My parents arrival and a few days in Pokhara

I was excited to see my parents after being away for 7 months so got to the airport nice and early. It was cloudy in Kathmandu so their flight kept getting delayed, 6 hours in total. They were sat in Delhi and me in Kathmandu twiddling our thumbs. They finally arrived safe and sound.

It was a Monday evening, they hadn't been to bed since Friday night but the last thing they wanted to do was go to sleep. The hustle and bustle of Thamel, Kathmandu and a good catch up was awaiting.  We met up with the lads and Scottish for a good curry and chin wag.

The next morning I had to hand in my Indian visa application. Then spent the afternoon going to the monkey temple and Durbar square. The monkey temple is situated on the top of a hill with views overlooking the Kathmandu valley. There were hundreds of monkeys running around all over the place. We then went to the Kathmandu Dur Bar square for more catching up over coffee and cake. Then later on back to the same curry house, this time the so called chicken defiantly wasn't chicken. After the meal dad broke the news to mum, much to her horror, it may of been dog, possibly next doors Dalmatian!

We woke bright and early to miss rush hour traffic, we were off to Pokhara for a few days. The van had been parked since we arrived in Kathmandu 4 weeks ago so needed a jump start to get her going, the hotel owner was happy to help. Then we had to repeat the rigmarole with the low hanging cables. Dad was driving and I was shouting instructions from the roof, and as before a crowd appeared to watch our antics. The next task was fuel and put some air in the tyres then we were off on the road to Pokhara. Dad came to Nepal 40 years ago, once on a motorbike and then again in a Mercedes van. He had done the same road both times so enjoyed driving our van and comparing how different it is nowadays.

The road to Pokhara winds through the mountains, at some points you can see the road 50 metres away on the other side of the valley but it's 2-3 km to get there. We stopped a few times for coffee, tea and lunch. At one of the stops a monkey came along into the cafe and up the wall then was shoe'd away. In England you get seagulls being a nuisance, in Nepal you get monkeys!

We finished the 7 hour drive and arrived in Pokhara. The next day we hired a rowing boat and went out on Phewa lake. We rowed across to a restaurant where we got lunch. The view was amazing, massive lake, green foothills then snow capped mountains of the Annapurna range behind. The fish tail is the most prominent mountain at 6993m tall. Its named because the two adjacent peaks resemble a fish tail.

Over breakfast the following day we made the decision to have a crack at fixing the handbrake. We had new shoes and springs thanks to Jordan but needed a new linkage because the original was now a mangled ball of metal. We removed the remaining good linkage for a guide and took it to a machine shop for them to replicate it. The hotel manager kindly took me there on the back of his motorbike. 4 hours  and £15 later we had a new linkage, made from scratch. It is made up of two parts that pivot around a pin, not a simple job but they did it well.

The rear brakes are discs with internal drum for the handbrake. When putting it all back together we were struggling putting the drum back on over the shoes. After a while dad noticed the new shoes were 10mm to big in diameter. We had two options, re-line the old shoes or cut and weld the new ones. We opted for the re-lining. The next morning we found a taxi who was very helpful. He knew where to look for a brake re-lining workshop so we dropped the shoes off. He then took us to a car repair place (somebody's garden) to repair our broken earth strap from the leisure battery. Everywhere was closed so he brazed the broken terminal back together, and very well. We returned to the van with relined shoes and repaired earth strap. In Nepal they repair things rather than replace because labour is so cheap relative to new parts.

Again we had the same problem with the drum not fitting. The new linings were a few mil to thick. We heard a grinder going in a nearby building site so went on a hunt for it. With a bit of grinding of the braking material and filing of the metal part of the shoe they fitted like a glove. When repeating the process on the other side the brake pad separated from its back plate when removing the caliper. Another trip to the brake man and it was soon bonded back together! After a lot of farting about the handbrake was back together (not adjusted yet) and rear electrics working, now time for a well deserved steak.

