Unless I travelled with a laptop, I don't think that I'd manage to keep up a decent travelling blog whilst I'm away, mostly because I'd rather be out travelling than in an internet cafe. The photos are prettier, but just in case anyone does want stories behind my photographs, I've put here the mammoth emails that I send to close friends and family every few weeks whilst away.
Click on a link below to access them individually, or scroll down to read them all in order.
Ladakh 1
Ladakh 2 and Manali
Northern India and Nepal: Amritsar and Lucknow and Kathmandu
Nepal Trekking - Everest Base Camp and Gokyo
Kathmandu, Nepalese Village, Chandigar and Delhi
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LADAKH 1 EMAIL
Jule everyone. (Jule is the best word in the world - pronounced Jul-lay, it means hello, goodbye, please and thank you in Ladakhi. Which is useful for us tourists).
This is going to be a really long email, as I've decided that my handwriting is so appalling that writing a journal is a bit pointless, so this is my travel journal... Feel free to ignore it!
I'm in Ladakh, part of the Jammu and Kashmir state at the top of India.
I've been having a great time (apart from 6 miserable days of food poisoning) (and a really, really, smelly man has just sat next to me in the internet cafe).
Food poisoning is not fun, and I finally gave into antibiotics after 6 days. I wish I had taken them earlier! Pharmacies here are hilarious - you have to know exactly what and how much you want, they cant tell you anything. Yesterday I went to buy some antibiotics for someone at my guest house who has a chest infection. Me: 'My friend has a chest infection. Pharmacist: What do you want? I point to an unpronounceable antibiotic. Him: How many? Me: How much does he need to take? Him: I don't know. Me: OK, well I've had it before for 7 days. Him: It comes in packs of 3. Me: OK, can I have 2 packs. Him: No, you can only have 3 tablets. Me: Are you sure? Him: Yes. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. Luckily trekking books are quite good at telling you what to take (unlike guide books that tell you to see a doctor), so my food poisoning antibiotics were simple!
I've just got back to the capital of Ladakh after spending a week teaching in a rural school. It was an amazing experience, but unfortunately teaching in Ladakh is pretty awful. 10 years ago the pass rate of the national exams was just 5%, now it's 50%, and I'm surprised it's that high. The kids are taught in a mixture of English, Urdu and Ladakhi, but their English is no where near as good as it needs to be to teach effectively (they were 17/18 yrs old). So the only lesson that I felt the kids understood was maths (I had to drag fractions, percentages and indices out of the void of forgotten knowledge). A dialogue class consists of sentences like 'where are you from' and 'where is this restaurant?'. But the kids were fantastic, lovely, happy and friendly. Their campus was amazing - entirely solar powered (far more effective than the very unreliable power in the capital), the food was cooked by reflecting the sun off massive mirrors onto the pots (incredibly hot), and the building was made from Ladakhi mud and insulated with rubbish (plastic bottles, newspaper etc, which they've just realised is a huge fire risk), which keeps it amazingly cool in summer (30 C outside) and warm in winter (-30C outside).
The most amazing conversation I've ever had, with a 17 year old Ladakhi boy who goes to school in the capital but is from a rural village:
Me: Can you teach me how to milk your cows?
Darjay: Why dont you already know?
Me: I dont own any cows
Darjay: Why not
Me: A cow wouldn't have enough room to turn around in my garden, and I don't have grass in my garden
Darjay: Where do you get milk to drink then?
I was absolutely crap at milking cows. Seriously bad. There is a definite knack to it, and I don't have it.
Being 'in charge' of a load of 18 year old boys in India requires a total change of mindset. At the school we had a washing day where we take all the rugs down to the Indus river to wash them. The part of the river nearest the bank is calm, but the other two thirds of it is fast flowing. None of the kids can swim, and I was getting a bit concerned even about them paddling. Then.. suddenly a load of the boys decide to let the current take them down the river. Then when the near the bend, they manage to paddle out of the current. this was happening repeatedly, and I couldn't decide whether to stop them - they were traveling far to fast for any successful rescue. Clearly that is unimaginable in England, but here the kids hang on the outside of the buses, and have bare wires all over their school, so its just what they do.
At the school I met the happiest person I've ever met. A blind girl, who never stops singing, and who never stops smiling. If you help her, or bring her something, she thanks you as if she's never been helped before (everyone at the school takes v good care of her).
I also realised, after a week of eating purely natural organic food (nearly all of which is grown at the school), how addicted to additives I am. I was craving coke and anything with E numbers! Ladakhi and Tibetan food really isn't up to much. The Indian and Kashmiri food here is great (Char, I'm living on cheese curries - remember in Srinigar?), but Ladakhi food is basically either flour and water in watery 'soup' or flour and water enveloping miscellaneous veggies. And cooked to death. A huge pot of veggies and spices will literally sit at 450 deg F (? C) for 3 hrs.
Tomorrow I'm off for 4 days of meditation. This means, I've just discovered, 4 days of total silence. I thought it wasn't one of these crazy total silence, sit still cross legged cant move things, but it sounds like it is now... Books and writing materials get confiscated. Sounds awful! So I cant speak for 4 days, but there is loads and loads of chanting involved. This may be the wrong way to have my first taste of meditation! I'm going to hate it...
I need to get a bit of a wriggle on. The road out of here closes on the 15 Sept for winter, and I feel I've wasted a week with food poisoning. There's so much on my to-do list, 3 months is no where near enough. I'd like to go down to Gujarat, but I might wait and see how the political situation there develops. Unfortunately the situation in Kashmir is the worst it's been for years - the government announced an indefinite curfew on the entire Kashmir valley (excluding Ladakh), after 3 weeks of demonstrations and shootings after some bright spark thought it would be a good idea to give the Hindus a load of land in a Muslim-majority state. Ladakh has a high army presence because of borders with China and Pakistan, but the town soldiers (unlike rurally based soldiers) carry sticks not guns, which is a welcome change to the rest of Kashmir. (I was wondering down a track near the school the other day alone when I saw some buildings in the distance. I curiously went over, until I realised it was probably an army base, and I didn't have any form of ID on me whatsoever, and swiftly turned around!).
I was intending to do a load of trekking here, but food poisoning made me realise I'm not as invincible as I like to think I am. This is not the place to go trekking unless you are incredibly fit, and are confident at extreme altitude. I signed up for a trek the day before food poisoning, and cancelled it. It would have taken me to 5200m on the second day - this is way, way above the recommended rate of ascent to minimise the risk of potentially fatal altitude sickness - at 5200m there is 53% of the oxygen available at sea level. (Everest base camp isn't much higher than this, and that takes a minimum of 12 days to walk up if you go with a recognised company - in order to acclimatise properly). This region is simply impossible to climb slowly in. And the rescue infrastructure is totally non-existent. I told a guy yesterday that I'd find somewhere slightly safer to explore how my body copes with extreme altitude, and he said 'there's no where else this high' - he has a point. At the moment I'm at 3500m, with 65% of normal oxygen, and I feel fine, but I think going over 5000m might be pushing my luck. (The road out of here crosses a pass at 5600m, but as long as the bus doesn't break down, that should all be fine!).
Nepal, however, is full of trekkers and has an excellent trekking infrastructure, so I'll mosey on there I think. Also most of the routes stay below 4000m.
Well I'd better go... I'm attempting to organise a jeep to the Nubra Valley and then down to Manali. Taxi's are ridiculously expensive in Ladakh, so the tactic is to cram as many people as possible into everything. A 20Km taxi ride would cost what I'm paying for 3 nights accom (which meant yesterday I was standing on a 'main highway' with very little traffic, praying a bus would turn up, as the truckers here are really lecherous!) Bus did turn up, as did a Ladakhi speaking French anthropologist.
In fact, Ladakh is full of anthropologists and climate change people. I went to the weirdest 'conference' of my life which was held at the school the other day. A load of Ladakhis in traditional dress, a load of Swedish anthropologists, some Americans. And some very heated debates in two languages about global warming. Unfortunately Ladakh has been hit very hard by global warming, and the melting glaciers which supply all the water to this region wont last much longer...
Oh, absolutely no phone reception in Ladakh, so don't bother texting me.
(Tony - I'm really sorry for that rushed email, I was about to miss a bus. Is that cool? I'll change my flight home to the 23rd unless I hear otherwise from you.)
I should go... I've been enjoying the 9am internet use, as you can actually open a page. Last night in 20 mins I opened one email, and then there was a power cut.
Hope everyone's well, thanks for the birthday wishes, C xxxxxxxxx
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LADAKH 2 AND MANALI EMAIL
Namaste from Manali,
I'm now in the cannabis capital of Himachal Pradesh, where most travellers have no idea whether they've been here for months or years. To avoid this problem, I've got a bus ticket to Amritsar tomorrow.
I stayed in Ladakh for a couple more weeks after my last email. The meditation course was truly awful! Everyone else on the 'retreat' were hardcore meditators who had been doing mediation (and yoga) for years. (When everyone turned up I thought it was weird that most people had what I assumed were camping mats hanging off their bags - they didn't look like trekkers. Turns out they were yoga mats!) It was soooooo boring. 72 hours of total silence, despite the fact we were mediating, eating and sleeping in dorms together. I was so bad that I got summoned to the 'teacher' on the first afternoon - when it was all over and I told the rest of the group about my 'summons' they couldn't believe that I had been that bad! But I escaped, and despite not finding any inner happiness, I have a renewed love of communication and interaction with the world.
After talking non stop for a couple of days to make up for my silence I went with the two Swiss guys I've been hanging around with to Nubra Valley. This is the most northerly part of India, and very close to the line of control. We took mountain bikes, and biked through the valley, and rode camels through the sand dunes of the Karakoram mountains. On the way back we cycled down the highest road in the world (we put the bikes on the roof of a jeep to get up it!). At 5600m, its 200m higher than Everest Base camp, and about a third of the road is unsealed. The other two thirds are vaguely tarmaced, but falling rocks have left huge pockmarks in the side closest to the mountain. I decided, like all Indian drivers, that I didn't give a shit which side of the road I was meant to be on, and had to constantly decide between the massive falling-rock craters or the side of the road closer to the edge... Also hard was the constant decisions as whether to grip the handlebars as tightly as possible, or apply constant pressure on the brakes. Anyway, despite swerving to avoid a cow, then a donkey, and doing the entire thing in gears 1 and 5 rather than 3 and 8 because of the bike getting damaged in transport that morning, I survived 40Km of downhill cycling at 35mph.
Then I hopped on a bus out of Leh to Manali. It was one of the last buses going because the winter was arriving. The road will be impossible to pass next week. Journey lengths varied between 18 and 22 hours. We did it in 16 - our driver really was a lunatic. We were only overtaken once in 16 hours, and despite being a bus, we overtook everything else, including a car branded with 'Xtreme Manali, Himalayan motorsports' which was particularly ironic in our beaten up bus. We had many check points - understandably, coming out of Kashmir. At the first one the driver took all the foreign passports. 5 minutes later I was pushed into a room full of AK47s, told there was a big problem with my passport. They were looking at an expired American visa, not the passport page. I showed them the real page, and looking confused they asked where I was from. I replied 'Britain' in my best RP accent, pointing to the 'UK of GB and NI' across the top. They wrote 'Irish' down on the form... It was the bumpiest bus journey imaginable. I wasn't too fussed - the scenery was incredible, but everyone else on the bus was calling it the journey from hell. The route is crying out for fit cyclists to attempt it - and many do, I have no idea how. Most of it is unsealed, and the description of a pothole with an occasional bit of track in it is far more accurate than a potholed road. I was sitting on the front seat (somehow, booking the last seat on the bus got me the best one!), and at one point a guy further back commented on my fists clenching the door. He hadn't seen how close we had been to the edge 5 seconds earlier.
I’m now in Manali, sitting here with 'wedding ring' (I was followed by a Jammu soldier in Ladakh with him insisting that I kissed him - until I grabbed the nearest white guy to introduce my 'husband' who had bigger muscles than the soldier), and freshly tailored salwaar kamez, to try and look like I know what I'm doing. I walked about 25Km out of Manali through some villages yesterday, and once again, as in Ladakh, had apples pressed into my hands my the locals. I've decided that every bad thing that happens to me (which hasn't been much, just things like people attempting to rip me off), is cancelled by one apple. So far the apples are winning.
So I'm leaving this town for Amritsar on my first long-distance Indian bus. I really think their plane, bus and train timetables need overhauling. This bus leaves at 3.30pm, and will arrive at 5am in Amritsar. But so far everyone who has spoken to me wearing a turban has been a complete nutter, so I'm off to find some more. Amritsar, with the Sikh Golden Temple seemed like a good place to start.
Some people have told me that they've texted me, but I haven't received them all. If you text me, remember to put +44 on the front of my number.
Hope everyone's well, C xx
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NORTHERN INDIA AND NEPAL EMAIL - AMRITSAR, LUCKNOW AND KATHMANDU
Sat siri akal from Amritsar, Namaste from Lucknow and Kathmandu,
Wooo, I've made it to the cooler climate of Nepal!
From Manali I hopped on a bus to Amritsar, the land of the Sikhs. The Golden Temple was cool, but not comparable to the Taj, as my (increasingly unreliable) Lonely Planet told me. I was staying in the cheapest hotel in the cheapest room, as I have been all along. Lonely Planet's description was 'if you don't mind roughing it, this place is superb.' The room was so damp and mouldy (no window, but a bathroom), that a book that was leaning against a wall is still wet! I'm not staying in anywhere that mouldy ever again! The city was a shock after chilled Ladakh and Manali, and I was getting increasingly frustrated (especially when a motorbike drove into me). There was a brilliant ceremony at the Pakistan border though, hilarious leg kicking by soldiers on both sides. I wished I had got a Pakistani visa from the UK - understandably you cant get them in India.
From Amritsar I hopped on my first train to Lucknow to break up the journey to Varanasi. At least I was clear the train was going where I wanted it to - unlike the bus from Manali to Amristar where the driver said it wasn't going to Amristar (it did eventually, with a different driver). I woke up in the middle of the night to find that our sleeper section which should have 8 people in it had at least 20, squeezed in on the floor, and a random guy at the end of my berth. Indian trains, hey. I got off the train in Lucknow to intense heat and a crowd of hotel touts. I immediately decided that I didn't care how holy or good Varanasi was, I couldn't cope with Indian cities in September for any longer, and I'd make my way to Nepal ASAP. I was lucky enough to go to a brilliant 'homestay' which normally housed foreign students learning Hindi. It was great to eat homemade meals, and sit around a kitchen table in a home. The Indian couple running it were hilarious. I managed to lose my train ticket, so needed to print another one out (Indian Rail booking system is very impressive), and in the process had to give them a lesson on how to use their printer. It took a while... you can imagine how long, when at the end of the lesson he asked me 'if I print a 3 page document, how many pages do I need to put in the printer?!' Seriously. Lucknow was quite nice - tourists rarely go there, but its full of amazing crumbling British Raj architecture. But instead of rushing to shake my hand, talk to me, (or even phone his wife to talk to me), or take my photo, as everyone did in Amristar, tourists are so unusual in Lucknow that people just stared...
Got a really early train to Gorakpur, where I could bus it to the Nepal border. After going to the wrong station, and not understanding what people were telling me about going outside and turning left, an Indian man finally rescued me and walked me to my new station. The train was 3 hours late. (This is actually quite reasonable, considering it was on its second day now!) I managed to get put on the next train to Gorakpur, and in the process was upgraded to the lowest air conditioned sleeper class, which is amazing!
Finally got to Kathmandu (I splurged out on an air conditioned bus after the train luxury!) the next afternoon. Its so much more expensive than India! I traipsed round so many hotels before I found one that was cheap enough. Nepalese driving is incredible - after 6 weeks in India it feels like I'm in Singapore! Tomorrow I'm starting an attempt to Everest Base Camp. I don’t want to go on about it, as there must be a reasonable chance of failing, but I'm going with a guide for 17 days to EBC and then Gokyo peak and a glacier on the way back. 17 days sounds like a very long time! It's going to be hard... I'm refusing to take a porter, and want to carry my own bag, which still not particularly packed, and not containing water is already 10.5Kg. In theory you could walk it in 13 days (but that would be stupid), most people do it in 15 with 2 altitude acclimatisation days in the middle. I've given myself 3 acclimatisation days (what’s the point in rushing it, only to have an altitude headache the whole way), and then I'm doing a longer route back to avoid walking the same way twice. The thing I'm most worried about is the sodding plane to get to the trailhead- 19 seater, through the Himalayas. (Flying into Ladakh, I realised how hard it is to land a plane - the pilot circled for 20 minutes before plucking up the courage to land between the mountains. The next day the pilot circled for half and hour and then returned to Delhi). Yesterday I bought a down jacket - the branding is obviously fake, but it does contain genuine down, and is really, really warm. 20 quid well spent I think.
Anyway, I'll send an email when I'm back from Everest. (Which at this rate, may not happen, it's raining, and the planes cant deal with any bad weather..)
Hope everyone's well,
C xx
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NEPAL TREKKING EMAIL - EVEREST BASE CAMP AND GOKYO - from the bottom of the top of the world.
An Everest special edition here,
This really is a long one - feel free to ignore completely!
So I survived 15 days of Himalayan trekking. (I cut 2 days off the ascent, if you're thinking that was quicker than expected.) The walking was relatively easy, but the altitude...
Who would have guessed that strenuous exercise above 5000m (where there is 50% of sea level oxygen) would be hard!? It was far harder than I expected - above 4500m I started to really feel it, and was walking at a snails pace. I spent a week above 5000m, at least it got noticeably easier - infact, unless I was going up a steep slope, it felt totally normal towards the end, even carrying a 21Kg pack (it didn't feel like that the first few days, I'm telling you!) The altitude is, however, the only challenging thing about the normal Everest Base Camp trek. It must be one of the most trekked routes in the world, and the path is clear and easy. My body adapted 'brilliantly' to the altitude - I didn't suffer any altitude sickness symptoms and I didn't take a magic drug (brand name Diamox) to help my body cope better. My oxygen levels were on the high side of normal whenever they were tested (the lowest they were recorded - at rest - was 84%, at 5050m. The highest I reached was 5550m.) Most people pop Diamox as if they were polos, and still get headaches. However, despite my body displaying the signals that it was all happy, the lack of oxygen felt debilitating. At lower altitudes, I walked faster, or at, the suggested times in guide books. At higher altitudes I have no idea how long anything took, but I'm sure I was a lot slower than the guidelines! (I did however find that I was really slow if I was walking alone, but able to keep up with faster people if I was walking with them. Overcoming the natural instinct to stop when you're breathless takes practice - and there's no real point to it - you're breathless as soon as you start again. I also never managed to walk slow enough on my own to not constantly need to keep stopping for breath - I would walk 10m (literally) and then stop for longer than the walking time to attempt to recover. When I followed slow people, I was much better. It's harder it sounds to walk this slow - I'm really impatient!).
