Day 115 – Bangkok to Kanchanaburi (124 km)

Thailand

22.04.2012

Jules writes:

With the shocks now in our possession, all we needed to do was fit them and we could be on our way. Just after 6:00 dad and I walked down to where we had been storing the bikes and rode them round to the hotel. The actual fitting is quite straightforward, and after a few false starts, we managed to get all three of them on. Shan had decided to just go with her adapted shock system, and so finally by around 10:00, we were ready to go, and waved our final goodbyes to the tourist dregs of Khao San Road. We had decided to drive slightly Northeast first to the River Khwae/Kwai, the setting for the movie “The Bridge of the River Kwai”, but unfortunately, we missed seeing the sign indicating that motorcycles were not allowed on the highway. As we were about to join the main road, we were pulled over by a policeman, and had to spend the next half an hour waiting in the sun, while John tried to establish exactly what we were supposed to do. Eventually we were allowed on our way for the small fee of 500 Baht, making it quite an expensive oversight. After that, though, we moved swiftly through the traffic, but it was difficult to tell when exactly we left Bangkok, as we for the rest of our drive that day, never left urban settlements on either side of the road.

Sometime around 12:00, we had our next excitement of the day: while pulling up to a traffic light, my clutch cable snapped, leaving me to slowly shudder to a stop. A quick examination showed that it had gone right where it meets the engine. Fortunately, we were fully equipped with a spare cable, and within half an hour, we had the new cable on, and were ready to go.

We really didn’t have far to travel today, and within the next hour, we had arrived in Kanchanaburi, the town where the famous bridge is located. We drove around for about 20 minutes looking for a place to stay, before finally settling on a guest house where the rooms are all individual house boats. Walking through the room, the back door opens onto a small balcony right over the river, and after checking that it was fine to swim, we all jumped in.

And soon found ourselves several metres downstream. The current here is much stronger than it appears, and it took some determined swimming to make it back to the room. Then someone had the bright idea of tying ourselves to the boat using the straps from the bikes, and so we spent the next half an hour awkwardly floating on the river, trying to avoid the water-plants growing on the barrels under the house, and the occasional flotilla of rubbish floating down from other houses upstream. I think it was when we saw that the toilet from the room just upstream emptied right onto the river, a few metres from us, that we decided that we’d had our fill of swimming.

This was one of the most idyllic places we’ve stopped at, and so we spent the next few hours relaxing on the decks, and making forays up to the shop on the road to buy food and drinks. John has a particular interest in War history, and so he went exploring town to find the museum there, and to see the bridge itself. It had been built, and then sabotaged,  by prisoners of war during the Second World War, but the facts had been muddied a bit by the movie, which museum officials assured us was highly inaccurate.

As the sun started dipping towards the horizon, the rest of us decided to take a drive down to the bridge and catch the sunset. It is clearly quite a local attraction, as a small market had been set up at one end of the bridge, with no other foreigners in evidence. We watched the sun set from the bridge, and after picking up some fruit from the market, we made our way back home, where we spent the rest of the evening chatting and reading. I had been very keen to visit a National Park about 60 km North of us, and Dad was up for joining me tomorrow morning, while the rest planned to lounge around the place and do some local sightseeing in the town.

Day 114 – Bangkok

Thailand

21.04.2012

Jules writes:

We had now got word that the shocks were definitely arriving today, but a morning spent on the phone gave us very little clue as to what time they would be available for collection. Even more frustrating, it seemed that for some reason, on Saturdays it is impossible for civilians to collect cargo, and it would have to be organized by a customs official at the airport, who, coincidentally, would have to be paid. This is some seriously providential legislation for these customs guys. All of this ambiguity meant that we had to all wait around the hotel area and couldn’t venture too far afield, as we may need to be ready for action. However, it was a particularly hot day, and so there were no complaints about spending a few hours in air conditioned rooms. I killed some time by going to pick up my suit, which had finally been finished by the tailors. It fit like a dream, and they even hung onto my details, in case I ever wanted to order from them again. If you are ever wanting to get a good quality suit made for a real steal, I still have their e-mail address…

It was only at around 3:00 that we finally got the call that we could go through to start the paperwork for collecting the shocks. Dad and John opted to go, and the rest of us read, slept, or took short forays out into the humid chaos. As the afternoon began to fade into early evening, Kath, Shan and I decided to take a last wander around town. We walked through temples and monasteries sheltered between tall office buildings, and poked around in tiny little shops, one of which was given over completely to huge, gilded framed pictures of the Thai King, who is absolutely adored by many of his citizens. As we walked out of that shop, we noticed a small crowd gathered in a little bookstore. Upon entering, we discovered that there had just been a book reading by a local author, and although we had missed the reading, he was now going to entertain everyone with his jazz band. And they turned out to be seriously good. It was great to see many of the audience members, mostly locals, really getting into the groove. Afterwards, we were invited up for snacks and drinks where the author/muso was displaying some of his artwork, a phenomenally talented guy.

Now quite hungry, we continued our wanderings and found a small food quarter, where due to the complete lack of ability to communicate, we had to order by pointing at things that looked recognizable, although in the case of dessert, we just had to wing it completely. It was all delicious, though, and after a final walk through the markets and backstreets, we returned to the hotel. Dad and John still weren’t back, and it was only after 11:00 that they finally returned victorious, shocks in hand. Tomorrow, we’re outta here!

 

Day 113 – Bangkok

Thailand

20.04.2012

Jules writes:

It has been over three years since the idea for our trip was first conceived, and one of the people who heard all about it was a friend of mine, Kathryn Gibbs, who was staying in the same digs at the time. She has been teaching English in Korea for the last couple of years and is currently travelling around South East Asia with her family. When we realised that we would be in the same part of the world at the same time, I asked her if she would be at all interested in joining up with us for the last few weeks of our journey. She jumped at the chance, and so for the last month or two we have been trying to co-ordinate meeting up in Thailand. Once we had arrive in Bangkok, she began making her way here, and this morning she was due to arrive in Khao San. I had given her the name of the hotel, and so at around 7:00, I walked down the alley of our hotel to the point where it meets the main road and sat down to wait. I was expecting to find a completely deserted street, but to my amazement, there was still a number of tourists still going strong in the bars. A full battalion of cleaners and sweepers were hard at work picking up the mess from the previous night, the occasional newbie backpacker would wander in looking for a place to stay, with a few enterprising tour operators ready to scoop them up.

Also in attendance were a few of the Thai Ladies Of Negotiable Affection, making their way from various hotels and guest houses. As I was sitting on the side of the road, one of these brazen minxes walked up to me and crouched down next to me.

“Herro”

“Hi”

“Where you from?”

“South Africa”

“Mmm, Souf America”

“No, South Africa”

“You wan be my friend?”

“Not particularly”

“You want boom boom?”

“No, thanks”

Ah, the fabled Thai arts of seduction. When it became clear that I really wasn’t looking for “boom boom”, she wandered off to look for a more amenable gentlemen.

A few minutes later, while I was still waiting, I heard two guys talking behind me, one in an American accent, and the other British.

B: I don’t care you can’t do that

A: I don’t care

B: It doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman, you can’t hit them

A: But she stole Simon’s necklace

B: Are you sure it was the same chick

A: Yeah, it was definitely her, I swear

B: That b!#&h! Quick, we gotta get out of here, right now!

And with that they both ran off down the road. We’ve got to get out of this place soon!

At around 8:00, I saw dad wandering around, it seems that he is a really early riser, and when he went out for a walk earlier, hadn’t seen me sitting on the corner. We sat and talked for a bit, and then at 8:30, just I was about to go back inside, I spotted Kath walking down the road. I ran over to meet her and show her the way back to the hotel. It seems I may have spelled the name incorrectly, which meant that she might have struggled to actually find the place on her own.

The next couple of hours were spent catching up, and after everyone had a chance to shower, we decided to enjoy what will hopefully be our last full day in Bangkok. It sounds like the shocks should be here by tomorrow, so if we can get them onto the bikes in the morning, we might be driving out of here tomorrow afternoon. One of the highlights of the area is the Grand Palace, a colossal complex which houses the previous Royal Palace, and a temple area famous for being the home of the Jade Buddha (at least, famous in the circles of Jade Buddha enthusiasts). Getting there was just a quick river taxi ride away, although it did mean putting up with the whiniest usher in Bangkok (Come insiiiiiiiyyyyiiiiiid. Come insiyyiiyyiiid). At the entrance, we had to first rent some more appropriate clothes for visiting a temple, which included long pants for the guys and covered shoulders for the girls.

We were picked up by an elderly guide as we left the building, and he gave us a full tour of the place, earnestly pointing out the spots for the “good photo”. Thai temples, it seems, are decorated to the point of ostentation, with every surface panelled in mirrors, glass, gems or just straight out gilded. Sometimes the reflecting sun would make it just too bright to look at. And this is not just some ancient monument left to moulder quietly in the heat. The entire surface of every building in the complex is redone every fifty years, presumably at a staggering expense.

John and I had decided to sign up for a Thai cooking course, and so once we had finished our tour and taken our water taxi back to the hotel, we took the short walk down to the cooking school. We were met by an older Canadian gentleman. Older than me, anyway. His wife, Lee, was the resident chef of the school, and she showed us the program for the afternoon. We were supposed to be joined by a few other people who had booked online, but after waiting fifteen minutes for them and no show, we decided to just start. First on our order of business was a trip down to the local market, where we picked up fresh supplies. The real challenge back home will be finding some of these ingredients, or at least passable substitutes. I’d imagine finding “rats ear mushrooms”, which look exactly like their namesake, will be a particular problem. Once we were all stocked, we returned to the kitchen, where we spent the next three hours preparing course after course of the most delicious Thai food I’ve ever tasted, learning the secrets of combining tastes and balancing aromas. After each dish had been prepared, we would sit down to eat our creation, and when you’re cooking seven different courses, that’s a lot of food.

Thoroughly stuffed, we made our way home as evening brought the unwashed masses out into Khao San Road. Shan and Kath had gone out to do some exploring and were still gone, and John and Dad spent the rest of the evening at the hotel. I sat down to do some blogging, and ended up chatting on Facebook to the girl that had been on our flight from Nepal. She invited us to go out with her and some of her friends to a blues bar not far from where we were staying. I was keen, but wanted to wait until the others get back. After a couple of hours, and no sign of them, I finally decided to find the place myself. It turned out to be next door to the cooking school. I looked around, but couldn’t see anyone I knew, so sat down to enjoy the music. The band was all Thai, with the exception of the the old Canadian vocalist, and together they played some of the best blues I have ever heard. These were some serious virtuoso’s, and when I started chatting to one of the other patrons, I was told that a few of the guys in the band had played in the big circuits in New York. One of the guitarists was only sixteen years old, but played like a master. One does not typically associate Thailand with awesome blues bands, so this place was a real find. After about an hour, Ruby, the girl from the flight arrived, and we sat down to enjoy the music and chat. About half an hour after that, I looked up to see Kath and Shan sitting in the corner. It turned out that they had got the note I had written telling them simply that I was going out, then had looked on the computer and seen a webpage for a bar still open,  and had put two and two together. Thanks to Google maps and intuition, we were reunited and the rest of the evening was fantastic, with several of the other people in the bar getting up to do a few impromptu numbers. Finally, after 1:00 AM, we said goodbye and tottered back to our hotel.

Day 112 – Bangkok

Thailand

19.04.2012

Jules writes:

With our bikes now back in our possession, the first objective of our stay in Bangkok was complete. The final part was getting and fitting our shock absorbers, and the report that we had from home is that they would be shipped at some point today. With the time delay, this was a bit of a pain, as anything sent in the morning in South Africa would be being sent in the afternoon Thailand time. The morning was another slow start, and consisted mainly of John checking the bikes for maintenances issues, Dad reading and doing a bit of exploring in the area, and Shan and I working on the blog, in between episode of Community (Seriously, with all that waiting at the airport, I think we finished an entire season in two days). We made a mid-morning foray to look for food. At this time of day, Khao San road is actually bearable. Most of the people in the streets are sober, and many even have their shirts on. The streets are still clean from the morning clean-up, and most of the hucksters are still recovering from the previous night.

When we had first arrived here, Dad had suggested taking a trip to the zoo. This was so out of the ordinary for our trip that we jumped at the chance, and today seemed like as good a day as any. The four of us hailed a tuk-tuk, and we made our way through the traffic to the Bangkok Zoo. After buying our tickets, we walked through the main gates, straight into a herd of elephants.

Well, they were off to the side, in an enclosure, but even so, this was very cool. It seemed that there was going to be some kind of elephant show a bit later in the day. Standing close to the elephants were a group of people that seemed very out a place: a troupe of Kenyan acrobats. They were also part of the show, a kind of two-for-the-price-of-two deal, and with the show starting in about half an hour, we bought ourselves some tickets, and went for a quick look at the gibbons. From what we could see, the zoo seemed very well put together, with spacious enclosures for the animals. We went back to the show just as it was about to start, and after chatting briefly to some of the acrobats (who were very impressed that we knew some of the basics phrases in Swahili), we found our seats. What followed was some of the most phenomenal displays of strength and agility I have ever seen. At one point, they made a complicated inverted human pyramid, with five of the acrobats supported by one guy at the bottom.

Next up were the elephants. I don’t know how they manage to train them to do some of the tricks they do, but seeing an elephant kick a soccer ball into a tiny goal is a pretty cool party trick.

The next three hours were spent wandering from exhibit to exhibit. It was great to finally be able to see a tiger after having passed through areas of Nepal in which they actually live. It was also very cool to see things like giraffes, animals that we have actually seen in the wild in earlier parts of our trip. Eventually, by around 5:30, we had seen everything there was to see, and returned home, where the evening was just starting to get going. I popped down to the tailor to pick up the suit, which somewhat ominously was not ready yet. What would have happened if we actually had been ready to go the next morning, I don’t know, but I expect it would involved some lucky foreigner finding themselves a good deal on a suit.

That evening Dad, Shan and I took a walk down to the river to see some of the places that John and Dad had explored on their first day here. Unfortunately when we got there it was all just closing down, and so we had to content ourselves with taking a long stroll back to the hotel, which at one point involved getting to the end of an alley and noticing a small sign informing us that we could still get through to Khao San by climbing up a small flight of stairs. When we did so, we emerged in the upstairs section of an Indian restaurant, which sure enough, opened onto the top of the road. We picked up some food on the way back, as well as the ever popular ice fruit shakes that we’ve been gorging ourselves on, and ensconced ourselves in the room for an early night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 111 – Bangkok

Thailand

18.04.2012

Jules writes:

With the bikes waiting for us at the airport, we wanted to get started with the reassembly as early as possible. We had been told that the cargo offices opened at 8:00, so we left Khao San in a taxi and headed for the the cargo department. We arrived just before 9:00, and were directed, using combined Thai and hand gestures, to an office to register with security. In just a few minutes, we were given our security clearance cards and were ready to go. Things were looking good.

Our next mission was to find the cargo building itself. We wandered around for a bit, but clearly the Thai’s are sign atheists, as they clearly don’t believe in signage for any of the buildings and offices. After about ten minutes of wandering, we stopped someone driving past and asked if they knew where the customs clearing building was. We seemed to have hit the jackpot, as he very enthusiastically started speaking Thai to us. At least we think it was Thai, it may have just been squeals of joy, because that’s what it sounded like. Either way, he motioned for us to jump into the back of his truck, and drive us to an unnamed building about 400 m down the road. Once inside, we marched briskly up to an office and handed one of the officials our documents from Suraj in Nepal. He seemed satisfied with them, and then asked us to wait while he processed them. 45 minutes, and two round of forms later, we were done, and our friendly helper took us back to where we had met him, and then handed us over to a friend of his, who said that he would take it from here (after frantically presenting Shan with a small gift of course. He had seen our brochure and may be under the impression that he spent a morning with famous people…). He walked us to a big cafeteria, and told us to wait while he made enquiries. The enquiries must have been along the lines of “Life. What’s it all about then?”, because we didn’t see him for at least the next hour, and when he finally returned at about 12:00, it was to tell us that everyone was on lunch break, which would last until about 2:00. It seems that it was going to be one of “those” days again.

Two hours and a whole bunch of episodes of “Community” later (I’d brought the laptop along just in case we had a situation like this), he returned, but this time with some news. They had located the bikes in the warehouse, but the officials weren’t keen for us to put the bikes together in the warehouse itself, BUT he could organize for the bikes to be transferred to his warehouse space where we could assemble it. And all this for a measly R2000.

Wow, thanks for the favour, guy.

And as always, with no idea of the actual shipping and customs procedures, and no way of contacting the warehouse ourselves to find out if what he was saying was actually the case, we had no choice but to go with his offer. Back to the cafeteria for us for another hour, and finally, at around 3:00 (remember that we had now been here for six hours with no sign of the bikes), we were escorted out to the back of the building where the truck with our bikes had just arrived. To our surprise, the men began unloading the first crate right there on the road, right in the sun. When we complained, they didn’t seem to understand that we weren’t very enthusiastic about spending the next few hours in the sweltering heat in the middle of a road. It shouldn’t take ten minutes to explain that we wanted a shady area to unpack our bikes, like say, the warehouse that we had been promised. Eventually, we managed to find a small shady corridor just down the road where we able to work. They unloaded the three remaining bikes, but expressed extreme reluctance to fetching the bike that they had already unloaded, and we had to just open the crate there, and then put the front wheel on so that we could push it to the alley.

It was quick work getting the crates open, and we set to work putting the bikes back together. We were now quite practiced at this, and work moved swiftly along, apart from spending about 45 minutes trying to find an allen key that had dropped down into the bowels of one of the bikes. We managed to find it after taking apart most of the radiator, nestled behind some cables.

Finally, at around 7:30, with the departing sun leaving trails of pink across the sky, we had everything together, our bikes were loaded and we were ready to go. With the GPS helping us, we headed back towards the city, and despite several wrong turns (one of which involved us having to turn around at a toll gate that didn’t want to allow bikes through, and forced us to turn around, driving against four lanes of traffic), we found our way back to Khao San. I must confess to feeling extremely cool driving down this street with all these greasy tourists watching us. It made me feel that with this bike, I wasn’t part of what they were about, I was on a REAL adventure.

Once we were back at the hotel, we went out for a walk to get some supper, stopping by the tailor to check on the suit. The pants were ready and looked good, but the jacket still needed quite a bit of work. We are still hoping that the shocks will arrive in the next few days, which means we’ll be able to get out of here and back to the riding. Down at the bottom of the street, we saw a Thai guy start climbing into some tourist. It was clear that he had some grudge against him, but there were no clues as to what his crime was. I was mainly keen to just get out of the way and avoid the fight, but somehow I seemed to be a magnet for the tourist, and he kept running in my direction as I tried to get out of the way.

Later that evening, Shan and I decided to go for a Thai massage. Dad had been for one the day before and had really enjoyed it. We walked down to the parlour where he had had his session, and we were ushered in to get changed into some comfortable, loose fitting clothes. Our friendly masseuse served us some iced tea, and we chatted with her for a few minutes before led into a gently lit room with mattresses on the floor. Shan’s lady got to work straight away, but mine was still busy from a previous appointment. Now, I’m quite a lot taller than a typical Thai, and when she arrived, she looked at my feet sticking over the edge and said “So rong"” and got to work on my legs. (How can it be rong, if it feels so… aargh, that hurts, let me go, you mad woman!)

Once the initial brutality had died down, one of the ladies said something to Shan about me being strong. Shan agreed with her, saying “Strong brother”

“Yes, strong better”, the lady agreed, and proceeded to attack me with redoubled force. At one stage, she even walked on my back. Between the two ladies, they had also decided that I was their “boyfriend”, which in many situations like this could be a problem, but considering that both of them were in their forties, it seemed that I was safe from these Thai cougars. Finally, after about an hour, we were done. Battered, but feeling surprisingly good, we took a few photos and said good-bye. I’m sure that this type of massage is not for everyone, but like the fish foot massage from the previous day, I’d definitely recommend giving it a try at least once.

Day 110 – Bangkok

Thailand

17.04.2012

Jules writes:

With the shock absorbers still a few days from arriving, we were able to have a decent sleep in, and with the temperature up in the 30’s by 9:00, today wasn’t going to be the most productive of days. In fact, the most immediate concern was collecting the bikes from the airport. We knew that they had flown on the same day, but we weren’t sure exactly when we would be able to go and fetch them. So the morning was spent, wandering though the neighbourhood, lounging around the hotel, and siphoning off their internet watching the occasional TV show, while we waited to find out whether we would be able to fetch the bikes. We’ve arrived right at the end of Thai New Year, and many businesses are still closed, or on a skeleton staff. Our repeated calls to the Thai Airlines cargo department went unanswered, but until we had an answer, we were reluctant to leave the area, and so in the sweltering heat, we largely confined ourselves to our rooms, venturing out into the streets only to go and search for some of the really cheap, really tasty street food, or cruising down to the fruit stand at the end of the street, which made the most fantastic ice fruit shakes.

We were still a bit behind on blog posts, so Shan and I tag-teamed: I would write a post while she went out for a walk, and then when I was done, she would add the photos. By early afternoon, it was becoming clear that we would not be fetching our bikes today, so Shan and I took a wander around the Khao San area, which was actually pretty quiet, compared to the previous night. Walking down the street, one gets the feeling that the whole place has been constructed by cutting and pasting a small section of it over and over. Everything that is for sale will be repeated every 50 m, and one of these are the tailors, walking around in the streets with their catalogues of suits. As we were walking past on of them, he made the usual offer, and, somewhat curious, I decided to have a go. Walking inside the shop, I was actually quite impressed by the range of fabrics that were on offer. The first question was about the price, obviously. The basics seemed to be, R500 would get me a low quality suit (that’s the quality of the fabric, not the tailors work), R750 would get me medium quality, and for R1000, I could get a really good suit made, with cashmere or silk. Considering that the only suit I have is the one I shower in, I was quite tempted. It might be nice to be able to go to important functions without having to dress in whatever leftovers I could find in my cupboard. They took my measurements, just in case, and I said I’d think about it.

Just outside of the tailors shop was a local Thai massage parlour. We were both keen to try a massage at some point during our time here, but there was one thing that they had that we had to try: a fish foot massage. The idea is simple: inside the parlour are tanks of water, containing hundreds of tiny fish, which normally lie docile on the bottom of the tank. But when a foot is placed in the there, they go crazy, swarming all over your foot, and then nibbling like mad. You can’t actually feel their teeth, it’s more like being enthusiastically gummed. For the first minute, it took all of our concentration and determination not pull our feet out of the tank, it was just so ticklish. Shan in particular is really not partial to eating fish, and even less so to them eating her, but once I had gotten used to the strange feeling, I actually started to enjoy it. I think Shan was weirded out the entire time, though. After about fifteen minutes, to my disappointment and Shan’s relief, our time was up. I couldn’t actually tell if the fish had made any noticeable change to my feet, but I’m very keen to try that again.

I got back to blogging, and Shan wandered on a bit further. A few minutes away from our hotel, she found the ultimate travellers prize, a small market, bustling with locals, and absolutely no foreigners. After the seething mass of tourists that is Khao San Road, it was really great to see another side of the city. There were the usual selection of food stores, although there were several items that we had not seen before, and a hundred or so tables covered with small slips of paper, which on closer inspection turned out to be lottery tickets.

Dad and John had also decided to escape pit of depredation that is Khao San and do some sight seeing. Bangkok is riddled with small waterways, as well as a fairly sizable river that flows quite close to where we are staying. They started out by catching one of the water taxi’s down to China town, which was essentially a massive market centre. From there they made a slow wander back towards our area on foot, passing the Imperial Palace, which has now been made available for tourist to visit, and is continuously thronged with visitors. They also walked through a temple containing a statue called the Reclining Buddha, made famous by the movie “The Beach”. I say famous, but really, it’s just a scene in the movie. Which I’ve never seen. With some daylight still lingering, they then embarked on a private tour of the waterways and canals of Bangkok, getting a taste of the city beyond the bright lights and tourist traps.

As evening descended, we ventured out again to find some food. Things definitely take a turn for the worse at night, as the tourists who have been nursing their hangovers from the previous night have recovered sufficiently to head down to the bars and clubs. Everywhere are scantily clad white women and topless, tattooed jocks. They all seem to be cut from the same cookie-cutter mould: tanned, muscular and loud. Yes, that’s the women too. I heard a fantastic expression that perfectly describes the place: The worlds largest tourist ghetto. Everyone has an agenda. The locals are trying to make money by milking the foreigners, and the foreigners are trying to stock up on as much cheap stuff as they can and get as drunk as possible. When you pass a bar and the catch-line is “We don’t check ID cards”, you know that you are looking at the nadir of cultural exchange. Many small stands actually sell you the document of your choice, whether it be drivers licence, student card, and even passports. The police are conspicuous in their absence. You will never find a greater hive of scum and villainy.

I had decided that I would go for the suit offer after all, and so we stopped by the tailors to inform them, choose the fabric, and confirm the measurements. They assured me that they would have the material cut and ready for a fitting tomorrow, and the final product would be ready for collection by Thursday evening, as we will hopefully be leaving on Friday morning, if the shocks that we have ordered from South Africa arrive in time. With all the failed repair jobs, we had decided that it would be best to just order in the shocks from South Africa. The person that was making them for us hope that they would be ready for shipping by Tuesday, and with two days shipping, Friday seemed like a real possibility. Dad had finally managed to get through to the Cargo department, and we were assured that we would be able to fetch the bikes tomorrow at around 8:00. Knowing that it was probably going to be a fairly busy day tomorrow, we headed back for an early night.

Day 109 – Kathmandu to Bangkok

Nepal to Thailand

16.04.2012

Jules writes:

We wanted to be at the airport by 7:00 AM to catch our flight at 9:00, and so by 6:00, we up and packing. By 6:45, we were all downstairs with our bags and piling into the car. We pulled in just before 7:00, and said our final good-byes to Suraj, who ,in the short time that we’d been here, had become a really good friend, not just our shipping agent. Check-in went through without a hitch, although we were informed that the plane was delayed by a couple of hours. No real problem for us, as we didn’t have any particular deadline in Bangkok later today.

We made our way through the various check-points, and sat down to wait in the lounge. While we were sitting there, Shan and I noticed that the girl in the row in front of us was reading a book, but would frequently burst out laughing. It is so rare that you see someone enjoying a book that much, so after a few minutes, I couldn’t contain my curiosity, and leaned over to ask her what she was reading. It turned out to be “A Suitable Boy” by Vikram Seth, a book that I had also read a few years earlier, we got chatting and spent the rest of the time flitting from topic to topic: politics, literature, travel, physics, pop culture, etc. She was from Nepal, but was studying in in Bangkok. It is always so great to meet a genuinely interesting person, but while we were talking, the number of people in the waiting lounge was slowly decreasing as the various flights were called. We listened out, but we heard nothing for our flight. Eventually, at about 10:45, with hardly anyone else left in the lounge, we went up to the front to ask if they had any information about our flights departure time. They took one look at Shan’s ticket, and frantically started ushering her through, flashing her a list with the names of the five of us on it. We were hurried onto a small cart and driven straight to the plane, where we discovered with mortification that everyone else was already aboard. When we asked, it seemed that for some reason, the flight was never announced, yet somehow everyone else had wandered aboard. It is a mystery. But at least we were on, and within a couple of minutes, we were jetting down the runway and were soon up in the air, and after a few minutes, we watched as Everest slid past us on the left.

We continued to chat for the rest of the flight, and amazingly, almost an hour ahead of schedule, the pilot was announcing our imminent arrival in Bangkok. Stepping off the plane, we got our first taste of the Bangkok heat. It felt like walking through warm, damp toilet paper, sticking to you and being carried along as you walk. Inside the airport (mercifully air conditioned), we cleared immigration with no problems, and then needed to decide where to stay. Moving so quickly through so many countries, there is often very little time for much forward planning, and after talking to a few officials at the tourism desk, we decided to head for a placed called Khao San Road, apparently quite a tourist hangout.

We had been told in Nepal that one can often get cheaper taxi’s by heading to the Departures entrance, rather than just heading out through Arrivals. This turned out to be sound advice, and we managed to get a pretty cheap taxi into town. As we drove, we began to realize just how big the city is. It probably took us just under an hour to reach the street, and with many people still visiting family in the country after the Thai New Year, the streets were pretty empty.

We arrived at the top of Khao San Road as the afternoon was starting to drift into evening, which still did nothing to reduce the cloying heat. Almost immediately, we were aware that we may have wandered into a less than savoury area of town. There were tourists EVERYWHERE, and not the cute “little-old-Japanese-ladies” type of tourists, but the greasy scantily clad, be-dreadlocked, tattooed types. This had the potential to be a very noisy next couple of days. We walked down the street, squeezing between huge racks of cheap t-shirts, skirting the constant stream of people trying to show us catalogues of suits and the very dubious looking gents asking us to come and view the “ping-pong” show. (Don’t ask. Really. Just…. don’t). We managed to make our way through this and find a place to stay down a side street that was a bit quieter.

Once we’d settled into a couple of rooms, both with AC, we decided to brave the fray outside and get some food. We took a slow walk down to the far end of the road, passing bars, clubs, restaurants, Thai massage parlours, food vendors, clothes shops, and everywhere tourists. I have actually come up with a new travel rule for myself.

“If the ratio of tourists to locals is greater than 1:2, get the hell out of there”

And this place was the worst. It seems like the ratio here was about 2:1, and the type of tourist is the one I generally loathe: not at all interested in the culture of the place, just out to get drunk, high and laid. And the t-shirt, if possible, for less than $4. Still, everything is an experience, and it was quite an education watching this crowd in action. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m sure that there were a good number of people like us just passing through, looking for a place to stay. But these folks don’t constitute the essential flavour of the area, and once we’d done a quick circuit, we were more than happy to get back to the hotel and sit under the AC for an hour or two, before getting some sleep.

Day 108 – Kathmandu

Nepal

15.04.2012

Jules writes:

After the racket from the previous night, it took awhile before Shan and I emerged from bed. Dad and John, however, had something much more exciting in store for them. We had hoped that if we had more time, we could drive up to see Everest, but with our delays, that had been written out of the program. And so Dad and John decided to go for a plane ride to Everest. So early in the morning, they had headed out to the airport, and were soon high up in an 18 seater plane, cruising along next to the Himalayas. Within half an hour they were in sight of Everest, which is so high that even in their plane, they were a few thousand feet below the summit. It was breath-taking, to be within a few kilometres of the highest point on the planet. After about ten minutes, the plane began its journey home, but for those two hiking fans, I think that this will remain for them a highlight of the trip.

We had said to Suraj that we would meet him at his office at around 9:30, and so after a round of showering and clothes washing (this often happens at the same time), we took the short walk down to his office. We have been in numerous tourist areas now, and I reckon that the Thamel area where we are staying is probably the best we’ve seen. The streets are always clean and well swept, the shops are small, but always with very neat eye-catching displays, and traffic is far more subdued than other places we’ve been in. The touts, always such a pain when you are just wanting to walk around, are completely absent, and the worst that you’ll have to deal with is the guy selling Tiger Balm, who would always stop after the first polite enquiry.

When we got to the office, the team from Eagle Exports were already hard at work. It has been wonderful, and even a bit surprising, how quickly we have taken to Suraj, Sara and Sudan. From the moment we arrived, they have gone out of their way to make us feel welcome here, and have become far more than just shipping agents. The fact that they are also experienced professionals in the bike shipping industry has also been fantastic, as we are able to just relax and leave them to do their job without having to worry if something is about to go wrong and cost us lots of money, as has been the usual pattern. We spent the next couple of hours chatting over some delicious pastries from the local bakery and fresh coffee while the necessary admin was taken care of for our flight out tomorrow.

