Tibet - Nepal overland

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It was a lovely 10 day trip from Lhasa to the Nepali border. Our guide was so wonderful I fell in love with her and wanted her to be a member of my family. Lahkdun, she was so sweet, and really gave us a great tour. I have seen as many monasteries as I want to for a while but just travelling through Tibet with such a nice guide really was an enlightening experience. .

After Lhasa we drove out towards Gyantse, passing the Yamtrok Lake. It was really my first taste of rural Tibet not through a train window. The lake is incredibly blue (and massive), making it seem like a caribbean patch of water and for several minutes I was thinking about jumping in it. Then I got out of the jeep to take a picture and realised how frigging cold it was outside.

We headed onto to Gyantse, stopping for lunch along the way in a little town. I had yet to dress properly; as we were travelling in the jeep most of the day I had travel comfort clothing on. Thick woollen socks pulled up over my jeans to knee level, and on getting out of the car I slipped on the trusty old flip flops, wedging them over my wool-clad toes. The sight brought a woman over who began to stroke my socks, and asked my guide if I was married, because if not she had a friend who was looking for a wife. It must be something to do with chunky knitwear out here. On every other level I was looking like a proper wrong 'un. But still, it felt a better and more dignified prospect than the one in Egypt ten years back where I was offered 5 camels for my hand, whereas my friend standing next to me was offered 60. They asked me after she said no too. Bitter? Yes.

But still, it was nice to know that if it all goes wrong, I can smuggle myself back into Tibet and become a yakherder's wife (!?!) It does mean I can wear all manner of clashing knitwear and no one will bat an eyelid.

Onto Shigatse, Tibet's second biggest city. We were taken to a rather glitzy-looking hotel that looked very out of place. On entering it became apparent it was more in keeping with a communist vibe of all polish and no substance, but still I slept well enough. The lack of wifi forced me out to a smoking internet cafe where I inhaled for one hour and left with a hacking cough and eyelids like sandpaper.

From Shigatse we were due to swing by Everest Base Camp. I was not entirely looking forward to this. It has never been on my list to do before I die. Too much machismo and self-proving involved. It really doesn't mean anything to me to make it up there and I am only on this tour because it was the only way I could get through Tibet on my timescale. So it was with delight that I received my canny guide's suggestion that we don't actually go there, and just drive by it instead. The weather was really bad up there, and it would save us the 180yuan entrance fee. I began to love her even more. So it was that we did this, and headed onto Old Tingri to spend the night.

Old Tingri is a huddle of brick homes in the middle of nowhere, gathered under the impressive and imposing Everest skyline. It is dusty, remote and has extremely lairy livestock. But it has a loo with the best view – a stone shack over a hole in the ground with open views to Everest.

We stopped off in one of the old brick courtyards which had rooms round the edge to rent. No heating of course but a huge pile of megablankets were on offer. The 'restaurant' was a little shack where the family ate, cooked, watched TV and sat around chatting. I was in there like a shot and they fed me up with very sweet masala tea. They were watching a ridiculous kung fu film in chinese with tibetan subtitles. It had a gang of kung fu kids in it, an alien in a motorbike-less side car, and Jet Li in his early 20s. The children got properly beaten up by the alien, blood spurting out of their faces etc. It was wonderful. No western censure here. I got the name – Shaolin Shouts – and now it is my mission to get it with english subtitles to enjoy in my own time.

There was a rather dead-looking newborn calf lying in the corner of the courtyard on arrival, and some cows were sniffing round it, but it was gone when I went to dinner. I hope there there was no correlation.

After a fantastic night's sleep trussed up in yak's wool, we left to head for Zhangou, on the Tibetan side of the border with Nepal. Today was when the pain started. we got as far as a one-horse town called Nyalam, about an hour before Zhangmou. There was a back up of trucks and the road was closed, apparently. We waited for about 3 hours and then finally got let through, only to be told vehicles could not pass after all. We got our stuff out of the jeep, bid farewell to our driver, and carried everything across the damaged road. It was one of those windy ones that clings onto the side of a mountain like a helter skelter. Well this one had a huge crack across it, it looked like it could snap off the side of the mountain at any minute. It was rather nervewracking.

On the other side of the crack was a steady stream of people awaiting lifts. We didn't manage to get one. It was spectacular scenery, right in a crevice between two mountains – there was a tibetan sky burial site up to the right and the clouds kept closing in and reducing visibility to a few metres. It was getting very cold and dark and I began to wonder if I was to die up here, when Lhakdun waved at me and we got into a truck that took us down the potholed track, 20km, to Zhangmu. It took about 90 mins to get down there because the road was so bad. On arrival at Zhangmu it was dark, late, there were loads of people trying to get a room for the night and we ended up in a horror of a place with bedbugs crawling over everything. Luckily we found somewhere else, right next to the chinese immigration at the end of town, and bedded down there.

