Hypocrisy….how many permits do you need to get into China? I don’t think that even the Chinese know!

It’s now 16.30 the following day and we have at last crossed the Nepal/Chinese border and are on our way to Nyalam. I said that air travel was slow, it appears that I have found an even slower way to travel called ‘Permit here Permit there, Permits everywhere’!! But having said all of that the experience will probably be unique and it hasn’t been in any frustrating, which it would have been at a border in Europe or USA, in fact the attitude and culture are so very alien to me that the it’s been a wonder to watch and try to comprehend.

We’ve just been stopped again at a checkpoint, the third since leaving The border, for what appears to be a pure paper exercise in passport and visa name check! We’re in no rush. I can only imagine how many walls uncle Les would have climbed by now?

Nyalam is 3,700 metres and will be one of our acclimatisation days, therefore spending two nights there. Tomorrow Tshering and I will climb a small ‘hill’ (not my words) to reach 5,500 metres and descend back, that’s assuming that my luggage arrives before 10am!. I hope it arrives soon as I’m creating considerable interest amongst the locals, with my shorts and sandals, to be fair I’m also getting a little cold!

Started the slow journey to Base Camp. Seven days I’m told, this is so we have time to acclimatise.

Before I go on, though let me go back to 4am this morning, sitting in the lobby of the hotel waiting for Tshering to arrive at 4.10am…I forgot about Nepali ‘time’, when he said 4.10 he meant 4.40am. We then joined the group that we are traveling with to Base Camp. I was told that they were British, well out of the nine, one of them is British, a teacher from Birmingham. The others are a mixture of Swedish, Georgian, Jordanian and Spanish….guess what the common language is…..English, thank goodness as I don’t speak any of the above (typical Englishman)!

The journey so far, I described to Richard as ‘interesting’ he wasn’t overly keen on that word calling it a ‘weasel’ word. What I should have said was that it was a journey full of bumps, lumps, horns and driving on any side of the road, normally as close to the edge of the precipitous 1000 foot drop that the driver could get!

We arrived at the Nepal/Chinese border at 10.40am it is now 13.40 and still no sign of us getting across the bridge into Tibet. Back I think to Nepali time, hopefully, though, sometime today! Apparently it’s the first day of the new climbing season, so there are a number of Everest expeditions as well as ourselves waiting to cross over.

Lori you asked for plenty of photographs, unfortunately at Base Camp I will be restricted to a Satellite up link and photographs could be a problem. But, you can be rest assured that there will be just a ‘few’ photographs uploaded to Flickr on my return.

I’m told that the roads in Tibet are far better than the Nepali roads, if not I think the travel sickness will spread from the poor unfortunate Jordanian this morning! I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Who said that flying was a quick way to travel? An eleven hour journey took over twenty four hours! I know you have the car journey at each end, but that only took two hours. The rest was, standing in line, having your bags searched by officious customs officials, wondering around a duty free area that’s more expensive than any online retailer, then spending seven hours in a tin can that appears not to be moving. Yet again standing in line with, I’m sure by the same officious custom officials that were at the last airport, searching your bags, spending another three hours in an even less comfortable tin can. To then stand in line again, with not a word spoken by that same official to let you through passport control (that was a traffic lights on roundabout RANT)!

The only comfort I got was that I had one of those little victories that give you that sense of smugness that only ‘getting one over them’ can give. I was 10kg over my 30kg allowance and I didn’t pay any excess baggage aaaaaand to top that my hand luggage was 12kg instead of 7kg. Ha ha that makes me feel better about the whole experience!!!

I can hear you all saying 52kg of baggage, are you moving there lock, stock & barrel? You have to remember that Baby Wipes and moisturiser are very heavy. (Matthew’s Uncle Colin’s fault). Seriously, the camera gear is heavy. I couldn’t decide which lens’s to bring…..so I brought them all!! If nothing else I should get a good photograph of Cho Oyu!!

Kathmandu….the Himalaya sit in the clear air above, while I’ve now dropped through the ever increasing smog to the unforgettable smells, sounds and people of this vibrant city, that still attracts the sock and sandal wearing brigade to this day. I’ve traveled here four times now and I still don’t know which side of the road they drive on and I’ll never complain about pot holes on the British roads again. To be fair there is some major works going on throughout the whole city, but who knows when they will be completed.

It’s an amazing place and I’m glad to be back.

Testing using iPhone as blog upload