August 16
HBD to Alejandro and Javier!
If you would have told me that possibly the toughest day in nearly 10 months of travel was going to be a four hour drive from the Tibetan border town of Kodari to Kathmandu, I would not have believed you. The drive is 115 kilometers and it is the only overland route between China and Nepal. It’s so beautiful! What could go wrong?
We had to go through several checkpoints to get out of Tibet and China (apparently that is two separate border situations here) before crossing into Nepal at 10:30am.
We said good bye to our guide from Tibet and were told that because of a landslide we would have to walk 2 kilometers to get to the trucks that were going to take us the rest of the journey.
So we walked 2k.
Not a big deal when you see what the locals were carrying:
Those are boxes filled with apples – I saw an opened box. They’re filled with apples and she’s carrying them by a rope tied to her head.
Plus the valley is beautiful. Michael and I spent a good deal of time checking out the rapids and talking about when we’ll be able to go rafting again.
We finally made it to our 4x4s and after an hour or so of sorting through visas we were on our way. There are 13 people that we’ve been with over the past five days and it’s a pretty good group. We have an older German couple, a guy from Australia, a young couple from Uruguay, the couple from the Netherlands, a woman from Germany who lived in Kathmandu for five years, a young US marine who is stationed in Okinawa, and a couple from Genoa, Italy. A side note on that – on our last day in Tibet we woke up to the news that there was a major bridge collapse in Genoa. It was really sad news and a tough situation, especially when traveling with limited communications.
The thirteen of us broke into two groups for the next leg of the journey. Michael and I were with Ralf and Tess from the Netherlands, our marine, Victor, and German Bianca. I don’t know the name of our driver, but he proved to be completely top notch.
We got on the road and drove about 10 kilometers before our second landslide.
You can see how helpful we’re all being. Ultimately after moving some rocks by hand they tried tying a rope to a semi and a huge rock to try to move it. The Aussie, Steve, got in to help move some rocks by hand. We were watching from some distance while he was helping the locals. At one point, some small rocks started falling down the mountain onto the area where the men were standing. Every local broke out into a full sprint. We were 50 meters away and broke out into a sprint to get away. Steve stood still and looked up in the direction from where the rocks were coming. I think we can agree that if all of the locals take off in a sprint, you should be running too.
https://www.thatsonourlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/img_0998.movWell, that didn’t get the job done, so they had to bring in the bulldozer. We weren’t totally sure why they waited so long to bring in the big guns, but we sat there for about three hours before we were able to proceed.
But from then it was smooth sailing!
https://www.thatsonourlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/img_3934.trim_.movOk – not smooth sailing. It was a really really bumpy ride that involved a lot of bumped heads on the roof of the car. I am an avid seat belt wearer on well paved, safe city roads. This was not safe. This was not well paved. I really wanted a seat belt, but that was not an option.
We drove about 30 minutes or so before we hit a check point.
An hour long wait gave Michael the chance to grab some “American Style” cream and onion flavored Lays. I’d like to say they were just like home, but that would be a lie.
And then we were on the road again! Driving about 10km per hour for another 30 minutes before the next check point. This time they were checking luggage. This was not a luggage scanner like at the airport. This was bags being pulled completely open to see what’s going on in there. Michael was the unlucky person to be at the head of the line and his entire backpack got emptied out on the table before she was satisfied. I was next and my packing saved me quite a bit of hassle. All you need is a bra right on top. It makes the soldiers really uncomfortable and they want nothing to do with you.
After another hour or so we were back on the road. Smooth sailing from here!
Except… our battery died.
Just a little messing around under the hood and we were back on our way. Smooth sailing from here!
We saw the next landslide while we were still a ways out and it looked bad. Basically a part of the road had just washed away. None of the big trucks were passing, but when we got up there we saw that the 4x4s were crossing. So we crossed on a very narrow road.
I tried to get a picture, but it doesn’t do it justice. I was terrified. It was around this time that my concern for our safety reached a panicked level. It didn’t help that my geotech husband was concerned about the roads as well. He just kept talking about how the roads weren’t going to hold up and how with just a bit of rain everything would be washed away. This is not what you want to hear just before it starts pouring down rain.
Grin and bear it?
We got another 15 or so kilometers under our belts before the next landslide. Right before we stopped, we hit a hard bump and I hit my head and my funny bone really hard (hurt for 24 hours hard). I started whining to Michael about how hard I hit my crazy bone (really really hard)! To which he started making fun of me for calling it by the wrong name. Everyone knows it’s called a funny bone. At which point Ralf let us know that it’s actually called the telephone bone in the Netherlands. Maybe because hitting your elbow sends a message down to your fingers?? We’re not really sure after having a full conversation about it. Please note that the internet has told me that the true name is the ulnar nerve. We had a lot of time on our hands to talk about random stuff.
