First found “speak no evil” (starting price 145 down to market price of 26!). Then found the previous merchant who had sold us “bottoms up” but was out of the naughty broken one. However we were only five minutes down the road when she ran up to us with a fist full of monkeys including naughty.
Walked back to Snowlands, bought cake, then decided to seek some turquoise – got lost around Barkhor, got bearings, went back via Tremsikhang Market. Found jewellers, no real joy, finished circuit and found turquoise pillbox but nothing for Daisy.
Took cyclo home – great fun – though junctions felt chancy.
Dinner at Yeti – “char shu, sweet chicken, veg, chicken noodles and rice.
It’s hard to explain how much fun we had that day and how unexpected the fun part was. We had been somewhat dreading our return to Lhasa and looking forward to leaving Tibet, having completed our touring in Shigatse.
But we were better acclimatised now and the weather was much better by the time we returned to Lhasa, so our half day of free time in Lhasa felt liberating – we had no guide with us at last and (as far as we know) were exploring the place unsupervised. The Barkhor was great fun for just walking around, browsing and chatting with the locals. And we found the silly little bits and pieces we wanted, not least the monkeys, which still (February 2020) adorn a shelf in the Clanricarde flat.
Breakfast in refectory more laughable than dinner – course upon course of things we didn’t want – I make do with a little bread and cake.
Set off – photographed Drongotse Monastery [I cannot find a reference for this place, nor a photograph, but that is what I wrote down].
There was a problem re-visit to Shalu Monastery as it had been omitted from our permit.
We assumed and were told that the omission was an accident and that the worst that might happen if we were caught entering without a permit would be a $100 fine, which I agreed to underwrite, figuring (correctly) that the Chinese authorities were unlikely to be policing that remote spot on a Sunday in April.
Risking life and limb (well…a fine) we went anyway and were not disappointed nor were we fined – amazing murals and very friendly monks and terrific atmosphere.
On to Shigatse. Check into hotel light Chinese lunch at a local restaurant (vegetables chicken noodle soup and pork and peas).
Short rest before touring amazing Tashilimpu Monastery – amazing sites and interesting encounters – e.g. stunning Yunnanese Tibetan lady and some contact with a monks.
Got to witness butter milk tea and bread chanting session in main assembly hall. I got to try bread. Went on to Shigatse market which did little for us.
Return for our supper with some hope as we have specifically ordered our food to the surprise of chef who normally does eight dishes!.
Yes, we really were the only guests at this hotel, which was pretty much the only proper hotel in Shigatse. Tourism to Tibet, which hadn’t much taken off by then anyway, had taken a sizeable knock at that time – probably due to 9/11. It wasn’t likely to recover for a few years either, as the SARS scare came less than a year after our visit.
Arrive Gyantse Hotel – so much better – short rest then off to see Pelkor Chode Monastery and Gyantse Kumbum with stunning murals and amazing views of Gyantse town and Dzong.
Tibetan butter tea – adjudged slightly less disgusting than Butanese butter tea
Dinner at hotel was hilarious. We had to push to eat in bar rather than in freezing refectory – then on came dish after dish – five starters and six mains – only “highlights” were spicy chicken wings, double cooked pork and thipdu[sic – surely thukpa] (noodle soup).
There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:
Breakfast improved by some yoghurt and cheese.
Visited Norbulingka Palace in morning – both Palace and gardens more interesting and charming than advertised in the guidebook.
Went to Barkhor as the weather is so much better today – firstly to the Tibetan traditional medicinal centre…
…then 2/3 of way round circuit at Makye Amye are stunning views of Barkhor circuit.
Weird Chinese tea with spices floating in it and very tasty some duck (flat noodles in soup) with chewy yak.
Finished Barkhor circuit buying bone shoes and bone monkey.
Back to base for free afternoon which we started at the Internet café. Perhaps it was the chewy yak or maybe the depressing hotel room but we were both in a foul mood – monkey got broken in ensuing pillow fight.