Crossing a pass called Cho La, however, to visit a different area and to avoid walking back the same way, was a challenge (which is not part of the classic EBC trek). Lonely Planet (which, for various reasons, I will never spend any money on ever again) said you needed mountaineering experience, and LP along with my map pointed out the parts requiring ropes, crampons and axes. (The best advice on my map was 'glacier crossing, stay left'. It didn't seem to account for people walking in both directions. Nepali maps...) The Trailblazer guide (far, far better than any LP) said to be extremely careful in snow, and to avoid altogether in heavy snow. However, a fair few people do it (albeit mostly from the other direction), so I said I'd attempt it if the conditions were perfect - i.e. no snow, no ice. The other option (also 3 days), was to descend loads, and ascend back up further west. That idea at altitude is gutting - I never want to hear the phrase 'Nepali flat' (constant ups and downs) ever again. At lower altitudes, routes that constantly ascend and descend are great - they stop your muscles from never forgiving you, but when you're at 5300m, to kill your lungs (and brain??) going uphill, only to turn a bend to go downhill is seriously irritating. Anyway, with me constantly saying I wouldn't do it in snow, my guide assured me it would all be fine and dandy (despite it snowing 3 days earlier on the pass, and us walking to the pass in a snow storm, and it snowing overnight before we did it, and my guide pulling on gaiters for the first time), we set off. Into 2 foot of snow. I was somewhat unimpressed, and swore quite a lot at most of the pass, but did survive. A Slovakian guy, mid 30s, far fitter than me (well, he looked it!), and far more trekking experience than me said it had been the most challenging day of his life. A few days earlier a trekker had been found dead after he and his companion had lost their group, and the path. I met the guy who found him, and attempted to revive a frozen body. (My guide was only prepared to cross with another group, the only other group going in that couple of days were 3 trekkers, one of whom was an Israeli army medic. Could have been handy...)
But I survived the pass, and made it across a crevasse filled glacier to Gokyo - for better views of Everest (although still cloudy) and slightly less people.
I flew out on the 20th Sept - one of just 2 planes (carrying 14 people) that day. Now there are 45 a day (Monsoon season ends in Sept, trekking season starts in Oct). Today, waiting to fly out, I looked at the hoards of people swamping the tiny airstrip, wondering which lucky 28 would leave today. In the space of 20 minutes, literally 10 planes landed and took off. Felt like I was at a mini JFK. (I now understand why, after a full day of various tests at school one day, I was not told that Air Traffic Controller would be a good career move. I now see it's v complicated. Most of my friends had the brains for it apparently...)
Descending yesterday to where the Gokyo and Everest trails meet was a total shock. September is said to be a rubbish time to trek (I didn't see a single mountain for 5 days - total cloud whiteout), and October is brilliant. I'm glad I avoided most of the crowds. The trails were packed - Yaks, porters and trekkers vying for space to walk. I stopped for a cuppa in the lodge I stayed in on my first night - with only 2 other small, independent groups. Now it was full of 21 Germans drinking bottled water, coke and even beer (lunchtime). The idea of anyone drinking bottled water on Everest is seriously distressing. Where is all that plastic going to go? I used iodine the entire way, which is probably far more reliable. At my next tea stop (it was a long, long day!), a big group of Brits had cracked open 2 bottles of imported whiskey. I didn't bother to hide my disgust. (With the Germans, I tried explaining that I'd give them my iodine if they promised to use it, but my German and their English wasn't up to it. I couldn't bring myself to talk to the whiskified Brits).
These bloody unprepared, unfit tour groups, have a worrying ability to summon helicopters as if they were rickshaws. At the airport today I watched as the 2 helicopters left at first light on 'rescue' missions. One landed, and 2 happy trekkers walked out. I'm sure it's not easy, or very safe, to weave helicopters around in that area, and it is shocking that anyone would expect a pilot to risk their lives to rescue them in a non life-threatening situation. For my first 5 days the cloud prevented any chance of helicopters landing, but on the 6th day, the air was buzzing. (Mostly, unfortunately, to pick up bodies of unfortunate trekkers and porters - mostly on routes not normally done by trekkers). One British guy managed to convince an Italian summit team to let him join (he didn't even have a permit - they are v expensive, and take ages to arrange). Their doctor noticed his hand. 2 weeks earlier he had accidentally slept in an ants nest, and a stowaway ant had bit him halfway up. It had got infected, and started spreading up his arm. He was evacuated by helicopter (a genuine emergency, apparently), as antibiotics don't work at altitude and his life was in danger. Imagine writing that on an insurance claim - 5000 dollar helicopter evacuation for an ant bite! An Aussie guy called a helicopter with (non life-threatening) altitude sickness, because 'his insurance will pay.' Pathetic. All he needed to do was descend for a few hours. One day we passed a Japanese man walking into Gokyo, taking a photo (as all Japanese do) with a ridiculously huge camera. He looked fine to me, but was going to Gokyo to be evacuated. (I really cant see why someone who is fit enough to walk and ascend needs emergency evacuation). Half an hour later we saw his helicopter approaching Gokyo. They pick up their 'cargo' impressively quickly (there is only a pilot on board, no doctors), and it flew past us as it took him to Kathmandu. My guide started waving his hands above his head. 'What the f*** [apparently my language is meaning emails are not getting through filters!!] are you doing?' I screamed, pulling his hands down. He looked at me, surprised. He had no idea that he was using the world-recognised signal to request a helicopter to land... (Well, the signal is actually hands above your head not waving, but anyway, either signifies distress). That would have been a tad embarrassing. I had spent a few days walking with one of the rescue pilots, and that happens a ridiculous amount.
Yesterday, I was descending what took 2 days to ascend, the second day being notoriously steep. A British woman, mid 50s, stopped me. 'Is it like this the whole way?' she gasped. 'No, this is the steepest day, with the biggest gain in altitude, but after today the altitude will really get to you'. (She ignored my altitude warning), 'Thank God, I love you' (tried to hug me, unsuccessfully with a 65litre backpack on me), 'I was going to give up if it got worse than this' she gushed. I laughed and walked off, calling 'go slow' back to her. It was then that I realised she hadn't even started the steep ascent, and was in fact, if anything, lower than where she had flown into. Really, what do these people expect? I passed a similar woman wailing to a Pharmacist (probably the only person who'd listen) at the biggest settlement en route that she wasn't going any further because it was too hard. The route really is not hard, and where both of these woman were, the altitude was negligible compared to what they would finally reach if they continued. I could have walked for 14 of my 15 days in a cloud whiteout, and I would be happy, if it meant avoiding these horrific tourgroups. The other group of people I took a strong dislike to yesterday were those people using CHILD porters (incidentally, out of the hundreds of Japanese I saw, not one carried their own pack). Seriously, 12 to 14 year olds, carrying their huge packs that they are too lazy to carry themselves. I wanted to carry my own pack the whole way (and did, apart from crossing the Cho La pass - just wasn't worth it!), and when I started about 15% of people were doing the same. Yesterday, I think that had dropped to under 2%. I even had 2 guys tell me that I was being irresponsible by not employing a local person and helping the Nepali economy. Other people, ambling alongside their struggling porters told me 'Edmund took a porter, why aren't you?' The porters are truly incredible. From tiny kids to old men and women. The most awkward looking loads were 15 sheets of 4mm plywood (a gust of wind and hello Mary Poppins!), but generators and kerosene are also pretty evil to carry. I asked one struggling porter how much his load weighed (3 sheets of 8x4 ply, then loaded with food barrels the entire area of the timber) - 110Kg. We struggled up the high altitude slope at the same pace. My pack weighed 21Kg. His trainers were almost non-existent for the holes.
This really has been a long one - I wasn't expecting it to be at all. Sorry about that.
Just one last thing - a massive thanks to Chris Price, who hardly knows me, but as put up with many emails and phone calls (including one at 7am whilst he was in bed - time difference), to give me advice from his experience at BC. I wore the down jacket (23 quid well spent in Kathmandu), and think I may have died if I had attempted to get from Phakding to Namche in one day - thanks for the Monjo tip.
I met a few Brits who told me what's going on in the world. Apparently the world economy really is collapsing. I think everyone should just go traveling...
I hope everyone's well, and I hope that no one has actually read the whole of this long email... (remember what I said about these emails being my only legible journal!),
C xxx
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KATHMANDU, NEPALESE VILLAGE, CHANDIGAR AND DELHI EMAIL - The Last Instalment
Namaste from Kathmandu, tiny Nepali village, Chandigar and Delhi,
Ah, the last instalment...
I'm now in Delhi, and flying out tonight.
I wasn't sure what to do after returning from trekking - I really wanted to get to Darjeeling (very convenient border crossing out of Nepal) and Calcutta, but I couldn't persuade India Airlines to change my flight out of Calcutta, and it would have taken about 3 days I reckon to get a train from Calcutta to Delhi...
As I was wondering around a horrifically touristy area of Kathmandu I bumped into a Polish girl I had met in Ladakh, who was now travelling with a Nepali guy, Kapil. The most important Hindu festival of the year had started, and the most important days were coming up. They invited me to return to Kapil's village with them, but that night we tried to work out how to get there. Kapil said there were no buses on this day of the festival, a taxi wouldn't survive the road, we couldn't find anyone to share a jeep with us (far too expensive otherwise), cycling would have taken 2 days, no one felt confident they could drive a motorbike that far (Dorota and Kapil both had done previously), I came up with rafting (it was near the Kosi river), camels, elephants and horses, all of which were rejected.
