Nepal: on the way to Kathmandu...

We must say that already our first impressions on Nepal made China look very organized... we almost walked past immigration on the Nepal side, and wouldn't have seen it if our local guide didn't direct us in. Continuing our way along the Friendship "Highway", the 110-km-distance to Kathmandu took us 5 hours, but it felt like a very very long trip!
Even though it was difficult so say bye bye to Tibet, the descent to Nepal was welcomed by our lungs, exhausted from the struggle with the thin air.

From ASIA - NEPAL

The "road" led through the same deep valley we descended from Tibet, but the view in Nepal was completely different to Tibet. Still huge mountains but due to the lower elevation (around 2000 meters) lots of green, rivers, waterfalls all along the way. The change of scenery was simply stunning:

From ASIA - NEPAL

Lots of Hindi people sitting on the streets, ladies washing clothes in the streams or just chatting in groups.

From ASIA - NEPAL

On the way we passed by the world's third tallest Bungee Jumping site on a hanging bridge, however I (Zoli) passed on the chance this time. Might be difficult to believe, but it seems like with each jump, the next one gets scarier (or is it just the age?).

However, this didn't stop us from admiring the views from the hanging bridge:

From ASIA - NEPAL

In a few hours we started to see again some sign of human life when approaching Barabise:

From ASIA - NEPAL

Our travel journal continues with our arrival to Kathmandu...

All our photos from Nepal

Friendship Highway: Tingri to the Nepalese border

Our last day in Tibet... We started the day by going to another vista point to have the Mount Everest "at our fingertips"

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

The trip was through a more desolate, desert plateau scenery...

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

On the way to Nyalam we drove through our final pass – the Lalung-La- at above 5000 meters. It was the highest elevation of the day and we could see the Himalayan mountain range with snow covered peaks. This seemed really like being on the "Roof of the Earth".

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

Then, the landscape went though a shocking transformation as we were descending to Zhangmu at 2.300m.

We’ve gone from dry, sunny with brownish vegetation...

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

to wet...

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

then misty and lush green scenery

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

through winding roads...

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

all within couple of hours and amazingly all this in one single very deep valley. 

We stopped in Zhangmu (the border town to Nepal) to wait for the opening of the border next morning; it's a one-street town jammed with cars, trucks, animals and who knows what else queuing to cross into Nepal. Once the border opens, hundreds of vehicles start to descend from the Tibetan plateau into the gorge filled with endless waterfalls...



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Friendship Highway: Shigatse To Tingri

This was the day of extremes:

On the third day of our overland tour along the friendship highway, we got as far as 5000km (along the shortest route - but we made an aprox. 1000km detour to Beijing) from Shanghai:

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

Then, we reached the highest point of our journey and also the highest elevation we have ever been (and might ever be):

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

As we were slowly descending towards Tingri, in the middle of nowhere we have met a friendly Tibetan family who was just "passing nearby". We still wonder where did they appear from so sudden and where they were headed to on foot... (at least one of the kids seemed to be coming from...)

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

Later on we had for the first time a direct and unobstructed view of the Mount Everest rising magnificently 4000m above:

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

Our end destination for the day was the most primitive, yet authentic Tibetan village we had seen; a few mud houses and a couple of guesthouses on one side of the river and some tents on the opposite side: it was the village of Tingri at an altitude of mere 4200m

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

where the two basic items being offered (besides the usual yak joghurt and hot momo for our hungry bellies) were "internet and oxygen":

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

We decided to buy some of both.

Unfortunately we don't have pictures, but we have to mention that we have seen here the most amazing night sky we have ever seen. Due to the lack of light sources in the area and the thin air, one could really see the milky way with as a cloud of stars...a truly amazing experience - something similar to the upper picture on this comparison (just imagine it without any light source) ... which is made impossible in our modern world by light pollution. This satellite picture from Wikipedia illustrates well how little light is scattered in Tibet in comparison with other parts of the world.



All our photos on Tibet Overland Tour

The journey of our travel along the Friendship Highway continues with the next blog entry....

Friendship Highway: Gyantse to Shigatse

Day 2 of our Tibet overland tour was dedicated to visit the Monasteries of Gyantse and Shigatse.
As we were walking towards the Pelcho Monastery in Gyantse, we decided to take a backstreet instead of the main tourist route, the later being a wider street with green trees planted aside (probably another example of the recent beautification projects in China); thus we had a glimpse into the everyday life of local Tibetans: babies crying and cows lying around at every second doorstep, kids going to school and tiny shops opening up along the road...

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

As we walked into the Monastery, the main Assembly Hall was straight ahead and we began the explorations from here. The entrance is decorated with statues of the Four Guardian Kings; just by the entrance on the left is a protector chapel, with murals depicting sky burial. The Assembly hall was fairly empty, no monks chanting, no pilgrims making butter yak offerings... but then it turned out that all pilgrims were 'busy' with walking around in the endless series of tiny chapels at the Kumbun, chanting prayers and slipping in their donation to the Buddha statues.

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

The Gyantse Kumbun in fact is the Monastery's most famous attraction: a monumental, 8-story-chörten with white layers trimmed with decorative stripes and a golden dome... the inside is no less impressive, 108 chapels filled with Buddha statues and painting after exquisite painting (kumbum means '100,000 images').

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

Next, we were heading to Shigatse, the second largest city in Tibet and home to the Tashilhunpo Monastery, which is the traditionally the seat of the Panchen Lama who would rule over the western part of Tibet. The full name in Tibetan of the monastery means: "all fortune and happiness gathered here".

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

The monastery itself is like a small city, with a labyrinth of walls, cobblestone paths, stupas and prayer wheels and several assembly halls (one of which we even thought to have recognized in the "7 Years of Tibet" movie), its main 'attraction' being a gigantic, 26-meter-high Buddha statue (the largest gold-copper Buddha statue in the world).

But one of the highlights of visiting the monastery for us was that it gave us room to socialize with the locals, all very friendly people, smiling and looking at us with probably just as curious eyes as we looked at them.

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

The old city was also worth a visit... something like walking into a different time: kids greeting us with a loud "Hellooo" (it seemed to be the only world they knew in Engligh though), while their dads playing chess or billiard on the street corner...  (provided their billiard-board was not taken already :D).

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

In the evening our guide decided it was time to have some fun and surprise us with something authentic but at the same time contemporary ... we soon found ourselves in a Chinese-Tibetan disco (at 3,900m !), full of flashing lights and a weird combination of Chino-Tibeto-European melodies sung in Tibetan language... Hmm, what did we earlier say about stepping into a different world?

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

All our photos on Tibet Overland Tour

The journey of our travel along the Friendship Highway continues with the next blog entry....

Friendship Highway: Lhasa to Gyantse

It was a "very blue sky" kind of day as we left from Lhasa early morning, starting our journey along the Friendship Highway (one of the most scenic routes on the Tibetan Plateau) towards Nepal... we thought a bumpy, occasionally unpaved road was ahead of us and were happy to have a good 4x4 car for the 4-day-drive (apx 800 kms) to the Nepalese border. But it turned out pretty quickly that the road was much much better than we expected...

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

The road led up to Khamba-La pass at over 4,700m where we had stunning views of the deep turquise Yamdrok-tso, one of the four holy lakes in Tibet, while the snow-capped Himalayas pierced the clouds in the distance...

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

After a lunch stop at one of the en-route Yak resturants we continued our way to Gyantse, passing again through very dramatic landscapes: wide open, green countryside

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

... suddenly turning into the land of eternal snow as we passed by the Kharola Glacier

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

... just to get us back to the dazzling "deep-turquoise lake-view" type of scenery:

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

Arriving to Gyantse, we set off to visit the Gyantse Fort. The stiff 30-minute climb to the top of the Fort was well worth the effort for the great lookouts of the surrounding Nyang-chu valley, the town itself and the compound of the Pelkor Chode Monastery.

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

There, on top of the Fort, we found a mysterious message we did not obbey:

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

And now THE CHALLENGE from Tibet: What does this sign really stand for?
Play to win a Ganesha statuette to bring you good luck.


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The journey of our travel along the Friendship Highway continues with the next blog entry....