Actually I attribute the dual foul mood primarily to the altitude. I subsequently learnt that tetchiness is a well-known side effect of flying into such high altitude and doing stuff without thoroughly acclimatising first.
Made up in traditional fashion and rested.
Supper at Snowland again, with fried momos, yak burger and fries, yakitori with rice. Chocolate cake takeaway was a real treat with which to celebrate our impending escape from the Lhasa Hotel.
There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:
Another mind bogglingly awful breakfast followed by another snow flurry-ridden outing, this time to Drepung Monastery – amazing murals on the walls and surprisingly little cultural revolution damage. Large complex with many chapels and halls. Saw few monks however.
Light lunch at yeti café – yak noodle soup superb, chicken noodle soup good but fried pork in batter was a poor choice. Resolve to return tonight nonetheless.
Siesta followed by outing to Sera Monastery – we time exit perfectly with the next snow storm.
Sera is smaller but lovely – we meet more monks and almost here outdoor debate – cricket match like, everyone turns up to agree that it snowed off! Witness amazing transient art work of mandala in sand.
Second siesta followed by excellent dinner at Yeti – double cooked pork, chicken in sweet garlic sauce, excellent wok fried fresh vegetables and egg fried rice. Daisy is still suffering altitude.
For some reason I didn’t even mention our visit to the Muslim Market when I wrote up the day, but it is clear from the photo sequencing and photo journal that we made that visit that afternoon. Perhaps the altitude was getting to me when I wrote up.
Yup, the altitude got to both of us, as the next day’s log will confirm. Daisy was suffering more, with breathlessness and extreme fatigue. But both of us for sure got the tetchiness which goes along side the more physical symptoms. Goes with the turf in Tibet, that altitude problem.
There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:
After piss poor breakfast I cash in my dinner vouchers through Wang (George).
Ever since a particularly helpful hotel receptionist in Lebanon, named George, whenever Janie latches onto a receptionist we now privately call him, or her, George.
Set off sightseeing to Potala Palace – stunning site but mighty crowded with Tibetan and Chinese tourists. Statues of various incarnations of Buddha and various Dalai Lamas is starting to lose its appeal at a frighteningly early stage, but some rooms are stunning.
After siesta, sleet is turning to snow but we go undaunted to The Jokhang – strangely charming in the snow but again Buddha after Buddha, lama after lama.
Snow torrential by the time we leave so we defer Barkhor Square for a better day (we hope).
There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:
Rise uncomfortably early (God alone knows why) and dumped at airport circa 6:50, more than an hour before check-in for our flight even opens – Mangal has a bit to answer for here!
Fly to Lhasa…
Mount Everest seen from that flightTibetean Plateau as seen from above
Searched on arrival and have my copy of Seven Years In Tibet confiscated by an utterly charming but firm official.
Have no fear, I read the book anyway!
Guide Tse-Ten and driver Chum-day rescue us and take us to the so-called four star Lhasa Hotel.
We enjoyed a snack of yak burger and chips in the Hard Yak Café (very good actually) only to find that the Hard Yak is the only one of the hotel’s five restaurants that is open at present.
This, together with no central heating (broke down 2 1/2 years ago) and no hot water (breaks down at regular hours as an economy measure each day) hacks us off.
We get a new room and eventually hot water and tolerate some nasi goreng in the Hard Yak determined to change our dining arrangements for subsequent meals.
We had expected a relatively low quality of hotel, but we had not expected basic ultilities such as heating and hot water to be inadequate. We were especially frustrated by the hot watre issue, as it became very obvious very quickly that thehotel was deliberately shutting down the hot water for several hours a day to save money, but the staff consistently denied this, claiming that there were daily unfortunate breakdowns.
I even offered them money to keep the hot water service going for us, but to no avail because the staff were insistent that the problem was mechanical not economic!