I didn't even bother to check out of my hotel in KTM, I didn't think we were going to make it. But somehow we did. The buses were packed - everyone was trying to return home. This had one massive advantage - roof riding. It is banned in the KTM valley, and generally foreigners don't stand a chance of being allowed up, but there wasn't any other option. It wasn't the most comfy experience, but loads of fun. As the roof got emptier, we lay down on our bags, and had a great ride. After 2 bus rides we got to Nepal Tok, from where it's a 5 hour walk or a jeep far enough to only be a 2.5hr walk if one is around. We didn't think we had any chance of finding a jeep, so sat down to some noodles in a corrugated iron shack. A guy from a previous bus came running up - he was holding a bus for us down the 'road'. We waded through soggy rice fields, and eventually got to the 'bus stop'. Which was infact the Kosi river. With rice fields all around, the only place the beaten up bus could drive was down the river (I was glad we were just out of the monsoon period!). After a truly bumpy ride, we got off in the middle of nowhere and walked in the moonlight up a mountain for 2.5 hrs, into even more of the middle of nowhere. Dorota and I were the first non-Nepalese to ever go to the village, so the welcome was predictably huge.
Spending time in the village was great - the rigid tourist circuit in Nepal is pretty boring, and very few tourists manage to get off the beaten track (as a result of Maoist problems). Dorota and I were treated with fantastic hospitality, although at times it got a bit too much - we literally had to eat at every house in the village. I'm amazed we didn't get food poisoning - the food was pretty bland, but if you mixed the lentils with curd (incredibly sour milk that is so old it's very lumpy) you could make a kind of curry. Iodine tablets for purifying water saved the day... Attempting to wash at the entirely open water pipe - a complicated system of arranging a scarf around you, was hilarious, and every woman in the village seemed to want to help. I woke up one morning having slept on my neck in a weird position, far weirder than I thought was possible, and was in a fair amount of pain, couldn't move it at all and looked like a right idiot. The entire village was concerned, (I think it might have been bad luck for the festival), and over 2 days the (incredibly old) village shaman (local 'doctor') was summoned to chant loudly, 'suck' out the pain, and chuck various things over me. I had to pretend he was helping...
5 days spent in the village was great, but also, for the first time, made me think about going home. Until this point, to be honest, I really didn't want to come home. I was having such a wicked time, and had so much that I still wanted to do, and had I not signed a job contract for my return, I'm sure I would have stayed here for a fair while. But being in an environment so far removed from home (with no additives in food!!) with planes high in the sky above us, made me think about returning, and thankfully, I'm now in the mood for some London (or tour) life.
We left the village with an entourage of 25 other visitors (everyone returns for the festival), predictably 2 hours later than planned. So at 9am we set off, meaning we got to the 'bus stop' (always the biggest tree in any village because of the shade) in the middle of the day. Hundreds and hundreds of people were at the bus stop. A bus quickly turned up, and everyone started piling in. There was no way we'd get in, but we would have a chance of getting on the roof. Kapil was adamant that we couldn't do this stretch of the journey on the roof. So that bus left. Over the next 4.5hrs a couple of buses turned up, but they'd already been going for 25 miles, so were totally (i.e. old grannies actually hanging off the ladder at the back) full. At 4.30 I started to get worried - my visa expired in a few days, and they're really expensive in Nepal. It would be dark at 6, but hours of passively waiting made me want to do something. I convinced everyone to walk to the next village (5hrs), but just before this, someone phoned a bus company which promised a bus was en route. It turned up, and I was more adamant that we were getting on the roof as Kapil was adamant we weren't. That was one ride... I could put up with the bumping - we were sitting on a luggage rack, and although incredibly painful, I wasn't overly worried about being catapulted off - we were pretty wedged in by all the other people and could hold onto the rack. What was dangerous was the low hanging branches that in the dusk constantly hit us. One village had power, and I pushed Dorota down just in time to stop a power line making an attempt to behead her. The bus was struggling with all the weight, and chugging up a particularly steep bit, huge plumes of black smoke and sparks engulfed us. The bus was well and truly dead. It was now pretty dark, and with Kapil's family (including young children who were absolute angels) we walked to Nepal Tok which took a few hours, and managed to squeeze in a kind of pick up style jeep (along with 45 other people). I managed to get back to KTM at 1am, where I realised I really did have to get a move on before my visa expired.
I spent one great day in KTM - every tourist who has not been to India will tell you it is a s*** hole and to not venture out of horrifically touristy areas. I totally disagree. It is a great city - comparatively very little (and less crazy) traffic to any Indian city, and much nicer people, you can just walk for hours, exploring the real parts of the city.
I then had a 35.5hour journey to Delhi, which somehow all happened, despite having now managed to get an extra bag of stuff. I had a right nightmare at a railway station in a crap city attempting to confirm my train ticket as I was on the 'waiting list' - Indian trains get very booked up, there were no non-wait-listed trains all week. I was sent from person to person to person, none of whom could help, and eventually decided to just get on the train, despite being told I had to cancel the ticket. All was fine, and I was found a bunk, although very weirdly I was the only girl in the 64 bunk carriage...
Going from Nepal to India, I was in genuine culture shock. Flying from London I had prepared myself for the India experience, but leaving Nepal, it hadn't occur ed to me that after a month there, I'd find India all-too-much. I hadn't noticed the difference much when I went to Nepal, but returning... Just standing on the Indian side of the border road after immigration, I couldn't believe it. The Nepal side had been relatively rubbish free, the Indian side might as well have been a rubbish tip. The following day in Delhi, I still couldn't believe it. The only thing that lessened the shock were several amazingly helpful people who sorted me out on my train station and beginning-of-train-journey nightmares.
After a day in Delhi, I decided to head to Chandigar in the Punjab, India's cleanest and healthiest city (people even wear seatbelts! I couldn't believe it!) It was only 5 hrs by train, which is pretty quick by Indian standards, so I could easily leave early and return the following evening. Australia were playing India in the cricket, and I managed to get given a VIP ticket in a bar that evening. Not being a cricket fan, I went more for the conversation, and because I felt that whilst in India I probably should go seeing as I had the chance. Also, it is such a clean and ordered place, I had no idea what I'd do there for more than 1 day. It's not the real India whatsoever.
On the train on the way home I saw someone get on carrying a laptop bag branded with one of the biggest rock and roll lighting kit companies. I was hoping he'd get off in Delhi, and I could have a chat, but waking up after a little nap, he was gone... The lighting industry in India is huge - certainly anything on film (especially music videos) have far more lighting in India than the UK. One day I'll have to work here...
I've had a couple of days exploring Delhi. I felt I really should make an effort with it - everyone says it's s*** and escapes ASAP, but I was determined to give it a chance. And I'm glad I have. I've walked around rich leafy suburbs (with real estate rivalling New York prices), shopped in expat areas, dirty slums, and experienced total madness in the Old Town. India is also great for shopping - brands are half the price here, and I nearly (but then decided it was too extravagant) splashed out on a pair of Bose headphones. It also has the most amazing Metro system I've ever seen - even cleaner than Singapore's! And great for city exploration. Although I did manage to end up in a slum today...
Although I'm now ready for home, I'll miss this country. Much of it is infuriating - my pet hate is the constant spitting of the entire nation. But also the constant staring from everyone - I can ignore most of it as I'm walking around, but if I'm still (eg waiting for a train) the stares are pretty penetrating. People constantly taking my photo - some of whom ask, and I nearly always say yes, but with cameras on phones now, my picture is taken without my permission constantly. The sheer laziness of many people (especially in post offices...). The way men act - despite me always dressing conservatively (and nearly always in Indian clothes). The people who try to rip off tourists - and I'm sure many succumb - someone asked me for a ridiculous 3000 rupees for a scarf today. I knew it wasn't worth more than 300, and they barely bothered bargaining to get more from me. I'm sure some tourists would accept the price tag... The extreme and distressing poverty - I've become pretty immune to the horrifically disabled beggars, and the burnt women (who are illegally burnt in 'accidents' by their dead husbands' families) but today I saw a woman begging in a rich area of Delhi holding a baby that couldn't be more than a few days old - I couldn't believe how tiny it was. How aggressive this country makes you - walking in a touristy part of Delhi this morning a man was trying to sell me cannabis so persistently, and ignoring alot of swearing from me, that I was tempted to take his picture and tell him I was going straight to the police (I realised, luckily, that this would be a very bad idea for both me and the camera). The sheer filth - my feet are never totally clean unless I find a hot shower (I've had about 10 of these in 3 months...).
But underneath all the crap, India is a wicked country. You can never be bored in this place, and there are constantly things that make me laugh. Today I saw a big, clean jeep 'Animal Ambulance'. I couldn't believe it. The most I've seen of a human ambulance has been an old taxi with a tiny wooden first aid box nailed to the wall. The many cups of tea I have with the locals, and having fun bargaining.
And travelling alone. I highly recommend. I've spent time with British, American, Australian, Kiwi, French, German, Spanish, Greek, Dutch, Italian, Polish, Russian, Solvakian, South African, Singapor(ean?), Israeli, and of course Indian and Nepalese. I can eat breakfast with an investment banker (no wonder the economy is collapsing), and eat dinner with a London bus driver who has been squatting for 3 years.