They next morning we began gathering supplies for a night camping in the van. We bought the makings for a vegetable curry from a guy selling veg on his bike. Got a big bundle of wood from  furniture maker and strapped it to the roof and 20 chipatis. We found a picnic spot an hour from Pokhara and set up camp. We cooked the curry on the tripod over a wood fire. A local farmer came and had a beer with us around the campfire and we told him we wanted to get up to see the sunrise. We woke at 5.30am but it was misty so we went back to bed. 20 mins later theres a bang at the door of the van, it was the farmer waking us because the sun was visible through a break in the clouds. We got up, watched the sunrise and boiled some eggs for breakfast on the fire.

We packed up and headed back towards Kathmandu. We stopped at a cable car which took us up to a temple in the mountains. We weren't expecting much but the cable car kept on going over another tier of mountains to a good sized town. Turned out it was a pretty significant place for Buddhist, Sikh and Christian pilgrims. On the way back we were stood in the que and a guard told us to follow him. He took us to the front of the que, past about 2 hours worth of people. We felt bad but we had paid 4 times the amount for a 'foreigner ticket' which made us feel better about it.

Approaching Kathmandu we got stuck in traffic on a hill. Still with no handbrake mum had to press the brake with her hand whilst dad did the clutch and accelerator. We desperately needed to get it adjusted!

We arrived back at the Panda hotel after a great few days away.

Rob

Tibet Part 2 - Everest and entering Nepal

We left Lhasa along the friendship highway heading for Everest base camp. The friendship highway is built over the Tibetan Plateau nicknamed 'the roof of the world' where it's average elevation is over 4500m. It took us over three passes each over 5000m high and is 501 miles long up to the Nepalese border. We arrived in a town called Tingri, at the junction with the to road to basecamp.

Realy it was a road only suitable for 4x4's but we had confidence in Big Sal. We set off with four in the front, it was too bouncy to put someone in the back and the views were too good to miss. One person steering and pedals and one doing the gear stick. This became uncomfortable so two got on the roof. We traveled up taking it in turns to ride on the roof, with the view of Everest in the distance. The road was very bumpy and Sal took a beating but she arrived four hours later. At the top there  is a small village of tea houses and guesthouses all in canvas tents, base camp is a few km walk up the path.  Most people arrive, take it easy because of the altitude then get the bus to the viewpoint. Instead we packed a backpack with a crate of beer and headed up by foot to watch the sunset. We underestimated how hard the walk would be after a beer or two. We arrived at the base camp viewpoint (5130m) and what a view it was! There were lots of Chinese taking photos and one group of Chinese blokes got their tops off for a pose. We had to do one better, tops off and cacks down. About 50 Chinese people diverted their cameras from the biggest mountain in the world to photograph us three idiots! That wasn't enough, the ones who missed the photo opportunity asked us to repeat the stunt so they could have a photo. The Chinese army guys standing 10 m away didn't look too impressed! The sun set made the top of Everest and surrounding mountains glow orangey yellow. We walked back down in the dark, the 'shortcut' ended up being a longcut but we got back safely.

We slept in the van with all our clothes on trying to stay warm. Our alarms were set for sunrise so we got up and just watched it from the camp. One more trip up to base camp in the morning then it was time to go. Big Sal was very cold, her heater plugs weren't working and she was struggling to start. I tried to bypass the relay but one of the heater plugs had failed so it drained the battery. We asked a Chinese guy for a jump start. It took a lot of cranking for her to warm up but she spluttered into life then off we went back down the 4 hours of mountain track. Next was the Chinese border town of Zhangmu.

As we were leaving China, and our Tibetan guide Terry behind, there was only one thing or it, a leaving party. We had a fair few beers in a bar, met up with some Swiss guys who we met at base camp then got the fancy dress out. We went to a small club, had a bit of a boogie then slept in the van.