Altitude makes people tetchy when they are unused to it; his additional and seemingly unfair privation certainly added to our tetchiness; especially as Janie and I are both people who also get tetchy when we are cold!
Leave London late in day (7 pm) – hope the non-arrival of LA Cabs is not a bad omen! Park Royal cabs get us to airport with bags of time to spare.
We do our regular airport shopping and then enjoy Qatar Airways business class hospitality before and during flights.
Daisy weiring out in Doha hospitality lounge
All flights on time and event free – arrive Kathmandu late afternoon.
In stunning Dwarika Hotel – beautiful room and grounds…
…take a 12 course Nepalese feast in the Nepalese restaurant. Superb nibbles, mushroom and spinach with the roti, mutton kebabs, shredded chicken and rice pancakes and sticky sauce fish were the highlights. The late Mr Dwarika’s Mrs made an interesting interlude between courses.
We had a wonderful trip touring Cambodia, Laos and then resting in Thailand in February 2001.
The photo albums on Flickr for this trip are divided into five albums, each with 60 to 100 photos (digitised from negatives). Each photo has a narrative, so this can be viewed as a photo journal of the trip. Each album has a click-through link below:
I kept a written log on this trip, as I have done for almost all of my overseas travel. Anyone keen to try and read it all is welcome to attempt deciphering my scrawl:
That border crossing was just a field, a hut and a fence in our day.
From Katou People in Nanong Village, Saravan Province, Laos……to Bar Pool people, Baan Taling Ngam, Koh Samui, Thailand…within 24 hours; renegades who hadn’t properly gone through Thai immigration, looking smug and well dodgy
I recalled that the previous time Janie and I entered Thailand, in 2001, we didn’t formally go through immigration at all.
In truth, we jumped the border between Laos and Thailand.
My travel log is more or less silent on this incident, probably because I didn’t dare write it up while we were still in Thailand. I was too busy getting back to work and dining out on the story when first we returned.
The only other reference to the incident in my log was in my notes for the Steppes East agent, Clare:
…warn about Noukeo…border crossing Laos/Thailand “joke”.
Reading those notes 16 years later, it reads a bit like a Trump tweet. The border crossing also has some Trumpian characteristics,as you’ll learn if you persevere with this story.
Tad Lo Lodge was very beautiful but a pretty rudimentary place. Even to go down to dinner traversing walkways across the falls we needed to use torches as the paths and walkways were not lit. So when Noukeo and the driver didn’t turn up at 4:00 and indeed we were still waiting at 4:10, Janie and I started debating vociferously what to do. I knew the lads were sleeping at the resort on the other side and suggested that I walk around the perimeter road to find/rouse them, while Janie stayed with our stuff. Janie wasn’t keen on the idea, but by 4:15 we were both feeling desperate, so off I went. I flagged the lads down on the road a few minutes later. They had clearly been enjoying themselves the night before and had overslept. Noukeo might even have still been half cut; perhaps the driver too.
So we set off 20-25 minutes later than intended, but Noukeo was confident that we could make up the time. The driver drove like a fury, which I thought put the whole project and our lives at risk on those bumpy roads; it is a wonder he didn’t hit something or at least get a puncture.
Still, we did get to the Vangtao-Chong Mek border crossing in one piece, just after 6:00. The place seemed deserted on the Laos side. “I told you we’d be in good time”, said Noukeo, “they haven’t even opened yet”.
“We have a 90 minute drive on the other side and a flight at 8:25”, I said, “we need to get a move on. Where are the Laotian border control people?”
“They sleep around here”, said Noukeo, “I’ll see if I can find them”.
So he did.
We handed our passports to Noukeo, the yawning Laotian border control people did their thing and stamped us out of Laos.
Then on to the perimeter fence, where all was once again seemingly deserted apart from our Thai driver and guide on the other side of the fence.