Well, I'm off for my final curry, (I cant wait to eat meat tomorrow!), see you soon, C x
Click on a link below to access them individually, or scroll down to read them all in order.
Ladakh 1
Ladakh 2 and Manali
Northern India and Nepal: Amritsar and Lucknow and Kathmandu
Nepal Trekking - Everest Base Camp and Gokyo
Kathmandu, Nepalese Village, Chandigar and Delhi
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LADAKH 1 EMAIL
Jule everyone. (Jule is the best word in the world - pronounced Jul-lay, it means hello, goodbye, please and thank you in Ladakhi. Which is useful for us tourists).
This is going to be a really long email, as I've decided that my handwriting is so appalling that writing a journal is a bit pointless, so this is my travel journal... Feel free to ignore it!
I'm in Ladakh, part of the Jammu and Kashmir state at the top of India.
I've been having a great time (apart from 6 miserable days of food poisoning) (and a really, really, smelly man has just sat next to me in the internet cafe).
Food poisoning is not fun, and I finally gave into antibiotics after 6 days. I wish I had taken them earlier! Pharmacies here are hilarious - you have to know exactly what and how much you want, they cant tell you anything. Yesterday I went to buy some antibiotics for someone at my guest house who has a chest infection. Me: 'My friend has a chest infection. Pharmacist: What do you want? I point to an unpronounceable antibiotic. Him: How many? Me: How much does he need to take? Him: I don't know. Me: OK, well I've had it before for 7 days. Him: It comes in packs of 3. Me: OK, can I have 2 packs. Him: No, you can only have 3 tablets. Me: Are you sure? Him: Yes. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. Luckily trekking books are quite good at telling you what to take (unlike guide books that tell you to see a doctor), so my food poisoning antibiotics were simple!
I've just got back to the capital of Ladakh after spending a week teaching in a rural school. It was an amazing experience, but unfortunately teaching in Ladakh is pretty awful. 10 years ago the pass rate of the national exams was just 5%, now it's 50%, and I'm surprised it's that high. The kids are taught in a mixture of English, Urdu and Ladakhi, but their English is no where near as good as it needs to be to teach effectively (they were 17/18 yrs old). So the only lesson that I felt the kids understood was maths (I had to drag fractions, percentages and indices out of the void of forgotten knowledge). A dialogue class consists of sentences like 'where are you from' and 'where is this restaurant?'. But the kids were fantastic, lovely, happy and friendly. Their campus was amazing - entirely solar powered (far more effective than the very unreliable power in the capital), the food was cooked by reflecting the sun off massive mirrors onto the pots (incredibly hot), and the building was made from Ladakhi mud and insulated with rubbish (plastic bottles, newspaper etc, which they've just realised is a huge fire risk), which keeps it amazingly cool in summer (30 C outside) and warm in winter (-30C outside).
The most amazing conversation I've ever had, with a 17 year old Ladakhi boy who goes to school in the capital but is from a rural village:
Me: Can you teach me how to milk your cows?
Darjay: Why dont you already know?
Me: I dont own any cows
Darjay: Why not
Me: A cow wouldn't have enough room to turn around in my garden, and I don't have grass in my garden
Darjay: Where do you get milk to drink then?
I was absolutely crap at milking cows. Seriously bad. There is a definite knack to it, and I don't have it.
Being 'in charge' of a load of 18 year old boys in India requires a total change of mindset. At the school we had a washing day where we take all the rugs down to the Indus river to wash them. The part of the river nearest the bank is calm, but the other two thirds of it is fast flowing. None of the kids can swim, and I was getting a bit concerned even about them paddling. Then.. suddenly a load of the boys decide to let the current take them down the river. Then when the near the bend, they manage to paddle out of the current. this was happening repeatedly, and I couldn't decide whether to stop them - they were traveling far to fast for any successful rescue. Clearly that is unimaginable in England, but here the kids hang on the outside of the buses, and have bare wires all over their school, so its just what they do.
At the school I met the happiest person I've ever met. A blind girl, who never stops singing, and who never stops smiling. If you help her, or bring her something, she thanks you as if she's never been helped before (everyone at the school takes v good care of her).
I also realised, after a week of eating purely natural organic food (nearly all of which is grown at the school), how addicted to additives I am. I was craving coke and anything with E numbers! Ladakhi and Tibetan food really isn't up to much. The Indian and Kashmiri food here is great (Char, I'm living on cheese curries - remember in Srinigar?), but Ladakhi food is basically either flour and water in watery 'soup' or flour and water enveloping miscellaneous veggies. And cooked to death. A huge pot of veggies and spices will literally sit at 450 deg F (? C) for 3 hrs.
Tomorrow I'm off for 4 days of meditation. This means, I've just discovered, 4 days of total silence. I thought it wasn't one of these crazy total silence, sit still cross legged cant move things, but it sounds like it is now... Books and writing materials get confiscated. Sounds awful! So I cant speak for 4 days, but there is loads and loads of chanting involved. This may be the wrong way to have my first taste of meditation! I'm going to hate it...
I need to get a bit of a wriggle on. The road out of here closes on the 15 Sept for winter, and I feel I've wasted a week with food poisoning. There's so much on my to-do list, 3 months is no where near enough. I'd like to go down to Gujarat, but I might wait and see how the political situation there develops. Unfortunately the situation in Kashmir is the worst it's been for years - the government announced an indefinite curfew on the entire Kashmir valley (excluding Ladakh), after 3 weeks of demonstrations and shootings after some bright spark thought it would be a good idea to give the Hindus a load of land in a Muslim-majority state. Ladakh has a high army presence because of borders with China and Pakistan, but the town soldiers (unlike rurally based soldiers) carry sticks not guns, which is a welcome change to the rest of Kashmir. (I was wondering down a track near the school the other day alone when I saw some buildings in the distance. I curiously went over, until I realised it was probably an army base, and I didn't have any form of ID on me whatsoever, and swiftly turned around!).
I was intending to do a load of trekking here, but food poisoning made me realise I'm not as invincible as I like to think I am. This is not the place to go trekking unless you are incredibly fit, and are confident at extreme altitude. I signed up for a trek the day before food poisoning, and cancelled it. It would have taken me to 5200m on the second day - this is way, way above the recommended rate of ascent to minimise the risk of potentially fatal altitude sickness - at 5200m there is 53% of the oxygen available at sea level. (Everest base camp isn't much higher than this, and that takes a minimum of 12 days to walk up if you go with a recognised company - in order to acclimatise properly). This region is simply impossible to climb slowly in. And the rescue infrastructure is totally non-existent. I told a guy yesterday that I'd find somewhere slightly safer to explore how my body copes with extreme altitude, and he said 'there's no where else this high' - he has a point. At the moment I'm at 3500m, with 65% of normal oxygen, and I feel fine, but I think going over 5000m might be pushing my luck. (The road out of here crosses a pass at 5600m, but as long as the bus doesn't break down, that should all be fine!).
Nepal, however, is full of trekkers and has an excellent trekking infrastructure, so I'll mosey on there I think. Also most of the routes stay below 4000m.
Well I'd better go... I'm attempting to organise a jeep to the Nubra Valley and then down to Manali. Taxi's are ridiculously expensive in Ladakh, so the tactic is to cram as many people as possible into everything. A 20Km taxi ride would cost what I'm paying for 3 nights accom (which meant yesterday I was standing on a 'main highway' with very little traffic, praying a bus would turn up, as the truckers here are really lecherous!) Bus did turn up, as did a Ladakhi speaking French anthropologist.
In fact, Ladakh is full of anthropologists and climate change people. I went to the weirdest 'conference' of my life which was held at the school the other day. A load of Ladakhis in traditional dress, a load of Swedish anthropologists, some Americans. And some very heated debates in two languages about global warming. Unfortunately Ladakh has been hit very hard by global warming, and the melting glaciers which supply all the water to this region wont last much longer...
Oh, absolutely no phone reception in Ladakh, so don't bother texting me.
(Tony - I'm really sorry for that rushed email, I was about to miss a bus. Is that cool? I'll change my flight home to the 23rd unless I hear otherwise from you.)
I should go... I've been enjoying the 9am internet use, as you can actually open a page. Last night in 20 mins I opened one email, and then there was a power cut.
Hope everyone's well, thanks for the birthday wishes, C xxxxxxxxx
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LADAKH 2 AND MANALI EMAIL
Namaste from Manali,
I'm now in the cannabis capital of Himachal Pradesh, where most travellers have no idea whether they've been here for months or years. To avoid this problem, I've got a bus ticket to Amritsar tomorrow.
I stayed in Ladakh for a couple more weeks after my last email. The meditation course was truly awful! Everyone else on the 'retreat' were hardcore meditators who had been doing mediation (and yoga) for years. (When everyone turned up I thought it was weird that most people had what I assumed were camping mats hanging off their bags - they didn't look like trekkers. Turns out they were yoga mats!) It was soooooo boring. 72 hours of total silence, despite the fact we were mediating, eating and sleeping in dorms together. I was so bad that I got summoned to the 'teacher' on the first afternoon - when it was all over and I told the rest of the group about my 'summons' they couldn't believe that I had been that bad! But I escaped, and despite not finding any inner happiness, I have a renewed love of communication and interaction with the world.