We changed some money into Nepalese rupees and began proceedings to leave China. We passed the customs border with no problems. When we arrived at the actual border we were instructed to park the van just before the vehicle gate, then walk through the pedestrian gate to get our visas stamped which all worked fine. When we were returning to the van we were stopped by some Chinese soldiers bearing big automatic rifles. They refused to let us return to the van for two reasons. One, the van was on the Chinese side and we had just had our visas stamped as expired and two they had laid some new concrete which apparently wasn't set yet. The concrete had been laid 4 days ago and was hard enough for a guy to be chipping it away with hammer and chisel. The soldiers found it funny that we had to wait in no mans land for 3 more days waiting for some rock hard concrete to set a little more. And we could see the van 30 m away but wern't allowed to it because we didn't have a valid Chinese visa. We were in a bit of a pickle. We kept on pestering the soldiers to let us back to van but they consistently refused.  We kept pestering them and generally being nuisances till in the end we just walked through the vehicle gate against the soldiers instructions. In the end they agreed to let us go to the van and have lunch. We were scratching our heads, if we waited three days we would be late for Gaz's arrival in Kathmandu. The soldiers came to our cafe and asked Stew for our passports. We had to surrender them because we technically shouldn't be in China. Stew said no chance, so they said we had to return to no mans land. Stew said 'with the van? With the van? With the van'. They gave in and said, 'yes with the van'. Bingo, we all jumped in and didn't stop until we got to the Nepalese gate, straight over their so called new concrete! We wern't sure if they were after a bribe but they didn't get one. We were held up for a few hours instead of 3 days so not a bad outcome.

The next hurdle came when we were paying for our Nepalese visa. They outright refused to take their own currency, rupees. They only accepted USD, they wouldn't even take more rupees than the equivalent dollars as a bribe. We had to ask every man and his dog for some dollars. A shop owner had a 100 dollar bill in his top drawer, only 200 more to find. No banks had any, eventually a guy approached us so we bought some from him on the black market. At one point we thought we weren't going to find enough in the small border town.

Were were finally in Nepal and on our way to Kathmandu. What a difference it was from China. The two lane, good surfaced friendship highway turned into a single laned, mostly bitumen but riddled in potholes, ridges and cracks.  We heard news that there was a big landslide which blocked the road for over a month, but was now clear. We came across the aftermath of a pretty big landslide, 300-400 metres long but all cleared up nicely, we were happy but little did we know the worse was yet to come. When we approached it, it looked like the scene of a natural disaster, and it was. The whole side of the mountain had slipped away, filling the valley and damming the river. We learnt that when the Nepalese unblocked the dam the surge of water flooded large parts of India and many drowned. This was a seriously big landslide! A new road, if that's what you can call it, had just been completed. It was dug into the loose rocks left behind by the slide. Only being one lane wide, very steep, with tight hair pins and a surface of sand mixed with rock, we knew Big Sal would struggle. We had no choice, we had to carry on. We spun our way up the road, 200m sheer drop on one side. When we didn't think the road could get any worse, it did, and we were well and truly stuck. We were blocking the other traffic so it was all hands to deck. We rounded up 30 odd Nepalese to help push the van. It worked and we continued another few hundred metres up and we were stuck again. Even with loads pushing we couldn't get it going. What made it more difficult was our lack of hand brake, it had disintegrated in China. This resulted in one foot on the clutch, one foot on the accelerator, one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the foot brake, it made hill starts even more difficult than they already were. A guy approached claiming to be a professional driver, it was our last resort, we let him have a go. He rocked the van forward and back then whoosh, he was off up the hill with our van. Shit.......... he's got our van......... with everything in it! We chased him up the road and he stopped on some slightly better surface. There was no malice in it but we panicked for a second! We were dubious about his claims at first, but he defiantly was a professional driver. The down hill wasn't much better, 3.5 tonnes of vehicle on steep gravel descents and bends with sheer drops off the edge. The whole thing was a poo yourself experience but we got down. We stopped at the next cafe for a well deserved beer.

