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The train journey to Tibet was very scenic but not as spectacular as we had expected. Also Emma had a headache due to the altitude, a lot of the second part of the journey was over 4,500 metres. The sights in Lhasa were amazing, especially the Potala Palace. The only way to get into Tibet now is on a "tour" and we were fortunate that our other tour member was Rosemary, a lovely lady from Australia who was a really good laugh. Our guide Tinley was fantastic and really knowledgable although our heads were full to bursting with the monastery tours - east buddha, west buddha, compassion buddha, protection buddha, wisdom buddha etc etc etc ha ha. The scenery along the Friendship Highway was stunning, Yamdrok Tso Lake was beautiful and the view of Mount Everest from Base Camp is the closest you'd get without a climbing permit. All in all we had a great time but not sure it was worth the high cost. Also the toilets are by far the worst we have come across, holes in the ground but really really really stinky and with mountains of poop everywhere!!!! Tinley said that you don't need to ask where the toilet is, just follow your nose!
The tour ended at the Tibet/Nepal border and we headed to Kathmandu. After China and Tibet we fully indulged in the huge selection of restaurants (and beers :-)) for a couple of days and then headed off to trek in the Helumbu/Langtang valley. Our guide book rated the 6 day walk as easy-medium and we packed our backpacks and set off. Day 1 - uphill all day bar a 30 minute downhill at the end. Day 2 - really dodgy downhill for an hour and then uphill the rest of the day and so on - this was the theme of the trek and whoever rated it in the easy category must have been an athelete or Nepalese (or we're just bloody unfit)!!!! Our last day we decided to combine 2 days into 1 so we could meet Rosemary for a meal in Kathmandu before she headed off, ooooooo big mistake!!!!!!!!!!!! We descended down the entire day and dropped 1,800 metres in elevation, we walked for 10 hours straight and it was dark before we reached the village, pitch dark. We crawled on for an hour or so with our torches on paths with a sheer drop on one side and down steep rocky hand made steps and eventually could see the village across the river, but it was so dark what we couldn't work out was how to get to the bridge!!!!! After heading off in the wrong direction we came across a farmer who, to cut a long story short, escorted us all the way to the village - he was a life saver, ha ha!!! The impact of the downhill was so hard we could hardly walk for 4 days after, going up or down even a kerb was agony!!! Mental note - do some training before going trekking again!!
We overlanded into India and hot footed it to Haridwar, a holy place on the Ganges where we spent a great couple of days and are now in Rishikesh (full of annoying hippies). Off to Mussoorie tomorrow, a British Hill Station. Oh and all the stuff you hear about Delhi belly is crap - in 7 1/2 months in S.E Asia and China Emma constantly had a dodgy stomach - now we're in India, she is constipated, ha ha!!!
We're loving the food, atmosphere, people, culture and cost in India, it's great to be back :-)
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