After talking non stop for a couple of days to make up for my silence I went with the two Swiss guys I've been hanging around with to Nubra Valley. This is the most northerly part of India, and very close to the line of control. We took mountain bikes, and biked through the valley, and rode camels through the sand dunes of the Karakoram mountains. On the way back we cycled down the highest road in the world (we put the bikes on the roof of a jeep to get up it!). At 5600m, its 200m higher than Everest Base camp, and about a third of the road is unsealed. The other two thirds are vaguely tarmaced, but falling rocks have left huge pockmarks in the side closest to the mountain. I decided, like all Indian drivers, that I didn't give a shit which side of the road I was meant to be on, and had to constantly decide between the massive falling-rock craters or the side of the road closer to the edge... Also hard was the constant decisions as whether to grip the handlebars as tightly as possible, or apply constant pressure on the brakes. Anyway, despite swerving to avoid a cow, then a donkey, and doing the entire thing in gears 1 and 5 rather than 3 and 8 because of the bike getting damaged in transport that morning, I survived 40Km of downhill cycling at 35mph.
Then I hopped on a bus out of Leh to Manali. It was one of the last buses going because the winter was arriving. The road will be impossible to pass next week. Journey lengths varied between 18 and 22 hours. We did it in 16 - our driver really was a lunatic. We were only overtaken once in 16 hours, and despite being a bus, we overtook everything else, including a car branded with 'Xtreme Manali, Himalayan motorsports' which was particularly ironic in our beaten up bus. We had many check points - understandably, coming out of Kashmir. At the first one the driver took all the foreign passports. 5 minutes later I was pushed into a room full of AK47s, told there was a big problem with my passport. They were looking at an expired American visa, not the passport page. I showed them the real page, and looking confused they asked where I was from. I replied 'Britain' in my best RP accent, pointing to the 'UK of GB and NI' across the top. They wrote 'Irish' down on the form... It was the bumpiest bus journey imaginable. I wasn't too fussed - the scenery was incredible, but everyone else on the bus was calling it the journey from hell. The route is crying out for fit cyclists to attempt it - and many do, I have no idea how. Most of it is unsealed, and the description of a pothole with an occasional bit of track in it is far more accurate than a potholed road. I was sitting on the front seat (somehow, booking the last seat on the bus got me the best one!), and at one point a guy further back commented on my fists clenching the door. He hadn't seen how close we had been to the edge 5 seconds earlier.
I’m now in Manali, sitting here with 'wedding ring' (I was followed by a Jammu soldier in Ladakh with him insisting that I kissed him - until I grabbed the nearest white guy to introduce my 'husband' who had bigger muscles than the soldier), and freshly tailored salwaar kamez, to try and look like I know what I'm doing. I walked about 25Km out of Manali through some villages yesterday, and once again, as in Ladakh, had apples pressed into my hands my the locals. I've decided that every bad thing that happens to me (which hasn't been much, just things like people attempting to rip me off), is cancelled by one apple. So far the apples are winning.
So I'm leaving this town for Amritsar on my first long-distance Indian bus. I really think their plane, bus and train timetables need overhauling. This bus leaves at 3.30pm, and will arrive at 5am in Amritsar. But so far everyone who has spoken to me wearing a turban has been a complete nutter, so I'm off to find some more. Amritsar, with the Sikh Golden Temple seemed like a good place to start.
Some people have told me that they've texted me, but I haven't received them all. If you text me, remember to put +44 on the front of my number.
Hope everyone's well, C xx
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NORTHERN INDIA AND NEPAL EMAIL - AMRITSAR, LUCKNOW AND KATHMANDU
Sat siri akal from Amritsar, Namaste from Lucknow and Kathmandu,
Wooo, I've made it to the cooler climate of Nepal!
From Manali I hopped on a bus to Amritsar, the land of the Sikhs. The Golden Temple was cool, but not comparable to the Taj, as my (increasingly unreliable) Lonely Planet told me. I was staying in the cheapest hotel in the cheapest room, as I have been all along. Lonely Planet's description was 'if you don't mind roughing it, this place is superb.' The room was so damp and mouldy (no window, but a bathroom), that a book that was leaning against a wall is still wet! I'm not staying in anywhere that mouldy ever again! The city was a shock after chilled Ladakh and Manali, and I was getting increasingly frustrated (especially when a motorbike drove into me). There was a brilliant ceremony at the Pakistan border though, hilarious leg kicking by soldiers on both sides. I wished I had got a Pakistani visa from the UK - understandably you cant get them in India.
From Amritsar I hopped on my first train to Lucknow to break up the journey to Varanasi. At least I was clear the train was going where I wanted it to - unlike the bus from Manali to Amristar where the driver said it wasn't going to Amristar (it did eventually, with a different driver). I woke up in the middle of the night to find that our sleeper section which should have 8 people in it had at least 20, squeezed in on the floor, and a random guy at the end of my berth. Indian trains, hey. I got off the train in Lucknow to intense heat and a crowd of hotel touts. I immediately decided that I didn't care how holy or good Varanasi was, I couldn't cope with Indian cities in September for any longer, and I'd make my way to Nepal ASAP. I was lucky enough to go to a brilliant 'homestay' which normally housed foreign students learning Hindi. It was great to eat homemade meals, and sit around a kitchen table in a home. The Indian couple running it were hilarious. I managed to lose my train ticket, so needed to print another one out (Indian Rail booking system is very impressive), and in the process had to give them a lesson on how to use their printer. It took a while... you can imagine how long, when at the end of the lesson he asked me 'if I print a 3 page document, how many pages do I need to put in the printer?!' Seriously. Lucknow was quite nice - tourists rarely go there, but its full of amazing crumbling British Raj architecture. But instead of rushing to shake my hand, talk to me, (or even phone his wife to talk to me), or take my photo, as everyone did in Amristar, tourists are so unusual in Lucknow that people just stared...
Got a really early train to Gorakpur, where I could bus it to the Nepal border. After going to the wrong station, and not understanding what people were telling me about going outside and turning left, an Indian man finally rescued me and walked me to my new station. The train was 3 hours late. (This is actually quite reasonable, considering it was on its second day now!) I managed to get put on the next train to Gorakpur, and in the process was upgraded to the lowest air conditioned sleeper class, which is amazing!
Finally got to Kathmandu (I splurged out on an air conditioned bus after the train luxury!) the next afternoon. Its so much more expensive than India! I traipsed round so many hotels before I found one that was cheap enough. Nepalese driving is incredible - after 6 weeks in India it feels like I'm in Singapore! Tomorrow I'm starting an attempt to Everest Base Camp. I don’t want to go on about it, as there must be a reasonable chance of failing, but I'm going with a guide for 17 days to EBC and then Gokyo peak and a glacier on the way back. 17 days sounds like a very long time! It's going to be hard... I'm refusing to take a porter, and want to carry my own bag, which still not particularly packed, and not containing water is already 10.5Kg. In theory you could walk it in 13 days (but that would be stupid), most people do it in 15 with 2 altitude acclimatisation days in the middle. I've given myself 3 acclimatisation days (what’s the point in rushing it, only to have an altitude headache the whole way), and then I'm doing a longer route back to avoid walking the same way twice. The thing I'm most worried about is the sodding plane to get to the trailhead- 19 seater, through the Himalayas. (Flying into Ladakh, I realised how hard it is to land a plane - the pilot circled for 20 minutes before plucking up the courage to land between the mountains. The next day the pilot circled for half and hour and then returned to Delhi). Yesterday I bought a down jacket - the branding is obviously fake, but it does contain genuine down, and is really, really warm. 20 quid well spent I think.
Anyway, I'll send an email when I'm back from Everest. (Which at this rate, may not happen, it's raining, and the planes cant deal with any bad weather..)
Hope everyone's well,
C xx
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NEPAL TREKKING EMAIL - EVEREST BASE CAMP AND GOKYO - from the bottom of the top of the world.
An Everest special edition here,
This really is a long one - feel free to ignore completely!
So I survived 15 days of Himalayan trekking. (I cut 2 days off the ascent, if you're thinking that was quicker than expected.) The walking was relatively easy, but the altitude...
Who would have guessed that strenuous exercise above 5000m (where there is 50% of sea level oxygen) would be hard!? It was far harder than I expected - above 4500m I started to really feel it, and was walking at a snails pace. I spent a week above 5000m, at least it got noticeably easier - infact, unless I was going up a steep slope, it felt totally normal towards the end, even carrying a 21Kg pack (it didn't feel like that the first few days, I'm telling you!) The altitude is, however, the only challenging thing about the normal Everest Base Camp trek. It must be one of the most trekked routes in the world, and the path is clear and easy. My body adapted 'brilliantly' to the altitude - I didn't suffer any altitude sickness symptoms and I didn't take a magic drug (brand name Diamox) to help my body cope better. My oxygen levels were on the high side of normal whenever they were tested (the lowest they were recorded - at rest - was 84%, at 5050m. The highest I reached was 5550m.) Most people pop Diamox as if they were polos, and still get headaches. However, despite my body displaying the signals that it was all happy, the lack of oxygen felt debilitating. At lower altitudes, I walked faster, or at, the suggested times in guide books. At higher altitudes I have no idea how long anything took, but I'm sure I was a lot slower than the guidelines! (I did however find that I was really slow if I was walking alone, but able to keep up with faster people if I was walking with them. Overcoming the natural instinct to stop when you're breathless takes practice - and there's no real point to it - you're breathless as soon as you start again. I also never managed to walk slow enough on my own to not constantly need to keep stopping for breath - I would walk 10m (literally) and then stop for longer than the walking time to attempt to recover. When I followed slow people, I was much better. It's harder it sounds to walk this slow - I'm really impatient!).