We finally arrived in Kathmandu. The traffic was ridiculous, cars and motorbikes going in literally all directions. I think the highway code must just say toot and go. We were aiming for Thamel, the tourist quarter. We eventually found it and drove through the centre. Narrow streets with bright lights, lined with bars and outdoor shops and probably more tourists than locals. We had a slight problem. There were lots of low hanging power and phone cables, much lower than the van. Stew got on the roof and was passing them over and shouting instructions as we slowly drove through. Other westerners were amazed to see a British vehicle and were taking photo's of us and our cable obstacles. We eventually found a parking spot then went out for some well deserved drinks.

What a day. Getting stuck in no mans land without van, not being able to pay for Nepalese visa with Nepalese currency, negotiating the land slide with the most technical and dangerous drive yet then stuck amongst low cables in Kathmandu. Certainly a day to remember.

Rob

Gaz's Arrival and Rafting nepal

After our nightmare with the low cables and bad roads, we decided to find a hotel with parking and park big Sal up whilst in Nepal. With Dunny asleep in the back, dead to the world, me and Stew set about trying to find a place to park. Stew was back on the roof on cable duty and I was driving. After pulling a cable out of the wall (sorry to whoever lost power that day) we found a hotel with parking. When reversing through a tight gate not much wider than the van, with Stew on the roof moving cables and loads of motorbikes flying all around the van, a taxi driver parked behind us. Smack, his rear door had a new feature, a massive dent. He wasn't particularly pleased but we paid him £40 to keep his mouth shut and bugger off. We are convinced he saw our predicament and was looking for the crash to make some money from us. Some Nepalese kids recommended a different hotel, we checked it out and it was perfect. The New Hotel Panda. A locked compound with 24 hour security. We booked one room for two people, split the cost, took it in turns to sleep in the van in the car park and all share the shower. It was perfect!

We we're looking forward to Gaz's arrival and had planned a big day and night out. We met him at the airport at 10 am and greeted him with the purple Chinese dress, a silver sparkly thong,  flowery bonnet and a couple of bottles of rum. His initiation to the tour was about to commence. We got a taxi back to the hotel panda room, put some music on and had a good catch up. Gaz came bearing gifts, a bottle of rum, bottle of grey goose but more importantly a set of brake shoes and return springs to fix our handbrake. Thanks Jordan for sorting out the bits for us.  We played cards, listened music then with Gaz in his new attire we hit the town hard. A few bars, clubs and kebabs later we got back to the van/hotel in the early hours, the early bus to Pokhara would be a struggle.

Next thing on the agenda, white water rafting. Three days rafting, 2 nights camping on the river bank. We were excited!

Feeling hungover from Gaz's arrival party we got up and headed for the bus to Pokhara. I'm not particularly good with hangovers at the best of times but being on a bus along bouncy and twisty roads for 8 hours didn't bode well for Gaz who was asleep in the aisle below me. 'Gaz wake up, wake up Gaz I'm going to be sick!' I was frantically shaking him to get him to move.  It was too late, sorry Gaz for spewing on you!

We arrived in Pokhara, checked into the rafting tour, found a hotel and went out for a banging steak.

We had to get up early for the three hour drive up into the mountains. There had been lots of rain so the rivers were nice and full. The views from the bus were unbelievable. Looking down on valleys full of fluffy clouds and snow capped mountains behind. We arrived at the river, unloaded all the kit from the roof rack and had some lunch. In our group there was us four and 8 other Israelis. We had two rafts for people, 6 plus a guide in each, one raft for kit and 3 safety kayaks to follow us down. The cargo raft carried so much kit. Tents, a full kitchen, 3 days worth of food, lots of backpacks and four people. Big respect to the one guy paddling it down the river.

