Janie and I took a wonderful (but at times gruelling) trip to Nepal, Tibet & Kerala in April 2002.
This placeholder and links piece provides links to the full itinerary and photographs from that trip. I kept a good journal and have now uploaded blog pieces for individual days. If you want to start on those from the very beginning, start here or below:
There are three photograph albums (i.e. the photos that made it with labels and comprise a pictorial travelogue in their own right) covering the whole trip, the first being Nepal and Lhasa, the second being the remainder of the Tibet trip and the brief return to Nepal, the third being Kerala:
In addition to those labelled albums, there are the raw negative uploads available to view if you just cannot get enough of such pictures. There is an “album” of those that went through Daisy’s canera and an “album” of those that went through Ged’s. We have been known to take pictures with each other’s camera.
First Daisy:
Then Ged’s:
Some of the raw ones might be sideways and in the wrong sequence unless or until I do some more work ordering them, but they should at least be complete sets by the time you get to them, dear reader.
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.
Rose early to see sunrise, then after breakfast sat around pool until time to leave. Short tour of Pokhara plus last minute shopping (got the tongs!) on way to airport.
Kept waiting around at Pokhara airport for a nerve wrangling 2 1/2 to 3 hours with various excuses, etc. Got away just in time to make our connection at Kathmandu, where we were searched more times than I can ever remember. Long wait at Delhi for luggage etc. Got to hotel just in time to chow down (tandoori and tikka chicken rice, daal etc) and lie down for a couple of hours before…
Sunday 2 April 2000
…rising at 1:15 am! to head back to airport. Emirates flight from Delhi to Dubai could win awards for worst meal and least comfort – so much for Emirates!
Arrived at Ritz Carlton at 8:00 to 8:30 local time. We take some breakfast and then get given a naff room. We wash, go meet our local rep, eat her brain and sign up for tomorrow’s bus tour. By the time that’s done, we’ve been allocated a great room. We spend the middle of the day by the beach. I fell asleep for less than an hour covered in factor and still red as a beet! Avoided sun for the rest of the day (sat in shade) and went to Splendido for dinner where we had lobster bisque, lamb fillet (Janie), veal chop (me) and were stuffed by halfway through the main course!
This picture of us in Splendido, actually from our last night, not our first.
Early night.
You can see all the pictures from that final leg of our journey on the Flickr album linked here and below.
Either Hari or Ming drew us a map of the walk to Kafalgari, which we were about to undertake that morning.
…off on another short walk for circa 2 km, circa two hours, through Kafalgari Village and accompanying flora and fauna.
Rest up for the rest of the morning (Janie wants another go at bagh-chal, unusually). Lightish lunch of Nepalese style. Spent afternoon relaxing around (but not in) the pool.
Early supper of a chilled tomato (almost gazpacho) soup, beef and fresh vegetables followed by banana thing. Quick game of bagh- chal with Romie before early night.
One abiding memory of the stunning Tiger Mountain Pokhara Lodge was the rather set, almost regimented way of the place. The staff seemed most put out that Janie didn’t want to dine sitting around a large table with all the other guests, because “that’s the way we do things around here”.
In some ways, I think we “mended” with the in-house team through learning bagh-chal. I have my bagh-chal somewhere at the flat still, probably under the bed. I expect Janie would be horrified at the thought of having a go at the game again, 25 years later. She’s not a great lover of those sorts of games.
You can see all the pictures from that lovely day on the Flickr album linked here and below.
Another splendid Yak and Yeti breakfast before checkout and short flight to Pokhara.
Arrived at Tiger Mountain Pokhara Lodge well before lunch. Nepali style lunch, then short siesta before taking a 4 km 2 1/2 hour walk through neighbouring village Kandanidada and observing the local flora and fauna.
The village is mainly Brahman and the people very friendly. We are invited into many homes etc. Our guides are Hari and Ming. Hari teaches English to local children so is well known to the villagers.
Either Hari or Ming drew us a map of the walk we had just done:
Home just before dark for showers, spray, change and excellent dinner and learning bagh-chal (tiger and goats). Earlyish night – “Geddo zonked”.
You can see all the pictures from that lovely day on the Flickr album linked here and below.
The printed itinerary tells you all…indeed probably more than you want to know about the relentless touring we did on the preceding day and on this one. Described as a half day of touring, our second day around these parts felt even more intensive than the day of touring the day before…perhaps because they were trying to cram it all in to half a day.
Bhaktapur, Pashupatinath and Boudhanath were the three areas involved.
We took loads and loads of photos – about 120 of them ended up in our Kathmandu album, which is, in itself, a pretty good diary of our touring, as I labelled the photos well on our return and transposed those labels onto Flickr. You can review those through the Flickr link here or the picture link below.
Here are the words from my log for 29 March, with some sample pictures, to give you a taster.
1st stop: Bounhanath – huge Buddhist stupa. Saw beautiful Buddhist temple by side. Quiet and peaceful. On next to Pashupatinath, sacred Hindu temple on the banks of stagnant but holy by Bagmati River. Amazing monkeys and sadhus (mostly fake I think) but no actual cremations to be seen
On next to Changunarayan – stunning Hindu site not far from Bhaktapur. Achuote irritated Jamie beyond even yesterday’s heights with long-winded explanations on all of Vishnu’s manifestations.