By 11:00, everything was pretty much wrapped up, and the only thing left to so was to go down to the airport cargo bay at 1:30 to crate the bikes. With an hour or so to go, Dad and I decided to take a walk down to Durbar Square, a major highlight of the city. The walk was just ten minutes, and soon we were standing at the gate. There we were a bit disgruntled to discover that the admissions price for foreigners had gone up to Rs 750, which works out to roughly R75/$10 per person. Toya, a local guide, suggested that it would also be worth getting a guided tour, and our experience thus far has really been that a visit to a big place like this is almost a waste unless you have someone with you who can explain the significance and history behind what you are seeing. Still, it was quite expensive, and we spent a moment trying to decide of it was worth it for the short time that we had available. Seeing our hesitance, Toya looked around, and whispered “Ok, there’s no police around now. Don’t worry about paying the entrance fee, just follow me”. Well, that changed things a bit, and so we surreptitiously followed him into the square.

The square is essentially a large temple complex, all of them still in active use. The first stop was the temple of Kasthamandap, which is purportedly made out of a single teak tree. Considering the size of the temple, this would have had to be a tree of the scale of The Far-Away Tree of Enid Blyton fame, but the name of the temple, which is in the local Newari language means “Wooden House”, which in the Nepali language translates to “Kathmandu”. In one corner of the temple is a small statue of Ganesh, the elephant god, with a small bell next to it. The practice is to ring the bell before you pray, which wakes up the god briefly to hear your prayer.

Next was the Temple of the Living Goddess, a three story complex, which is the home for a young girl, seven years old, who is seen as the living incarnation of the Goddess Durga. She is chosen at the age of three from the caste of the Gold- and Silver-smiths of the Newari, and must meet thirty two strict criteria, such as having smooth and unblemished skin, and possessing a low confident voice. When a girl is found that matches these criteria, she must undergo two tests. The first test requires her to witness a number of animal sacrifices without showing any major signs of distress. The second requires her to sit in a dark room, while very scary music is played outside. A priest then enters, dressed in an evil mask, and dances around her. If she manages to endure without crying, then “Congratulations! You have won the reward challenge and are now a Goddess! OR you can take what’s behind Door Number Three”.

Right by the temple is a statue to the very popular god Hanuman, the monkey god. He is known to have a bit of a sweet tooth, and so worshippers will sometimes come and put some food in his mouth. However, over the years this all adds up, and now today, it is impossible to see his face, which is just a red and yellow blob of fossilized sugar.

Our next stop was a temple to Shiva, which has now become widely known by the locals as “Hippy Temple”. Apparently back in the day (I”m talking to you, sixty year olds!), loads of hippies used to come to this square and get stoned by this temple. Apparently Shiva is quite partial to rolling a fatty and smoking it down, so he wasn’t about to strike them all down. Even today, this is still a popular hangout for dreadlocked tourists in their hemp clothes to come and just “chill out”.

Right by the temple is a huge statue/mural of Shiva looking particularly scary, standing over the bodies of his enemies and surrounded by skulls. Shiva is the god of justice, and so it is believed that to tell a lie in front of Shiva will have catastrophic consequences for ones next life in the cycle of death and rebirth. This is so engrained that accused criminals are sometimes brought here to answer questions, where they must answer truthfully, or run the risk of being struck dead on the spot. As Toya observed, “You mustn’t lie in front of the statue, if you go a little bit away, no problem, but if you say a lie in front,  very bad”.

There were several other interesting stops on the tour, including a Shiva mask that has 200 litres of beer poured from it’s mouth once a year, containing a goldfish which the lucky recipient must eat quickly for good luck, but I don’t want to ruin the surprises for when you come here to see it all for yourself. The one last surprise that Toya had for us was a photo with him and the members of the band “Michael Learns To Rock”. They had been here for a concert a few months before and he had been their guide for the square!

It was now almost time to go, so we beat a hasty retreat back to the hotel, just in time to pack up everything onto our bikes and meet Suraj and Sudan. We drove with them down to the airport to begin the packing process. When we got there, we were very chuffed to see that the crates were already made, and much lighter and smaller than the ones we’d used for flying from Egypt. We quickly set to work, but even so the process is quite time consuming. A consequence of the smaller crates was that we had to be more creative with the handlebars, which tended to stick out quite a bit and required loosening multiple sets of cables, but finally after about two and a half hours, the last lid was nailed on, and we were done. Suraj got us all to guess the final weight of each bike, and easily beat all of us. Dad was the furthest off, by 100 kg across all the bikes. Still, the final weight was almost 100 kg less per bike than when packed in Egypt, which meant a massive savings on shipping. All in all, it had gone very smoothly. Now we just had to hope that we’d see them on the other side, in Thailand. As we sat eating some chicken and drinking tea, we realised that we could actually see the Himalayas from the airport. This really has been one of our favourite countries on this trip, and this final view of the top of the world was just one more final treat.

We climbed into a taxi to take us back to the hotel, and with five of us as well as a driver, it was quite a squash. So much so that when we climbed out at the other end, both Shan and Dad had completely dead legs, and had to stagger around for a while before they were able to walk without falling down too much. Being our last night, we decided that we would go out for supper with the Eagle Export team to celebrate everything going smoothly and to say thank you for all their good work. We went back to the hotel to shower first, and before we actually met for the meal, I went for one last shop with Suraj to find some presents for people back home. This is textile country, and the quality of the clothes is fantastic, all in silk, cashmere and pashmina. We went to a shop belonging to a friend of his and managed to get a really good deal on a jersey and scarf. The hardest part of the bargaining is always that one never knows what a good price is supposed to be when buying items for the first time, but both of us seemed happy with the price, and I guess that counts as a successful round of bargaining.

We joined them for supper at a restaurant, after a brief scare in which none of the cards wanted to co-operate in the payment process, but finally we managed to get everything sorted out and headed for the Electric Pagoda. It was a really great last evening, with lots of potential plans made to meet up again, either in South Africa or in Nepal. I promise that it won’t take much to get me back here again. This country has so much more to see than we’ve been able to squeeze into our brief time here, and I think a rematch is definitely on the cards.

At around 11:00, we took the short walk back to the hotel, where we found the door already locked, and we had to do some heavy knocking before we managed to rouse the receptionist who had bunked down in the lobby for the night. Once inside, we made our final preparations for our flight early the next morning, and were soon asleep.

Day 107 – Kathmandu

Nepal

14.04.2012

Jules writes:

Now that all of the admin had been sorted out, and the crating of the bike scheduled for Sunday, we had a day spend exploring Kathmandu. The area that we were staying in was nice, but very much limited to shopping for scarves, incense and other hippy-chic, and so we wanted to get a bit further afield. Suraj had invited us to come down to his office to have some fresh coffee and we spent an hour or two chatting with him and the rest of the Eagle Export team. A friend of mine from South Africa had been in Nepal before and had recommended a few places worth seeing. We managed to convince Suraj to join us on our expedition, and at around 11:30, Shan, Dad, Suraj and I jumped onto the two working bikes and we headed out into the Kathmandu traffic.