Crossing a pass called Cho La, however, to visit a different area and to avoid walking back the same way, was a challenge (which is not part of the classic EBC trek). Lonely Planet (which, for various reasons, I will never spend any money on ever again) said you needed mountaineering experience, and LP along with my map pointed out the parts requiring ropes, crampons and axes. (The best advice on my map was 'glacier crossing, stay left'. It didn't seem to account for people walking in both directions. Nepali maps...) The Trailblazer guide (far, far better than any LP) said to be extremely careful in snow, and to avoid altogether in heavy snow. However, a fair few people do it (albeit mostly from the other direction), so I said I'd attempt it if the conditions were perfect - i.e. no snow, no ice. The other option (also 3 days), was to descend loads, and ascend back up further west. That idea at altitude is gutting - I never want to hear the phrase 'Nepali flat' (constant ups and downs) ever again. At lower altitudes, routes that constantly ascend and descend are great - they stop your muscles from never forgiving you, but when you're at 5300m, to kill your lungs (and brain??) going uphill, only to turn a bend to go downhill is seriously irritating. Anyway, with me constantly saying I wouldn't do it in snow, my guide assured me it would all be fine and dandy (despite it snowing 3 days earlier on the pass, and us walking to the pass in a snow storm, and it snowing overnight before we did it, and my guide pulling on gaiters for the first time), we set off. Into 2 foot of snow. I was somewhat unimpressed, and swore quite a lot at most of the pass, but did survive. A Slovakian guy, mid 30s, far fitter than me (well, he looked it!), and far more trekking experience than me said it had been the most challenging day of his life. A few days earlier a trekker had been found dead after he and his companion had lost their group, and the path. I met the guy who found him, and attempted to revive a frozen body. (My guide was only prepared to cross with another group, the only other group going in that couple of days were 3 trekkers, one of whom was an Israeli army medic. Could have been handy...)
But I survived the pass, and made it across a crevasse filled glacier to Gokyo - for better views of Everest (although still cloudy) and slightly less people.
I flew out on the 20th Sept - one of just 2 planes (carrying 14 people) that day. Now there are 45 a day (Monsoon season ends in Sept, trekking season starts in Oct). Today, waiting to fly out, I looked at the hoards of people swamping the tiny airstrip, wondering which lucky 28 would leave today. In the space of 20 minutes, literally 10 planes landed and took off. Felt like I was at a mini JFK. (I now understand why, after a full day of various tests at school one day, I was not told that Air Traffic Controller would be a good career move. I now see it's v complicated. Most of my friends had the brains for it apparently...)
Descending yesterday to where the Gokyo and Everest trails meet was a total shock. September is said to be a rubbish time to trek (I didn't see a single mountain for 5 days - total cloud whiteout), and October is brilliant. I'm glad I avoided most of the crowds. The trails were packed - Yaks, porters and trekkers vying for space to walk. I stopped for a cuppa in the lodge I stayed in on my first night - with only 2 other small, independent groups. Now it was full of 21 Germans drinking bottled water, coke and even beer (lunchtime). The idea of anyone drinking bottled water on Everest is seriously distressing. Where is all that plastic going to go? I used iodine the entire way, which is probably far more reliable. At my next tea stop (it was a long, long day!), a big group of Brits had cracked open 2 bottles of imported whiskey. I didn't bother to hide my disgust. (With the Germans, I tried explaining that I'd give them my iodine if they promised to use it, but my German and their English wasn't up to it. I couldn't bring myself to talk to the whiskified Brits).
These bloody unprepared, unfit tour groups, have a worrying ability to summon helicopters as if they were rickshaws. At the airport today I watched as the 2 helicopters left at first light on 'rescue' missions. One landed, and 2 happy trekkers walked out. I'm sure it's not easy, or very safe, to weave helicopters around in that area, and it is shocking that anyone would expect a pilot to risk their lives to rescue them in a non life-threatening situation. For my first 5 days the cloud prevented any chance of helicopters landing, but on the 6th day, the air was buzzing. (Mostly, unfortunately, to pick up bodies of unfortunate trekkers and porters - mostly on routes not normally done by trekkers). One British guy managed to convince an Italian summit team to let him join (he didn't even have a permit - they are v expensive, and take ages to arrange). Their doctor noticed his hand. 2 weeks earlier he had accidentally slept in an ants nest, and a stowaway ant had bit him halfway up. It had got infected, and started spreading up his arm. He was evacuated by helicopter (a genuine emergency, apparently), as antibiotics don't work at altitude and his life was in danger. Imagine writing that on an insurance claim - 5000 dollar helicopter evacuation for an ant bite! An Aussie guy called a helicopter with (non life-threatening) altitude sickness, because 'his insurance will pay.' Pathetic. All he needed to do was descend for a few hours. One day we passed a Japanese man walking into Gokyo, taking a photo (as all Japanese do) with a ridiculously huge camera. He looked fine to me, but was going to Gokyo to be evacuated. (I really cant see why someone who is fit enough to walk and ascend needs emergency evacuation). Half an hour later we saw his helicopter approaching Gokyo. They pick up their 'cargo' impressively quickly (there is only a pilot on board, no doctors), and it flew past us as it took him to Kathmandu. My guide started waving his hands above his head. 'What the f*** [apparently my language is meaning emails are not getting through filters!!] are you doing?' I screamed, pulling his hands down. He looked at me, surprised. He had no idea that he was using the world-recognised signal to request a helicopter to land... (Well, the signal is actually hands above your head not waving, but anyway, either signifies distress). That would have been a tad embarrassing. I had spent a few days walking with one of the rescue pilots, and that happens a ridiculous amount.
Yesterday, I was descending what took 2 days to ascend, the second day being notoriously steep. A British woman, mid 50s, stopped me. 'Is it like this the whole way?' she gasped. 'No, this is the steepest day, with the biggest gain in altitude, but after today the altitude will really get to you'. (She ignored my altitude warning), 'Thank God, I love you' (tried to hug me, unsuccessfully with a 65litre backpack on me), 'I was going to give up if it got worse than this' she gushed. I laughed and walked off, calling 'go slow' back to her. It was then that I realised she hadn't even started the steep ascent, and was in fact, if anything, lower than where she had flown into. Really, what do these people expect? I passed a similar woman wailing to a Pharmacist (probably the only person who'd listen) at the biggest settlement en route that she wasn't going any further because it was too hard. The route really is not hard, and where both of these woman were, the altitude was negligible compared to what they would finally reach if they continued. I could have walked for 14 of my 15 days in a cloud whiteout, and I would be happy, if it meant avoiding these horrific tourgroups. The other group of people I took a strong dislike to yesterday were those people using CHILD porters (incidentally, out of the hundreds of Japanese I saw, not one carried their own pack). Seriously, 12 to 14 year olds, carrying their huge packs that they are too lazy to carry themselves. I wanted to carry my own pack the whole way (and did, apart from crossing the Cho La pass - just wasn't worth it!), and when I started about 15% of people were doing the same. Yesterday, I think that had dropped to under 2%. I even had 2 guys tell me that I was being irresponsible by not employing a local person and helping the Nepali economy. Other people, ambling alongside their struggling porters told me 'Edmund took a porter, why aren't you?' The porters are truly incredible. From tiny kids to old men and women. The most awkward looking loads were 15 sheets of 4mm plywood (a gust of wind and hello Mary Poppins!), but generators and kerosene are also pretty evil to carry. I asked one struggling porter how much his load weighed (3 sheets of 8x4 ply, then loaded with food barrels the entire area of the timber) - 110Kg. We struggled up the high altitude slope at the same pace. My pack weighed 21Kg. His trainers were almost non-existent for the holes.
This really has been a long one - I wasn't expecting it to be at all. Sorry about that.
Just one last thing - a massive thanks to Chris Price, who hardly knows me, but as put up with many emails and phone calls (including one at 7am whilst he was in bed - time difference), to give me advice from his experience at BC. I wore the down jacket (23 quid well spent in Kathmandu), and think I may have died if I had attempted to get from Phakding to Namche in one day - thanks for the Monjo tip.
I met a few Brits who told me what's going on in the world. Apparently the world economy really is collapsing. I think everyone should just go traveling...
I hope everyone's well, and I hope that no one has actually read the whole of this long email... (remember what I said about these emails being my only legible journal!),
C xxx
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KATHMANDU, NEPALESE VILLAGE, CHANDIGAR AND DELHI EMAIL - The Last Instalment
Namaste from Kathmandu, tiny Nepali village, Chandigar and Delhi,
Ah, the last instalment...
I'm now in Delhi, and flying out tonight.
I wasn't sure what to do after returning from trekking - I really wanted to get to Darjeeling (very convenient border crossing out of Nepal) and Calcutta, but I couldn't persuade India Airlines to change my flight out of Calcutta, and it would have taken about 3 days I reckon to get a train from Calcutta to Delhi...
As I was wondering around a horrifically touristy area of Kathmandu I bumped into a Polish girl I had met in Ladakh, who was now travelling with a Nepali guy, Kapil. The most important Hindu festival of the year had started, and the most important days were coming up. They invited me to return to Kapil's village with them, but that night we tried to work out how to get there. Kapil said there were no buses on this day of the festival, a taxi wouldn't survive the road, we couldn't find anyone to share a jeep with us (far too expensive otherwise), cycling would have taken 2 days, no one felt confident they could drive a motorbike that far (Dorota and Kapil both had done previously), I came up with rafting (it was near the Kosi river), camels, elephants and horses, all of which were rejected.
I didn't even bother to check out of my hotel in KTM, I didn't think we were going to make it. But somehow we did. The buses were packed - everyone was trying to return home. This had one massive advantage - roof riding. It is banned in the KTM valley, and generally foreigners don't stand a chance of being allowed up, but there wasn't any other option. It wasn't the most comfy experience, but loads of fun. As the roof got emptier, we lay down on our bags, and had a great ride. After 2 bus rides we got to Nepal Tok, from where it's a 5 hour walk or a jeep far enough to only be a 2.5hr walk if one is around. We didn't think we had any chance of finding a jeep, so sat down to some noodles in a corrugated iron shack. A guy from a previous bus came running up - he was holding a bus for us down the 'road'. We waded through soggy rice fields, and eventually got to the 'bus stop'. Which was infact the Kosi river. With rice fields all around, the only place the beaten up bus could drive was down the river (I was glad we were just out of the monsoon period!). After a truly bumpy ride, we got off in the middle of nowhere and walked in the moonlight up a mountain for 2.5 hrs, into even more of the middle of nowhere. Dorota and I were the first non-Nepalese to ever go to the village, so the welcome was predictably huge.
Spending time in the village was great - the rigid tourist circuit in Nepal is pretty boring, and very few tourists manage to get off the beaten track (as a result of Maoist problems). Dorota and I were treated with fantastic hospitality, although at times it got a bit too much - we literally had to eat at every house in the village. I'm amazed we didn't get food poisoning - the food was pretty bland, but if you mixed the lentils with curd (incredibly sour milk that is so old it's very lumpy) you could make a kind of curry. Iodine tablets for purifying water saved the day... Attempting to wash at the entirely open water pipe - a complicated system of arranging a scarf around you, was hilarious, and every woman in the village seemed to want to help. I woke up one morning having slept on my neck in a weird position, far weirder than I thought was possible, and was in a fair amount of pain, couldn't move it at all and looked like a right idiot. The entire village was concerned, (I think it might have been bad luck for the festival), and over 2 days the (incredibly old) village shaman (local 'doctor') was summoned to chant loudly, 'suck' out the pain, and chuck various things over me. I had to pretend he was helping...
5 days spent in the village was great, but also, for the first time, made me think about going home. Until this point, to be honest, I really didn't want to come home. I was having such a wicked time, and had so much that I still wanted to do, and had I not signed a job contract for my return, I'm sure I would have stayed here for a fair while. But being in an environment so far removed from home (with no additives in food!!) with planes high in the sky above us, made me think about returning, and thankfully, I'm now in the mood for some London (or tour) life.
We left the village with an entourage of 25 other visitors (everyone returns for the festival), predictably 2 hours later than planned. So at 9am we set off, meaning we got to the 'bus stop' (always the biggest tree in any village because of the shade) in the middle of the day. Hundreds and hundreds of people were at the bus stop. A bus quickly turned up, and everyone started piling in. There was no way we'd get in, but we would have a chance of getting on the roof. Kapil was adamant that we couldn't do this stretch of the journey on the roof. So that bus left. Over the next 4.5hrs a couple of buses turned up, but they'd already been going for 25 miles, so were totally (i.e. old grannies actually hanging off the ladder at the back) full. At 4.30 I started to get worried - my visa expired in a few days, and they're really expensive in Nepal. It would be dark at 6, but hours of passively waiting made me want to do something. I convinced everyone to walk to the next village (5hrs), but just before this, someone phoned a bus company which promised a bus was en route. It turned up, and I was more adamant that we were getting on the roof as Kapil was adamant we weren't. That was one ride... I could put up with the bumping - we were sitting on a luggage rack, and although incredibly painful, I wasn't overly worried about being catapulted off - we were pretty wedged in by all the other people and could hold onto the rack. What was dangerous was the low hanging branches that in the dusk constantly hit us. One village had power, and I pushed Dorota down just in time to stop a power line making an attempt to behead her. The bus was struggling with all the weight, and chugging up a particularly steep bit, huge plumes of black smoke and sparks engulfed us. The bus was well and truly dead. It was now pretty dark, and with Kapil's family (including young children who were absolute angels) we walked to Nepal Tok which took a few hours, and managed to squeeze in a kind of pick up style jeep (along with 45 other people). I managed to get back to KTM at 1am, where I realised I really did have to get a move on before my visa expired.
I spent one great day in KTM - every tourist who has not been to India will tell you it is a s*** hole and to not venture out of horrifically touristy areas. I totally disagree. It is a great city - comparatively very little (and less crazy) traffic to any Indian city, and much nicer people, you can just walk for hours, exploring the real parts of the city.
I then had a 35.5hour journey to Delhi, which somehow all happened, despite having now managed to get an extra bag of stuff. I had a right nightmare at a railway station in a crap city attempting to confirm my train ticket as I was on the 'waiting list' - Indian trains get very booked up, there were no non-wait-listed trains all week. I was sent from person to person to person, none of whom could help, and eventually decided to just get on the train, despite being told I had to cancel the ticket. All was fine, and I was found a bunk, although very weirdly I was the only girl in the 64 bunk carriage...
Going from Nepal to India, I was in genuine culture shock. Flying from London I had prepared myself for the India experience, but leaving Nepal, it hadn't occur ed to me that after a month there, I'd find India all-too-much. I hadn't noticed the difference much when I went to Nepal, but returning... Just standing on the Indian side of the border road after immigration, I couldn't believe it. The Nepal side had been relatively rubbish free, the Indian side might as well have been a rubbish tip. The following day in Delhi, I still couldn't believe it. The only thing that lessened the shock were several amazingly helpful people who sorted me out on my train station and beginning-of-train-journey nightmares.
After a day in Delhi, I decided to head to Chandigar in the Punjab, India's cleanest and healthiest city (people even wear seatbelts! I couldn't believe it!) It was only 5 hrs by train, which is pretty quick by Indian standards, so I could easily leave early and return the following evening. Australia were playing India in the cricket, and I managed to get given a VIP ticket in a bar that evening. Not being a cricket fan, I went more for the conversation, and because I felt that whilst in India I probably should go seeing as I had the chance. Also, it is such a clean and ordered place, I had no idea what I'd do there for more than 1 day. It's not the real India whatsoever.
On the train on the way home I saw someone get on carrying a laptop bag branded with one of the biggest rock and roll lighting kit companies. I was hoping he'd get off in Delhi, and I could have a chat, but waking up after a little nap, he was gone... The lighting industry in India is huge - certainly anything on film (especially music videos) have far more lighting in India than the UK. One day I'll have to work here...
I've had a couple of days exploring Delhi. I felt I really should make an effort with it - everyone says it's s*** and escapes ASAP, but I was determined to give it a chance. And I'm glad I have. I've walked around rich leafy suburbs (with real estate rivalling New York prices), shopped in expat areas, dirty slums, and experienced total madness in the Old Town. India is also great for shopping - brands are half the price here, and I nearly (but then decided it was too extravagant) splashed out on a pair of Bose headphones. It also has the most amazing Metro system I've ever seen - even cleaner than Singapore's! And great for city exploration. Although I did manage to end up in a slum today...
Although I'm now ready for home, I'll miss this country. Much of it is infuriating - my pet hate is the constant spitting of the entire nation. But also the constant staring from everyone - I can ignore most of it as I'm walking around, but if I'm still (eg waiting for a train) the stares are pretty penetrating. People constantly taking my photo - some of whom ask, and I nearly always say yes, but with cameras on phones now, my picture is taken without my permission constantly. The sheer laziness of many people (especially in post offices...). The way men act - despite me always dressing conservatively (and nearly always in Indian clothes). The people who try to rip off tourists - and I'm sure many succumb - someone asked me for a ridiculous 3000 rupees for a scarf today. I knew it wasn't worth more than 300, and they barely bothered bargaining to get more from me. I'm sure some tourists would accept the price tag... The extreme and distressing poverty - I've become pretty immune to the horrifically disabled beggars, and the burnt women (who are illegally burnt in 'accidents' by their dead husbands' families) but today I saw a woman begging in a rich area of Delhi holding a baby that couldn't be more than a few days old - I couldn't believe how tiny it was. How aggressive this country makes you - walking in a touristy part of Delhi this morning a man was trying to sell me cannabis so persistently, and ignoring alot of swearing from me, that I was tempted to take his picture and tell him I was going straight to the police (I realised, luckily, that this would be a very bad idea for both me and the camera). The sheer filth - my feet are never totally clean unless I find a hot shower (I've had about 10 of these in 3 months...).
But underneath all the crap, India is a wicked country. You can never be bored in this place, and there are constantly things that make me laugh. Today I saw a big, clean jeep 'Animal Ambulance'. I couldn't believe it. The most I've seen of a human ambulance has been an old taxi with a tiny wooden first aid box nailed to the wall. The many cups of tea I have with the locals, and having fun bargaining.
And travelling alone. I highly recommend. I've spent time with British, American, Australian, Kiwi, French, German, Spanish, Greek, Dutch, Italian, Polish, Russian, Solvakian, South African, Singapor(ean?), Israeli, and of course Indian and Nepalese. I can eat breakfast with an investment banker (no wonder the economy is collapsing), and eat dinner with a London bus driver who has been squatting for 3 years.
Well, I'm off for my final curry, (I cant wait to eat meat tomorrow!), see you soon, C x