I had forgotten about our Kathmandu guide, Achuote, and his “attention to detail”. Janie tends to give guides lots of clues, to the fact that she is not interested in ALL THAT MUCH detail and that I tend to mug up in advance, from the guide books. That we like to tour at our own pace and that we prefer to ask questions rather than have everything explained in depth. The best guides get it straight away, most guides get it with just a little prompting, but occasionally we’d get a guide like Achuote who was determined to spew out every detail he had learned about everything on our itinerary.
On to Bhaktapur – went to Peacocks for lunch – on through our town old town – saw Peacock window – more temples and stupas. Durbar Square then back to car.
Got pulled over on the way home as the king was going to pass (this is becoming a habit!).
Quick stop in Thamel to get bearings and booking of Kilroy’s – back to Yak & Yeti for R&R, plus repacking. Dinner at Kilroy’s. Momos, daal baht [thali], chicken supreme with yak cheese, amazing bread and butter pudding and a chocolate thingy.
At the time, we voted Kilroy’s the best meal of the holiday.
All the pictures from that intensive Kathmandu touring are in the Flickr album linked here and below:
The printed itinerary tells you all…indeed probably more than you want to know about the relentless touring we did on this day and the next.
We took loads and loads of photos – about 120 of them ended up in our Kathmandu album, which is, in itself, a pretty good diary of our touring, as I labelled the photos well on our return and transposed those labels onto Flickr. You can review those through the Flickr link here or the picture link below.
Here are the words from my log for 28 March, with some sample pictures, to give you a taster.
Touring today. First stop, Monkey Temple (Swayambhunath) and it’s amazing surroundings. Lots of mini temples (stupas) with shops and houses in between.
Then on to the House of the Living Goddess, but Kumari was out at a ceremony. Saw the 12th century Kasthamandap all made from one tree – then onto Durbar Square, Teleju Temple, Royal Palace, Statue of Hanuman and saw sadhus galore.
Strolled through old city to modern part – then drove to see Tibetan refugees weaving, a handicraft centre and then a temple. before lunch at Taleju with stunning views of Patan’s Durbar Square.
On to tour Patan – slaughtering courtyard, stunning museum – loads more temples including the Thousand Buddhas Golden Temple etc.
I snapped this scene of a pop video being made, which i noted in my photo album although I had clean forgotten to note it in my log.
On through shopping street (I got a pair of tongs and a monkey and two CDs)…
On of those CDs, Chautari by Pancha and Shanti, became a favourite of Janie’s for the rest of that holiday and indeed since. It is available on YouTube music and you can hear it through this link.
Then home for rest and dinner at Chimney (founded by Boris Lisanevich).
All the pictures from that intensive Kathmandu touring are in the Flickr album linked here and below:
Rose at 4 am to catch early flight to Kathmandu. Bid a fond farewell to Pema.
Arrived in Kathmandu to discover that there was a general strike going on. After a false start (being sent back to the airport by the police) we had a police escort through the streets to the Yak and Yeti.
On arrival, we were handed our “Tiger Mountain” itinerary for our five night stay in Nepal. Fortunately, there was nothing on our itinerary for the arrival day anyway.
Warned that nothing was open, we settled down to our fate within the Yak and Yeti [hoping to relax by the pool], only for it to start pouring down. Anyway, we got our bearings, snacked on momos and tuna melt, relaxed in our room, [then] ate at the Naachghar [within the Yak & Yeti]. Thali in my case and duck tandoori for Daisy.
We tucked in…The musicians were playing it largeNaachgar was doing good business that night!
Went to the [in house] casino which I found truly foul – I was delighted part with my £9.50 and get out quick!
I had never visited a casino before. 25 years later, I can report that I have never visited one since. Not for me. The light-suited gentleman did not want to be photographed, we were loudly and repeatedly informed by the supervisor, but the request came after Janie had taken the above photograph of me.
All the photographs from the Kathmandu leg of our trip are in the following Flickr album. All the pictures from this day are shown in the article above:
Crack of dawn start – brought toast and bacon to our room – off at 5:30 for airport. After excess baggage debacle, said goodbye temporarily to Delhi and flew off to Paro via Kathmandu.
A neurotic American woman got off at Kathmandu and then returned flustered and apologetic. She turned out to be the tour guide from American group!
Bhutan’s sole airport
Drove from Paro to Thimpu – not an especially spectacular drive. We were driven by our guide Pema, as our driver is ill.
Pema Gyalpo was a wonderful guide for our week in Bhutan. I have a feeling he ended up being our driver and guide throughout the week. We’re still in touch, 25 years later (as I write) and I’ll write more on him as the story of our journey unfolds.
Had lunch at Plums (pork, noodles, potato cheese, rice) then checked into hotel before heading off to shops.
Farce at handicraft emporium where our chosen goods got lost between the ticketing and the payment booth!
Found a small shop with a wacky lady, Tsering Dolkar, who will hopefully make Janie a Toego.
Back to hotel for rest, supper and early night.
The re are other pictures from this day, within the Flickr album below – Nos 21 to 32:
