Loco

“Wait a minute, Jamie. You’re not in Nepal!” I know I’m not; I wish I was. This is another blog from the adventurers Emily and Verity as they continue to valiantly traverse this beautiful planet of ours without flying. I salute them!

We don’t want to speak too soon, but our semi-permanent status of being in traveller’s limbo is, we hope, over. After a hair-raising jeep ride over the mountains from Lhasa, we almost literally “dropped out of the sky” into Kathmandu.

The last few weeks have been spent waiting, and praying, for the strikes in the Terai region to be over. We couldn’t move on because of this political unrest in southern Nepal, which seemed to coincide precisely with the time we wanted to travel. We haven’t blogged about before it because at one point we were almost certain that we would have to fly in order to avoid being in Nepal around the dangerous period of National elections. We were so disheartened by this that we didn’t want to tell anyone and, in so doing, make it real.

One advantage of hanging around in random cities with no plans is that you eventually meet people and have adventures. In this case Nima Lama, (who runs a brilliant ethical travel and volunteering company – see www.socialtours.com) and his family took us in and made us feel welcome in Nepal. His brother, Tshering, only half an hour after meeting us, whisked us away to his home village of Sermathang, which you have to trek up a hill for 5 hours (but it’s definitely worth it) to get to. When we got back to Kathmandu the strikes in the Terai had finished and were replaced with celebrations about the Government’s compromise, so we’ve made the 10 hour bus ride to Sunauli, are hoping to cross into India tomorrow, and after another 12 hour bus journey we’ll arrive in the ancient city of Varanasi.
Three Brilliant Eco-friendly Things We’ve Seen Or Done:

1. Blue and orange outdoor gyms in Beijing – cross trainers without electricity (they look like children’s playgrounds but very old people use them).
2. Illegally squeezing three people onto a motorbike in Kathmandu to save petrol. Only the driver wears a helmet and someone has to get off and walk at police checkpoints.
3. Government rationing of electricity, petrol, water and Kerosene (in Kathmandu, partly due to the strikes) so you just HAVE to save it. No-one wants to have too many freezing cold showers, even when there is water, so we didn’t always make use of it.

Post thumbnail: jmhullot

Back to top

One response to “Brussels to Delhi: goodbye Nepal”

1. tomjgibbs says:
   March 16th, 2008 at 10:28 pm

   should have stayed in nepal verity! i’m here now, its all very lovely and relaxed. and the sun just came out after a morning of rain. maybe next time eh.

   http://www.wherearetomandjoel.blogspot.com