In India, the traffic light had been purely decorative, just a set of cheery green, orange and red lights to brighten the day, and had no correlation to how anyone actually drove (for that matter, neither did any of the lines on the road, which served merely as something for your eyes to look at if you got bored). In Nepal, I guess they just decided that they didn’t have the electricity to spare, and so while there are plenty of traffic lights around the place, none of them seemed to have worked in ages. All of this meant that our finely honed intuitive driving skills came in very handy as we moved through the traffic, out of the city and towards the old medieval town of Bhaktapur. Considering what a popular destination this is for tourists, it was quite pleasant to discover that it is only about twenty minutes from central Kathmandu. Along the way, we noticed that many people were wearing masks over their face, in order to avoid breathing in the pollution too deeply.

We arrived at the outskirts of Bhaktapur and parked the bikes. The area that we had arrived in didn’t seem that different to what we’d seen in the city, but the tourists were everywhere, most of the local tourists moving around with their cameras snapping away. After a few minutes walk we came within sight of the main gate to the central square which is the chief attraction of Bhaktapur. Now, in a country with largely homogeneous population, there is an interesting way of milking tourists for cash that would just never work in a country as diverse as South Africa. At the gate, there is a ticket office where “foreigners” are required to pay Rs 1100 each, which is pretty steep. There is no charge for locals to visit, and no passport checking, so provided that you look “local” enough, you can save yourself quite a bit. Suraj motioned us over and told us quite conspiratorially that he knew a way in, a “short cut”. After all, the whole place was an old neighbourhood, and on all sides of the square were rickety old buildings, and tiny snaking alleyways. He told us to hang for a few minutes while he scoped out the way out ahead. We hung out for a few minutes, trying to look as nonchalant as possible, and after about ten minutes, Suraj returned:

“Ok, I’ve found the way in, but you have let me walk down first, and then follow me from a distance, so that it doesn’t look like we’re together”

This sounded intriguing, and so after giving him a sufficient head start, we followed him down a tiny non-descript alley. As we turned into it, we saw him admiring some of the stonework down at the other end. When he saw that we had seen him, he turned left and disappeared out of sight. We strolled down as if we were just disoriented tourists, and when we got to the place that he had turned, we saw him waiting for us a hundred metres ahead. He motioned us over and then gave us our final instructions:

“From now on, just walk straight down this street until you come to the main square. I’ll meet you there. If anyone asks you for your ticket, just say you lost it, or left it at a restaurant or something”

And off he went in the opposite direction. Intrigued by all the intrigue, we did as we were told, making sure we stopped to take the odd picture, to make it look convincing. After passing between buildings that seemed to be leaning towards each other like protagonists in a bar-fight, we emerged into the square itself, right by a massive temple.

We hung around for a few minutes, pleasantly surprised by the sheer number of people that made absolutely no attempt to sell us anything. Normally these tourist spots are swarming with touts, but here, everyone seemed left largely to their own devices. And after a couple of minutes, we saw Suraj coming towards us. We had got it.

The perfect crime.

Suraj explained to us that he had brought foreign visitors here before, but he had been stopped by security, and because it was clear that he was showing them the way, there had been problems. But if the three of us were by ourselves, then the would just assume that we had got lost in the winding streets, and leave us alone. Pretty smart!

The main attractions of the square are the temples, many of them hundreds of years old, and still in use by the local population. Foreigners aren’t allowed in, apparently since the Muslim invaders tore up the place centuries ago. Thanks for ruining it for the rest of us, guys!

We also got to see the palace of the king, which had been turned into a museum. The palace was quite stunning, even though most of it was off limits to the public. There was even a pool where the king used go with his harem, and …. well, there were no specifics given, but its seems that it was pretty much a case of count-the-legs-and divide-by-two.

We stopped into one of the restaurants for a bite to eat, and it was pretty funny to see that we all asked for suggestions of local Nepalese dishes (Dad tucked into a plate of spaghetti, a safe travellers staple through most of the countries we’ve been through), while Suraj asked us for suggestions on something foreign and exotic, and we suggested the chicken Kiev.

The real highlight of the afternoon was not in the main square, however. For centuries, Kathmandu has drawn immigrants from all over Nepal, and so the city itself has a very culturally diverse population. But here in Bhaktapur, the original population of the valley still lives and works. As we left the main tourist section, we passed small groups of elderly women, smoking cigarettes and chatting in groups. A circle of men of varying ages in almost identical outfits were sitting playing cards, while some younger boys watched them enviously. Often, the neighbourhoods were completely given to specific craftsmen castes, so in one section were all the potters, baking their products in open fires, another area had the metal-smiths, and so Suraj, who had been living in Kathmandu for many years now, said that we wasn’t able to understand their language, which was pretty much specific to just this area. It really was like going back in time by six hundred hundred years, and seeing what life was like. The number of other foreigners that we saw in these areas could be counted on the fingers of a blind butcher, which made it the perfect place to just walk around and escape the bustle.

At around 4:00, we headed back towards our bikes, followed by one particularly enterprising young urchin, who kept asking us for money for a school book. What made him particularly memorable was not just his persistence, but when you told him “No”, his next question was “Why not?”, which is actually a pretty good question, and much harder to answer.

Suraj was meeting his uncle at the airport, and so we wove our way back into town to drop him off there. There were still a few hours of daylight left, and he gave us directions to Pashupatinath, one of the most holy Hindu sites in Nepal. It is here that people are brought to be cremated, and luckily for todays modern widow, they aren’t burned alive with their husband. Ain’t progress great? With no-one to show us the free way in, we bought our tickets, and we immediately approached by a young guide, who offered to show us the place. By now we knew that these places are always much better with someone to actually explain the symbolism and history of the place. I won’t go into the actual information itself, which is useless devoid of the context, but some of the things that stood out for us was watching young boys trawling through the river next to the cremation sites to see if they could find any gold teeth or jewellery that had adorned the body when it was consigned to the flames. There is even a special cremation site where politicians are burned, although it wasn’t clear whether this was before or after they had actually died. In Nepal, white is the colour of mourning, which made for a very different picture compared to a typical Western funeral. Wandering sadhu’s, Hindu holy men, were everywhere, and would happily let you take a picture, as long as you were willing to crease their palm with paper. One even gave us the red tika mark on our foreheads for good luck. In some of the caves by the river, some sadhu’s would spend days playing on drums and singing. Others had made a vow to drink nothing but milk for their entire lives, which can’t have done much for their social lives, except perhaps amongst dairy farmers.