Noukeo jabbered with our Thai couriers. The Thai couriers jabbered back to Noukeo. They then formed a sort of human chain across the fence, firstly carrying our baggage over. Then, after I had given Noukeo and our Laotian driver their tips and Noukeo had given me back our passports, they helped me and Janie over the fence – here’s a link to a picture of that fence in those days.
“Where are the Thai border control people?” I asked our Thai driver and guide. “Who knows, let’s go”, shrugged the guide, “we’ll need to drive quick to get you to your flight.”
We’d jumped the border.
I realised that this was not a consequence-free event; someone was going to question the absence of entry documentation at some point; possibly several points. I thought the problem might be just a few minutes away at Ubon, but because the flights within Thailand were purely domestic, the airport people only seemed vaguely interested in our passports both at Ubon and at Bangkok where we changed for Koh Samui.
Indeed, it wasn’t until we got to Baan Taling Ngam that anyone raised the question of the absence of entry visa stamps in our passport. There I simply told the receptionist that we had entered by road at Chong Mek, had handed our passports to our guide and taken custody of them again once the formalities had (as far as we were concerned) been completed. The receptionist told me that we should expect some more detailed questioning at Bangkok border control on departure.
I suggested to Janie that the above explanation should be the sum total of what we tell any officials. No mention of fences, the fun and games with the baggage chain and us traversing the border or indeed anything of that kind.
We then relaxed for several days and temporarily forgot all about our passports.
Forensics have spotted The Human Stain by Philip Roth; very apt.
We didn’t have a private pool at Baan Taling Ngam, but there were several small pools scattered around the property which hardly anyone fancied (apart from us), so to all intents and purposes we did have our own pool almost all the time.
But I digress.
At the end of the holiday, on 26 February 2001, we flew to Bangkok where, at that time, border control for exit after Samui took place. We didn’t have much time between our flight from Samui landing and our London-bound flight taking off.
The first official we encountered remonstrated with me that we had no entry stamps in our passport.
“We entered by road at Chong Mek. We handed our passports to our guide and he returned them to us after giving them to the officials for processing,” I said, slowly.
The first official called a second, slightly more senior official.
“No stamp. No stamp,” said the second official.
I spoke even more slowly and a little louder this time, because speaking slowly and especially speaking loudly helps people understand an unfamiliar second language much better:
“WE ENTERED BY ROAD AT CHONG MEK. WE HANDED OUR PASSPORTS TO OUR GUIDE AND HE RETURNED THEM TO US AFTER GIVING THEM TO THE OFFICIALS FOR PROCESSING,”
The second official shook his head in bewilderment and went off to find a more senior official.
Soon enough, Janie and I were shepherded into an office, in which sat a rather military looking official with strips on his lapels.
“Why have you not got entry stamp visas in your passports?” he asked.
“WE ENTERED BY ROAD AT CHONG MEK…” I started to say, slowly and loudly.
“Ach, Chong Mek. So many problems, Chong Mek,” said our senior official.
“OK”, he went on, “I have the authority to stamp you into Thailand as well as stamp you out of Thailand. So; welcome to Thailand, enjoy your stay…”
…he said, stamping us in, followed by, without a pause for breath…
“…thank you for visiting Thailand. Do visit us again soon. Goodbye,” while stamping us out and stewarding us towards our flight on the outbound side of border control.
There’s probably a lesson in this story for those who think that fences, walls and “control of our own borders” have much meaning in the real world, where hapless travellers and their even more hapless guides could seemingly do as they please, even at the official border posts, but that’s a debate for others, not us.
I should also say that we don’t recommend that you try emulating this activity when you are on holiday (or indeed for any other purpose). Jumping the border was not fun while we were actually doing it; even less fun and more dangerous now, I expect.
Still, Janie and I laughed about it a lot afterwards and dined out on the story for ages. It remains surprisingly fresh in my mind 16 years later, even though it has taken me that long to write it down.