For our next landslide, a portion of a bridge had washed out.
We were still at least an hour and a half or two hours from Kathmandu assuming no further issues and we had at least an hour wait here. They were putting rocks in a large cage to replace sections of the bridge before filling them with dirt. We were given a 1-3 hour time window for this to get fixed, but I was pretty concerned that even if it did get fixed the first truck to pass would cause the bridge to completely collapse. Bianca called in to one of her friends to see about having a car come in from Kathmandu to pick us up on the other side of the bridge… just in case this fix didn’t do the trick. For just 20 bucks a person we could have someone there in 1.5 hours to get us on the other side of the bridge… assuming no other problems. We put that idea on hold and waited to see how the bridge got sorted out.
They moved quite quickly and had some lights set up to help in the dark.
Also there was a snack shop that sold chips, water, and beer. Having not had lunch or dinner, we settled on the next best thing – beers. Did I mention that it was Tess’s birthday. Ralf had dinner in Kathmandu and a handful of other birthday surprises planned, but we were having too much fun on this road trip to make it in time to celebrate her birthday properly. So birthday beers it is!
The “fixed” bridge held up with the first few trucks… and ours, thank God… and we were on our way again. Smooth sailing from here!
Here’s Victor with a snickers. You’re not you when you’re hungry.
At some point, snickers became the snack of choice for our crew. We had been eating them for days and had a few to get us through the long day. You can see a bag of them in the beer picture up above.
Back on the road, with just 50 or so kilometers to drive we finally hit some real roads – mostly paved and everything!
That’s when we got a flat tire. True story.
So everyone jumped out of the truck and pitched in. We were holding lights, cranking the jack, unscrewing bolts, signaling to oncoming cars because it was pretty dark and rainy and we didn’t want to get hit.
I’m pretty sure it was this bathroom break in the tall grass when I got completely eaten alive:
Since we weren’t on malaria meds, I’d like to confidently say #nomaleriainnepal, but I’d be more accurate to say #googleismostlysurethatthereisnomaleriainthisareaofnepal.
We had that tire changed in under 10 minutes. Keep in mind that our only stops have been checkpoints, landslides, and car problems. We haven’t had any meals or formalized bathroom breaks. But despite all this, everyone was still in really good spirits. Ralf convinced the driver to let him play music off his iPhone and he had a legit playlist of 90s music and some more current stuff – both from Europe and the US. So we were all rocking out.
We arrived in Kathmandu around 11pm local time which is 1:15am Tibetan time. So it took us nearly 15 hours to drive the 115 kilometers from the border to Kathmandu. The next day we spoke with Steve, the Aussie from the other car. They got in another two hours after us. I told you our driver was amazing. These guys risk their lives doing this drive. It’s incredible. I would never drive on this road again and I would urge anyone who inquires not to either. It was a terrible ride and it was pretty scary. I am incredibly grateful that we survived it. It sounds dramatic, but I stand by the statement.
Once we arrived, we dropped our bags at the hotel and met back up with Bianca. I mentioned she use to live in Kathmandu, so she had an inside scoop on where we could get some late night food. Yes, 11pm is late night in Kathmandu. The police have everything shut down tight by midnight. When we left our hotel the guy at the front desk actually was nervous about us trying to find food until he found out we had a local taking care of us.
Most of the group was invited to dinner, but a lot of people bailed. It was late and everyone was exhausted. But Michael and I were pretty hungry and we knew that they were keeping a kitchen open late for us, so we met back up with Bianca and went to dinner. Apparently her closest friend, Rabin, owns the place, and since Bianca hadn’t been back to Nepal in two years, we had quite the welcome.
Fireworks, confetti bombs, a bottle of champagne, a bottle of Jack Daniels and most importantly, FOOD!
Momos (Nepali dumplings) and a handful of other Nepali dishes were waiting for us. Mmmmmmmmm.
We had lost Victor for awhile, but he finally made it out as well and we had a blast.
https://www.thatsonourlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/img_4467.mov
We were absolutely exhausted, but it was the type of trip that deserved celebrating. We arrived late on the 16th. Early morning on the 18th the road was washed out leaving a lot of people stranded for a few days. I made the mistake of googling the road – don’t do it. It’s dangerous and a lot of people die regularly on it. You can fly in and out of Kathmandu. If you feel the need to go to Nepal, try that instead.