Our last stop on the tour was Nepal’s only government sponsored old-age home, where a population of a one hundred and twenty seven lucky octogenarians spent their final days. The place had been a kitchen serving the temples for many years, until a visit by Mother Theresa, who had managed to convince the government to turn in into what it is today. As we were being shown around the place, we stopped by a shrine, with an old man sitting nearby. Although I’m sure that our guides explanation was fascinating, it was impossible to concentrate as the old guy proceeded to do his best to evict his lungs from his body with some of the worst coughing I had ever heard. It went on for almost a minute, and just when it would seem that a new space was about to open up for some lucky pensioner, he spat out what must have been a good portion of his internals onto the pavement in front of him, and then proceeded to light up a cigarette. They say there’s only one road to your lungs, might as well tar it…

With that the tour was over. Shan managed to get in a photo with one old guy who seemed to find his own appearance absolutely hilarious, as he burst out laughing every time we showed him one of the photos we had just taken. The sun was starting to disappear, and we were keen to try and get back to our hotel before it became too dark to drive. With no map, and just a vague sense of the direction of our hotel, we made our way home, sometimes on major congested highways, sometimes on narrow streets that wouldn’t have accommodated a bike and a car at the same time. But, very impressively, we actually managed to find our way home without having to stop and ask for directions, always a neat trick in a new city.

John was back at the hotel when we returned, and it seems for once we may have done more sight-seeing than him, as he had spent most of the day trying to get oil put into his shock in the hope that it would give him just enough service that he would be able to drive it to the airport in Nepal, and from the Thai airport to wherever we will be staying. After a busy day, the rest of our evening was spent relaxing and blogging. Tomorrow is going to be quite a busy day, as we will be packing the bikes in order to fly out on Monday. After all the chaos of shipping from Cairo, this was turning out to be a much smoother process, and we were all in bed fairly early, but being a Saturday night, it was a lot longer before we actually managed to fall asleep.

Day 106 – Mugling to Kathmandu (137 km)

Nepal

13.04.2012

Jules writes:

By the time we woke up the next morning, the clouds from the previous night, with their loud mutterings, had cleared away and now just vanishing traces of mist curled around the highest peaks. Before we could start out, there were a few things that needed attention. Firstly, we didn’t actually have an address for Suraj, the director of the shipping company that will be handling the shipping of our bikes. John also got a final answer on filling the shock with oil, and the bike was definitely quite bouncy. And just to add to the fun, Dad’s dodgy shock had finally packed up and was also bouncing freely. So ironically, the only shock absorber that was actually working properly was Shan’s unholy abomination.

The power outage was still going strong, and we were only able to get power back on to buy a SIM card and check e-mails by about 8:30. But once we had everything in order, we were ready to face the final stretch of this leg of the journey. After a quick look down at the huge bridge over the river by town, we were on our way. Now that the two major highways had converged, the going was much slower, with a lot more trucks on the road. In addition, the road was now heading steadily upwards towards the mountain pass that leads into the Kathmandu Valley.

By the time we reached the top of the pass and started to get our first views of the city, the traffic had come to a complete stand still, and we had to summon our most skilful traffic weaving skills to make it into the city. Suraj had e-mailed us the suburb he was in, and the well known guesthouse next to his office. We stopped to ask directions a few times, and gradually made our way towards the office, diving deep into the tourist section of the city, thronged with hippy hikers. And then turning a corner, we were there. And with that, we had essentially conquered the second leg of our journey, through the Middle East and Central Asia. Now It is just South East Asia to go!

Elated, we went in to meet Suraj, with warm hellos all round. First things first, we needed to get to our hotel, just around the corner. We dropped off our bags, and then went to park the bikes in an underground parking lot a couple of minutes walk from the hotel. There we met Sara, Suraj’s wife who had come meet us. She too works for Eagle Exports, their shipping company, as well as Sudan, Suraj’s brother. Once we had unpacked everything and had a shower, we went back to the office to finalise the shipping arrangements. It seems that we can either fly on Monday, which will be quite a rush, or Friday, which will mean a lot less time in Thailand. Always keen to keep going, we decided to try and push for the Monday flight, which meant that we needed to get the bikes measured so that the carpenter could get to work right away. The arrangements actually ended up taking a few hours, and at the end of it Suraj invited us to join his family for their New Years celebration. Nepal works on a slightly different calendar, and today marked the start of the year 2069. We went back to the hotel, where we made that very welcome discovery of free wi-fi down in the restaurant at the back of the hotel. At around 5:00, we all gathered in the front of the hotel, and jumped into Sudan and Suraj’s car. Suraj was already at the house, but Sara was also driving with us, which meant that four people had to squish in the back. Being the tallest, I was gifted with the front seat, and while the others made plans to syncopate their breathing so as not to kill themselves in the back, we headed to their house just outside the city.

Nepal is a country with a very turbulent recent history, and the peace process that ended the civil war is less than ten years old. With a government still trying to find it’s feet, many things like road maintenance are down on the priority list, and the road that we drove on would have Evil Kaneevil down to under 10 km/h. The house was lovely, and when we entered, we were introduced to their aunt, Sudan’s wife and Suraj’s daughter. Family structures are a lot closer here than is typical for back home, with both families living in the same house, sharing cooking, vehicles, etc. At one point Shan and John disappeared for a while, leaving Dad and I with the aunt watching TV. She happened to be watching a documentary on snakes in South Africa, and with absolutely no way of communicating meaningfully with her, we settled in to this little taste of home. I never would have imagined that hearing an Afrikaans accent would make me nostalgic.

Supper was delicious. We started off with a whole selection of snacks eaten sitting on the floor (Us, not the snacks. The snacks were on plates. On the floor). We also seemed to be making up for all the “dry” countries that we had passed through, and even Dad had a glass or two of beer. Once that was finished we went through to the kitchen for the main course, chicken curry, rice, vegetables and dahl. Suraj’s daughter s definitely not the shy type, and she kept us all quite entertained with her antics, drawings, English demonstrations and the like. After having spent the last couple of weeks with just ourselves for company, it was great to be able laugh and share with new people. Our hosts are all very well educated, and we really enjoyed being able to speak about a wide variety of topics, their business, travel, life in Nepal, and so on. It was a great evening, and a great way to celebrate getting this far. At the end of the evening, we all squeezed back into the car, and made our way back to the hotel. Although it was great to be staying in the vibey part of town, the downer was that the vibe doesn’t stop when you go to bed. In fact it keeps going through most of the night. But eventually, despite the dogs, loud music, and drunk, screaming Frenchmen downstairs, we were asleep.