because we absolutely wanted to be in Rio at the time of the Carnaval so right after the Antarctica cruise. Anyway, so Bariloche seems to be quite a nice town, a bit poche maybe, but let’s hope that we can have fun there. We’d like to do some sky-diving there. The jump and parachute descent over the majestic lakes and mountains of this Patagonian city must be awesome.
After Bariloche we will head back to Buenos Aires by bus. Another 25 hour bus ride. And from Buenos Aires we will fly to Lima for our next stop in Peru.
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Lima, Peru:
So we land in Lima but only stay there 2 days to prepare the stay in this country.
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Iquitos, Peruvian Amazon jungle, Peru:
From there we fly North to Iquitos where we stay roughly one week to explore the Amazon jungle. One of our plans is to walk on the tree canopy and have an outstanding view over the rainforest and hopefully catch one of these boats going along the Amazon river. Then we fly back down to Lima.
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Cuzco, Maccu Picchu, Peru:
In Lima we catch a bus ride to Cuzco. We of course intend to visit the beautiful Inca town of Cuzco. But the main reason for us coming here is to take the Inca trail trek. So this is gonna be a 4 day-trek up to one of the most magnificent ancient lost cities in the world: The Maccu Picchu. We again take a local bus to travel back to Lima where our plane takes to Easter Island via Santiago De Chile.
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Easter Island, Chile:
This island has a strong appealing smell and spirit of “Legend”, mostly due to its Moai statutes which origin used to be debated over and over. Now it is of course quite touristic but it remains a mandatory stopover for round-the-world backpackers. It is also on and half the way to Tahiti so it is an ideal stop for us in order to cross the Pacific without having to take a 12 hour flight. Here we plan to go camping and plan to stay 4/5 days. From there, the flight to Papeete will take “only” 5 hours.
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Tahiti, France:
Ah, Tahiti ! This is the « relaxing » part of the trip. A place where we intend to visit a bit the inland area of the country and see the most diversified vegetation and animals but also a place where we really want to relax on the beach and go scuba diving. For that we will follow the recommendations of Denis, a colleague of us, who used to do its military here, and Sylvia and her brother friends of a friend who both used to live there. We have no plans yet for sleeping but we plan to stay on this island for round 9 days. Sleeping on the beach must be awesome, let’s hope we can do that a few times. Maybe some Rhum would help us sleep well or does that work only in the Caribbeans We then hop onto New Zealand.
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New Zealand:
A legendary place of course where many backpackers go. We first land in Auckland. We were told some nice stories by our friend Joachim who spent half a year there. It’s a great place to catch up with some folks travellers, just willing to explore nature. We are looking forward to the great camping we can do there and finally see for ourselves what the country has to offer. At the end of the stay we get to Sydney and its famous Opera House.
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Sydney to Cairns, Golden coast, Australia:
A huge country !! There is so much to do in Australia. Staying there 15 days as we do is a real shame but as we said before, it is hard to do everything on one single trip. So, we will make some sacrifices. Our plan is to land in Sydney and reach by car Cairns so as to snorkel around the Great Barrier Reef. Along the way we surely will do nice things, such as surfing, diving, camping, exploring the inland outback, going through Gold Coast city and Brisbane, etc. Unfortunately we will have to skip Ayers Rock, Darwin, Perth, etc. From Cairns, we fly to Hong Kong, our first gate to Asia !
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Hong Kong:
So, here we are, now reaching Asia. By then we will be about half the way of the trip and still much to do ! This is a mega-city. Even 5 days which we have planned there won’t be enough to really see it properly. But it should give us a taste of its nice and modern atmosphere, surely a very special place. Besides, we will have meanwhile to process the Chinese visa if not already done in New Zealand. And 5 days will be tricky to get it, let’s see how well we manage that… From Hong Kong we are supposed to take a bus or a train via China to Ha Long Bay, but otherwise we can always fly to Hanoi which is the gateway to Ha Long Bay, our next highlight.
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Ha Long Bay, Hanoi, Vietnam
Ha Long Bay sounds and looks like a mystic place. It has apparently some very surprising geological features with its rocks spread around the Bay area and pointing towards the sky, maybe looking like a Giant waking up and coming out of the water? Hanoi also seems to be one of the most beautiful cities of Vietnam. From what we read it seems to be nicer than Ho-Chi-Minh, more traditional. From Hanoi we will then take a plane to Bangkok.
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Bangkok, Thailand
We will stay in the Thai capital for a few days only. It is a country which has more and more tourists and backpackers (too many) and we’d rather go to Cambodia and Vietnam which seem less visited for the time being. But we thought a stop in Bangkok was mandatory as it has some unique features as one can see on the picture below for example It would also be nice to go and see some Thai boxing fight. In Bangkok we will then a bus and cross the border with Cambodia, heading to Angkor Wat, the famous Khmer temple.
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Angkor Wat, Cambodia
With Maccu Picchu, this is probably the best conserved and most amazing “lost city” on Earth. We will stay around there for a few days, exploring the temples and their surroundings. We will have to get up early if we want to avoid the usual tourist rush as it is also the case in Maccu Picchu and Taj Mahal. If you want to imagine how it is like, I guess you just have to think of the “Jungle Book”. Angkor Wat was the source of inspiration for the temple where Mowgly meets the monkey troops After our stop in Angkor Wat we will head South-East to Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia.
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Phnom-Penh, Cambodia
We know very little about this city. We will tell you more about it after being there. From there we plan to take a boat ride along the Mekong, down to Ho Chi Minh from where we will fly to Beijing, through Hong Kong.
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Ho-Chi-Minh, Vietnam
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Ulan Bator, Mongolia
Actually, we don’t stay in Beijing much and plan to go straight to Ulan Bator in Mongolia, catching a train ride onboard the Trans-Mongolian, which is the Chinese-Mongolian counterpart of the Russian Trans-Siberian. If we can we hope to stop here and there and explore the Mongolian wide and wild steps.
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Russia (maybe)
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Beijing, China
The Great Wall, The forbidden City, the Chinese markets, etc.
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Alaska, USA (Ronnie only)
Lakes, mountains, rivers, fishing, Grizzlis
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Extended stay in China or Vladivostok or Japan (David only)
Rice terraces, exploring less known China
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Lassa, Tibet, China
Take a tour in Lhassa, visiting the majestic temples, getting some spirituality . From Lhassa to Kathmandu by jeep, stopping by the Mount Everest base camp.
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Himalaya tour, China/Nepal
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Kathmandu, Nepal
Tasting great food in Nepal and getting around the final destination of the Hippy road back in the 60’s.
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Taj Mahal, India
Visiting one of the Human-made wonders of the world.
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New Dehli, India
4 day in New Delhi
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Cape Town, South Africa
Diving with white sharks in cages in Cape Town. Tasting the becoming famous wine. Going to the Cape of Good Hope. We get there 2 weeks after the World cup fortunately.
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Bwindi impenetrable forest, Uganda
Taking a 4 day trek in the jungle to meet the mountain Gorillas in their natural habitat. Only few left in the world.
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Safari, Kenya
The mandatory Safari of roughly a week. To see some of the most beautiful and impressive animals in the world.
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Back to London
None of us is really looking forward to this moment ;-(
Now, a question asked by many people: how much? Well, it really depends on the way you want to travel and the things you want to do/see. We have some friends who made such a trip of similar duration for less than 10000 €. Some others went for a full year and spent also something like 10000 €. Others even work to live off the trip.
In our case, you can see below the budget forecast. Some of the figures are actual costs since we have already paid before leqving (e.g. Antarctica cruise, Inca trail, hostel in Rio, flight tickets, Alaska tour, etc.); some others (mostly hostels, camping, bus, etc.) are estimations which will be consolidated at the end of the trip. Let’s hope that we can stick with it as we have put some margins in there. The obvious budget drivers are the tours we take (Antarctica, Tibet – Nepal, Maccu Picchu, Safari, etc.)
During the planning of the trip we came across some useful websites that might be of interest to you when planning your own trip. We visited many others and just give a random sample of them. We will in the future add more and filter them out to only give you the best ones. So stay tuned…
Well, first of all, decide whether you wanna be on your own or with a travel buddy and how you want to travel.
With who??
We have both been willing to do such a trip for quite a while, and had the lucky opportunity to do so at the same time. Since we know each other quite well from our days as trainees, it made sense to go together.
How?
So we had some “negotiation” brainstormings about where each of us would like to go which was of course constrained by the duration of our trip, set to 7 months.
To do that, we of course looked at the overall budget, the seasons in each destination, the accessibility, etc. so we ended up with our route which you can see on the destination page. We both wanted to see a few landmarks in the world and that is how we built up this trip. This means that we do not stay very long in each country which is a challenge for the schedule (we don’t stay more than 15/20 days in a single place!) and because it is going to be so exhausting. But we get to see great things.
We agreed on about everything, except one. We initially wanted to travel the 7 continents, hence the nickname of this trip. But after careful consideration, David decided to skip Alaska and thus North America as a whole, mostly because he had been travelling around North Canada/USA already which offers similar wonders, but also because he has barely ever been to Asia and he had rather spend a few days more there. While Ronnie has lived in the USA, and travelled quite a lot on both the East and West coast of North America, he has always wanted to see the majestic nature of Alaska, and go hiking among the mountains and vallies. Thus, David will stay in the Beijing region while Ronnie will head for Alaska from there for about 10 days.
Then, we made a list of all we had to do within the next 7 months before leaving (we started preparing our trip in July 2009) which is kind of scary and discouraging if you are not really motivated… but we were … outstandingly! We found “Google documents” very useful for that purpose. As we both have gmail as main email host we could share information on-line very easily and make tables, etc.
Ok, so one of the first things to do was of course to arrange things at work.
Then, you have to start thinking about the flight tickets. Check our link page. We have chosen a One World round-the-world ticket because they best operate in the Pacific region in which we wanted to island-hop from South America to Australia, so that was the best option for us. But there are many others and you can also do it “a la carte”. Besides this package, we have to purchase quite a few extra low-cost tickets to cover short trips here and there.
And then, I would say … you can go …. No seriously, the above things are the most important, because then you have a planning/schedule. The rest (described below) comes together with time and effort, sometimes not so straightforwardly, but at the end you know you’re gonna make it, you have to!!!
Second step: Action
Book special tours which require reservations long ahead (in our case Antarctica cruise, the Inca trail trek to Maccu Picchu, trek from Tibet to Katmandu).
Take care of as many visas as you can before departure. This is NOT trivial because in most cases your visa is valid for 3 months from the date of delivery so if your trip is longer than 3 months and you need the visa then, you gotta wait until you are in a neighbouring country. It should not be a problem to actually get the visas but knowing how long it takes to get them and how tight our planning is, we are a bit worried about this issue, especially for China (and even more for the Tibet entry permit), India, Mongolia and Russia. We’ll see how it goes.
Now, below is a list of miscellaneous things to do all in parallel.
Do an overall medical check and go to the dentist. Check vaccinations required for each country, in our case: Hepatite A/B, yellow fever, DTP, Rabies and the famous Malaria pills. Don’t do it last minute, some of them require a few shots with a few months time interval.
Get a travel insurance. Be careful about the special clauses as some of them are constraining (e.g. Antarctica not being covered, risky sports not covered (scuba diving, skiing, sky diving, etc.))
Make sure your passport has enough pages for all VISAS, stamps, etc. and that it is valid at least 6 months after you return. Get an international driving license.
Renew your credit cards. You don’t want the chip to break apart after a few weeks into the trip.
Take care of things like: what to do with my car, with my pets, with my girlfriend Give a fixed address (parents, girlfriend or friends) to the entries of your address book so that your mail is being forwarded there. Give a departure notice to your house agency if necessary or sub-rent your apartment. Cancel phone, internet, water, gas, electricity contracts, etc.. Finally, move out from the house. There are some very convenient places where you can store all your stuff conveniently for less than 80/100 euros/month (in the Netherlands) or just store them at your friends/relatives’ place.
Finally list on a small paper all important phone, passport, bank emergency numbers you would need in case of trouble and make copies of all your important documents. Bring paper copies with you and email some to your email box.
OK, now you are ready to set sails!!!!!
And, above all, ENJOY IT and remain flexible. If you have to skip a few things you had planned to do, do it. It is better than getting stuck because of being stubborn.
It was a Buddhist holiday when we were there, so the queue was very long, but we cut in since we weren’t going to pray in front of the different shrines and statues. This temple is located in the centre of the old town in Lhasa and so we went around after the visit and took in the atmosphere. We also had a nice lunch on one of the restaurants. Yak Kebab, yeah! The military presence was very conspicuous in the centre of Lhasa where the tourist districts are. We could see soliders marching in groups around Barkor Street as well as positioned on roof tops. There were civilian unrest in Lhasa during 2008 where monks protested peacefully for the release of imprisoned monks. It ended in violence and bloodshed, and the Chinesee goverment has kept Tibet in a tight grip since then.
During the evening we searched for a higher meaning of life by meditating together with some monks on top of a windy mountain….or…we just watched football on TV, which some people (us) say could be just as meditative.
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