Nepal Travel Hell........

Left Tibet and China for the mountains of Nepal. I have been on rough trips before, but this one ranks with the best. Left Gyirong at 7 am and headed for the border. Crazy trip! 23 km to the border took an hour and a half. Border checkpoints and bad roads were the name of the game. Got to the Chinese side at 9:30, but they weren't open until 10:00 am. Had some breakfast and was ready for the crossing. Got through Chinese pretty quick and I headed to the Nepal side. Total difference between Chinese and Nepal for organization and efficiency. As much as China was driving me crazy, Nepal was 10 levels less. Got to the Nepal side and immediately they did a bag search. No problem, but where do I go next! They just have

little metal shacks with people in them, but no indication on what they do. After trying a couple of them, I realized I needed to walk across the buffer zone to get my visa and entry. Also, needed to arrange for transport to Kathmandu which was going to be interesting. As soon as I headed in the right direction, I was accosted by drivers wanting to take me to Kathmandu. Luckily there were 4 of us so it was less costly, but they were asking too much. I knew we had a Chinese guy behind me in my group who would be better at negotiating so I continued on to the Visa office. Didn't realize it was 2 or 3 km away. Walked and walked until I came to a building that said immigration. Went in and payed $100 USD for a 90 day visa. Was done in 10 minutes. Just as I finished, the others showed up. They had negotiated a car and with 3 Chinese we were off. Well for the next nine hours we went through 17 checkpoints. The roads were extraordinarily rough and so it was slow going. Many checkpoints you had to take your bags off the rack so they could search them.

One checkpoint decided we had to pay a $33 park fee. We were travelling through a park not staying but they didn't care. We tried to pay in Chinese Yuan which was okay but they were going to give us only 2/3 the bank rate. They were scamming us, but the Chinese with us had enough rupees so we exchanged with them and payed for the park. Chinese did not have to pay for the park. In the end it cost us $33 for nothing and an hour of fighting with them. Not a good first impression, but what do you do! The scenery on this trip was outstanding. It made up for the slow travel and rough roads. It took us 15 hours all including border. The distance was 160 km. I tried to take pictures and got some, but the road was so rough it was hard. Arrived last night to have a burger and a beer. Satisfied and started to arrange for a trek somewhere. Have 2 that I want to do over the next 2 months. Each one will take 2 - 3 weeks. Crazy place Kathmandu! People everywhere trying to arrange treks. Going to be

fun and exciting in the next little while!