Next morning we headed through chinese immigration and down to the Nepali border, got through pretty painlessly, said goodbye to Lhakdun, and walked across the Friendship Bridge into the Nepal side. It immediately felt very different. Nepali immigration was fairly quick also. The visa took 5 minutes and cost 2500 rupees and is a dodgy bit of dog-eared cardboard stuck in my passport.

I bartered with an old dude on getting a lift to Kathmandu and we agreed on 1500 rupees per person. For a 5-7 hour drive that seemed fair. As we descended down the windy, mountainous track away from the border, rural Nepal opened up all around and the colours of the houses, people, food, and countryside etc really hit me. I hadn't realised how subdued some parts of Tibet felt looking back – mainly due to the chinese military presence of course. Even the Nepali pop on the radio was groovy. Which is a good thing because any more chinese pop and I was ready to jump off the nearest precipice.

And so we came to a town about an hour into the drive, and the familiar sight of trucks parked up along the road came into view. We pulled over just by a cafe so I got out and ordered some food. It was a pleasant place and lots going on in the street to keep me occupied. Apparently there was a traffic accident on a bridge ahead that was blocking the road, so we were waiting for an update.

4 hours later, nothing had happened. I walked up to take a look and a truck was indeed on its side, blocking off the bridge, but by now there was a burning tyre right next to it, people were sitting inside the truck eating their lunch and an angry crowd of people were shouting a lot. A truck of policeman sat next to it doing nothing, and most nepalis seemed to carrying on their journeys by foot.

It was becoming apparent that unless a miracle happened, I would be spending the night on the roadside. I had learnt that the driver had killed an old man washing on the roadside and that the angry mob were his family arguing with the driver for compensation. The driver was so far refusing to pay up, and until he did the villagers wouldn't let the road be cleared. The tyre was a sign from the villagers that it was all about to kick off – apparently a fairly usual sign of protest in Nepal!

Then, a miracle happened. A young nepali dude walking past took pity on me and invited me onto his bus, which was the other side of the crash, and heading back to Kathmandu. I was delirious. His bus was meant to be taking tourists rafting but they could not get past the crash so were heading back to the city. I climbed on, sandwiched betwen some wetsuits and paddles, and off we went, with people hanging off the roof, and even sitting in the dinghy on the roofrack. I was saved, by strapping young nepali watersports enthusiasts. Bravo.

They pulled over after an hour at a little roadside shack and ordered some food, then informed me they were staying there for the night. I didn't care, I ordered in the beer and settled for kipping there for the night. Then another rafting bus came past and offered a lift to KTM so luckily the beer hadn't taken over and my sense prevailed, and I hopped on, and made it to KTM around 10pm. The bright lights of the city were a real shock after the last week in mountains with minimal electricity. I found a room at Hotel Karma, and fell into a very deep sleep indeed.

Kathmandu is a real assault on the senses but pretty safe as far being a tourist is concerned. Thamel is the tourist strip, loads of bars, hotels and cafes, western hippies and trekkers everywhere and the amount of fake North Face clobber on sale is quite inspiring. Everyone speaks english, nepalis are seriously good-looking lot and really friendly, everything is cheap, and the Himalayan Blues Fest is currently on. I have definitely landed on my feet. There is an amazing selection of second hand bookstores and I have found one with an amazingly eclectic section of holistic health books from the 70s. Some of the titles are freaking me out – including the classic “Self Urine Therapy” and other horrors.

The food here is lush and I have just checked into the Tibet Guest House which has satellite TV and dirt cheap room service. I am lapping it up. I was meant to get on a 10hr bus to the border at 7am this morning, stay the night in a godforsaken border town called Bhairawa, then cross the border by foot in the morning, take a 3 hr bus to Gorkhpur then try and get on a train to Delhi (16hrs). I did look at flights but none were available. Then yesterday something in me told me to get online and have one more look – I found a Jetlite flight to Delhi on Tues for US$200 so I booked it and am now relaxing in KTM til then.

I made it to KTM from Bristol without flying – except for a little internal flight in China due to all the trains being booked up – so I am more than happy to hang up my hat and stop flogging myself for principle's sake, and am now looking forward to a 90 minute flight and an airport pick up at the other end. All the while I can give myself shivers at the thought of the alternative route I very nearly took from Kathmandu.

And I meet the Carnegies tomorrow night as they arrive from Heathrow – a spectacle I cannot wait to encounter.