We set off on the river in the afternoon and what a river it was. Sections of grade 4 rapids one after another. The raft was getting chucked around at all sorts of angles and we were doing our best to stay in. We arrived drenched at a beach on the riverbank a few hours later, it would be our camp for the night. Everyone mucked in and got the rafts unloaded and tents set up. The guides offered to walk to the nearest shop, 1 hour each way, to get us beers. We felt a bit guilty when we ordered 30 bottles but he was willing to carry them and make a few quid. We played volleyball then the beers arrived and things escalated quite quickly. I lost a shot gun and had to run into the river naked. We played cards, introduced the group to ring of fire. The guides joined in and everyone had a good time. There was another rafting group set up along the beach. Two of them had obviously lost a dare and had to come and do a silly dance around our group. We obviously had to reciprocate with one better. Gaz and Stew lost shotgun so stripped off and did the same dance around their camp starkers. They thought it was hilarious and bought us some cake as a present.  The four of us decided to sleep outside that night on the mats.

The next days rafting was as good or better than the first. Lots of silly behavior, pushing each other in including the two Israeli girls, they weren't too impressed! They let us body surf down the rapids which was good, getting properly bashed around. When the guide said rocks ahead we were quick to climb back in.

The next nights camping spot was on a grass area near the inside of a meander. The night was a bit more sensible, playing cards and chatting. We heard the sound of drums coming from the next camp, we went to investigate. When we got there it was dying down and most people were asleep, there was an awkward silence, Gaz said 'we've come to listen to your drums' more awkward silence then we left.

The last day of rafting was flip day. If the raft hits a rapid at a certain angle and the guide flicks his rudder oar the whole raft flips over leaving everyone in the rapids. It was great fun, the raft flipped, the people on the top side were flung through the air. One if the Israeli girls was stuck in the air pocket underneath. Gaz, who had pushed her in 30 mins ago redeemed himself by dragging her out and 'saving her life'. They were friends again. We finished with another flip then royal rumble on the upturned raft.

We finished up just before the biggest hydro dam in Nepal. The security guard kindly let us have a mooch about.

We had lunch and packed the bus up. It was sunny so we asked to travel on the roof. We spent the first hour of the journey on the roof, winding down mountain roads clinging on, and ducking under low trees and power cables.

That evening the group and guides met up in a pub to watch the DVD they made of the trip and have a few beers. They said they don't normally get people like us, a guy from the Kathmandu office 100 miles away had heard about our antics! We went to the busy bee club in Pokhara for a couple with the guides then hit the sack. All in all a brilliant few days.

Rob

UB with mum and Em

We picked mum and Emily up from the airport, randomly they had been on the same flight as Geoffs mum, we headed straight up to the hill we had been a couple of nights before to give them a sense of the real Mongolia rather than the overcrowded, polluted ulaanbataar. When we got to the top of the hill (me and nobby travelling on the vans roof) we saw the amazing view of ub and the other way unspoiled mongolian countryside. A few beers and some catching up later and a local goat hearder came over to have a look. Mum asked 'what do you think he wants?' 'I think he wants to be invited over' soon he was sitting on the roof of the van beer in hand offering his horse for my binoculars! After a while he invited us to his Ger at 3 o'clock,he checked and double checked that we where coming. At 3 we where there and having airag (fermented mares milk), food and milky tea. The hospitality we've been shown in Mongolia is amazing! We rode his horses and he drove the van, fair swap! After this we headed to our hostel in ub.

A couple of days in ub before Helen arrived. we went to the black market, brought gaz some lovely clothes :) loads of pick pockets there and it is massive! Met up with Sanchei after a day of sight seeing while the lads mended the van, he took me to his local gym with a couple of mates. He is a mongolian boxing champion and his mate is taikwando champion in the Asian championships! Pretty cool, we trained boxing, kicks from taikwando and did wrestling, a bit of ju jitsu and after two hours I was knackered! Came back and went to a Korean restaurant, food was class. Nobby and dunny where off in the van with a couple of Brits we met earlier.

Tibet - Part 1

All other travelers we met said they were jealous we were going to Tibet and 'how did you manage to get a permit?' The more we looked into it we realised how difficult it was to get in and how many good things there was to see. Therefore we had high expectations and were very excited. 

In 2008 there were violent protests in Tibet between Tibetans and Chinese who effectively walked into Tibet and said, we're having that. Tibet is a very policed region with police and army checkpoints every hundred or so kilometres. Jimmy had warned us about our calor gas bottle on the roof rack. He said we were not allowed to travel through Tibet with a gas bottle due to security reasons. The first checkpoint we arrived at, the policeman was pointing at the gas bottle and shouting at Terry. Not knowing any Tibetan we guessed Terry's response by his body language. He replied with, 'It's a f@#king campervan, what do you expect!'. The young policeman didn't know how to respond, we continued with the gas bottle on the roof. Later Jimmy confirmed our suspicions and said 'I can't believe it, Terry just told the policeman to f@#k off!'. Brilliant, it seemed we wouldn't have any trouble at checkpoints in Tibet.

We were heading towards Lhasa, the capital of Tibet and the most holy Buddhist city on Earth. The road climbed into the mountains, mountain pass after mountain pass. The temperature began to drop the higher we got. We arrived at a pass, 5200m, frozen lakes and snow covered mountains. It was getting serious now! Big Sal was doing well, struggling a bit on the climbs due to the thin air, down into 1st gear on the steep bits, but still holding her own against other traffic. We hit a traffic jam, me and Stew rode on the roof for a bit much to the locals surprise! We could really notice the effects of altitude, getting out of breath from just walking a few metres. At this altitude water boils at 70 degrees. Considering the rapid gain in altitude we were fairing pretty well, slight headaches but generally OK. Jimmy was suffering, head in hands and complaining about sickness, the big girl!

We parked up in a village at 4500m. The 5 of us slept in the van, fully clothed trying to stay warm. We woke at 7am with ice on the inside of the glass, it was a bloody cold night! We had a flat tyre, the first of the tour so far. It was OK, we had two spares, one of which turned out to be as flat as the one that was coming off, bollox! The second spare wasn't much better. We drove the 100k to the next town and got both spares pumped up. This confirmed our decision to get two new rear tyres in Lhasa. They rears were pretty knackered.  It was dark, about 100k from Lhasa, when BOOM, we had a blowout. The other rear disintergrated. Luckily we got the second spare pumped up! Only two punctures on the try so far and both on the same day! We drove the last 100k to Lhasa with no spare. We arrived at 11.30PM safe and sound and parked smack bang in old town.

We woke to the sound of someone bouncing on the rear step of the van. I jumped out in my boxers thinking it may of been round two of someone trying to pinch the bikes from the roof.  It turned out to just be a curios road sweeper. Probably never seen a vehicle like ours parked in Lhasa old town before.

We walked arround old town and immediately loved the place. Narrow cobbled streets, old stone buildings and windows colourfully decorated with paint and flags. We met Terry at a tea room next to where the van was parked. It was brilliant, full of locals sitting around drinking Tibetan butter tea. We spent the rest of the day finding tyres for the van and cycling around the town. At the tyre place Dunny asked if they had a toilet, 'yes offcourse sir, over in that room' see photo! We went to the University for Stew to enquire about teaching English in Lhasa. After arguing with security we managed to meet the person responsible for setting up foreign teaching placements. Stew had an interview and exchanged contact details, it looked promising.

We arranged to meet Terry at our hostel for some drinks at his local. He sent a friend to meet us. We followed him over the road, down a side road, through an alley, up some steps into a old Tibetan block of flats. It was cool, it had internal balconies over looking a central courtyard. Past the communal long drops we entered a three room flat. The owner sold beer in her front room. It was brilliant, we met Terry's friends and sang song for song. Everyone was friendly and pleased to meet us. We headed out into town. We went to a Tibetan dance hall. Not dance music as we would normally expect but more like ball room dancing. We obviously showed them all how to do the tango with brilliant style and finesse. (Not). Terry had a bit of a disagreement with another Tibetan man. It turned into pushing and shoving. We broke it up and moved onto another bar.

The following day we woke up with thick heads. It was the day to visit the Potala Palace. The most sacred Buddhist temple in the world. Set on a hill with over 11 floors and more than 1000 rooms it dominates the skyline of Lhasa. It wasn't like any other temple and well worth the visit. Terry knew the security so we were allowed more than the permitted 1 hour to walk around. We spent the rest of the day and evening exploring old town. There was something about it that made it our favourite town on the trip so far. The people were cool, carrying prayer beads, colourful braids in their hair and old school dress. We were sad to leave and would of liked to spend much longer in Lhasa. But things weren't all bad, we were on our way to Everest Base Camp!

Rob

Mount Tai and Shanghai

We drove from Beijing to Hongmen and found a hostel. We arrived at 6PM and got ready for the walk up Mount Tai. The tradition is to walk through the night and get to the top for the sunrise. We set off at midnight and began the 7000 steps to the top. It's an old path built so emperors could climb and worship at the temple at the top, 1500 m above sea level.  It was brilliant, nice stonework and old bridges crossing a gorge with waterfalls and old engravings in the rock. Then lots of old temples at the top. What was meant to be a 5 hour climb took us 3.5 so we had a bit of time chilling at the top.

The sunrise was very unimpressive, it was far to misty to see it.

The norm is to get the cable car and bus back down, but we wanted to see the path in daylight which was a good decision. Our guide, Jimmy, was tired so he got the cable car back down. We got down in two hours, mixture of walking, jogging and jumping down the steps. Felt good to do a good stint of solid exercise.

We stopped at a city called Quofu with an old walled centre. We walked around the outside wall and moat then stopped at some street food vendors and had some absolute beauts. A cold fruit smoothie drizzled in syrup was everyones favourite.

Next stop was Nanjing, the former capital of China. Nanjing translates directly to south capital. (Beijing translates to north capital). We parked the van up down a quiet side street. It looked perfect. We woke up to find the van amongst a shed load of market stalls selling street food. We heard tapping at the window, the van was surrounded by policemen, one had a pretty serious gun slung over his shoulder. We weren't going to argue with them, we got dressed and drove off pretty quickly.

We found another spot to park a little bit out of town. Quickly a crowd gathered around the van, all intrigued about us, our van and why we were parked on their road. A Chinese guy stopped on his bike and began chatting to us in Chinese. Jimmy translated that he was inviting us up to his flat for tea. 5 minutes later some coppers turned up and checked all our paperwork and said we had to move the van, we moved 20 metres up the road, all seemed good. We went to the guys flat for tea and a turn out. He whipped out some musical instruments and played some tunes for us, then went and bought us breakfast leaving us alone in his flat, very trusting. We had our suspicions he may be the local drunk. Our suspicions were confirmed when he polished off a bottle of vodka over lunch. We headed to a river in Nanjing, it was huge with serious amounts of shipping going up and down. On the way back to the van we came across an outside party, with one lady singing and a hundred or so people gathered round. The next thing we have 100 pairs of eyes staring at us, everybody tapping their mate and pointing over. They probably hadn't seen a foreigner in there estate before.

We woke up, went for a jog then made our way towards Shanghai. It was Saturday, two days until my birthday and we had planned to be driving all day on my birthday so it made sense to have a night out tonight. We bought some Chinese fire water (56% proof) which got us well on the way. The lads made me where the sexy little Chinese number that Stew wore on his birthday a week before. We met some Germans at the hostel and went to a sports bar with them which was good fun. We liked the look of Shanghai so much we decided to stay a few more days than planned.

Me and Dunny went out for a beer the following evening. We were struggling to find a bar with cheap beer. A girl approached us and said she works for a bar where beers were £3 which was the cheapest we could find. We followed her to a bar which turned out to be a brothel. When we said we weren't interested and tried to leave 6 horrible looking Chinese blokes stood in our way, locked the door of the room we were in and claimed to be mafia. They threatened to beat us and drop us in the countryside unless we paid them money. Dunny got up to leave and they through him back down onto the sofa.  They took £190 of each of my cards. Not a very pleasant experience but we got out alright. After we met some genuinely nice Chinese guys and had a drink in their bar with them. The following day we went to a police station, explained the situation so we could get a transcript from them and hopefully get my bank to reverse the transactions. Great way to spend your birthday! The next evening made up for it. We went and sat down on the Bund and saw the most awesome skyline I've seen. At night it was even better, all lit up. We met two English girls who were travelling China. We went out for some amazing street food then down to the Bund for the next where's willy.

The next two day was spent cycling around Shanghai admiring unbelievable skyscrapers, bridges and general brilliant infrastructure. Everything is new and clean. The area surrounding our hostel had about 50 small shops selling machine tools and spares. Just showed how much the country is geared towards manufacturing. Loads of construction here too, skyscrapers going up all over the city.

We still haven't heard whether we can get a permit for Tibet which is annoying. We are going to start heading west across China anyway.

Shanghai was awesome, up there with St. Petersburg as my favourite city so far on this tour.

Rob

Off to China

We had a good few weeks with the girls but it was time for them to go back to work - unlucky! We said our farewells at the airport then headed back into town.

We collected a parcel from the TNT office. An exhaust downpipe, front indicator, side lamp and number plate light. All of which fell out or broke on the crap Mongolian roads. The van took a fair beating in Mongolia. Thanks Baker, Whitey and my parents for getting the bits out to us.

Our priorities for the next few days was to get the van fixed and have a send off party for Mongolia. We met up with Sanchir, Arry, Jaruu and others and had some beers at their summer house. The next morning we fitted all the parts to the van which went well. 

We received an email from our Chinese tour agent saying that Tibet have clamped down on issuing permits to foreigners and the road from Tibet to Kathmandu is closed due to a landslide. So at this point we still don't know where we are going after China. The original plan is Nepal then India but plan b is Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia then ship van to Australia, sell it and fly home. Not a bad second option! We will find out on September 15th.

We left a few days to get to the Chinese border, in case of bad roads or van problems. It turned out the road was one of the best in Mongolia. We got near the border with time to spare.  The drive down was awesome. Driving through the Gobi with next to no other cars, amazing views of nothingness as far as you could see and the odd camel plodding across the road.

Dunny received the sad news that his Grandfather passed away. We dropped all plans. We bought a load of beer and a litre of Mongolians finist Chinggis Khan Gold vodka and headed to the Gobi for a wake. We found a remote spot in the desert and parked the van up. Out came some fancy dress outfits and the three of us had a party for Ken... to Ken.

We woke up with sore heads and all went for a turn out in the desert. I shouted over to the lads, 'come over here and see this, it's genuinely worth a look'. They walked over a bit confused. There were two dung beetles rolling in my dump. They crash landed next to me shortly after crimping off and began rolling it into balls. We watched fascinated for 20 minutes, Stew and Dunny both did the same and without fail two more dung beetles arrived! Interesting stuff!

We tidied up from the night before and drove to the border.

Mongolia has been brilliant, never seen so much of nothing before, which was what made it so good. Rolling hills, desert, mountains, lakes, volcano and loads of people still living in Gers with a nomadic lifestyle. It's the most sparsely populated country in the world, 3 million inhabitants (1.5 million live in the capital)  in a country 6 times the size of the UK.  Loads of wildlife, eagles flying overhead, vultures covering hillsides and we road horses and camels. We met loads of nice people who we stayed in contact with during the 7 weeks we were there. Thanks Mongolia you have been good!

Bring on China!