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A Bit of Knowledge

I've been trying to watch Palin's Himalaya series after I returned, since it's been running on Norwegian TV. Two weeks ago (that's the 16th), it was the episode with Zhashenlunbu monastery (which we visited) and Lhasa (showing the lake park in front of Potala palace, a park that's since been ruined and converted into a boring Chinese-style awful thing). Today, it's about Bhutan, the possible destination for my vacation in 2007.

So far, I've acquired two useful bits of knowledge:

Oh, and there are a couple more new pictures around, but I don't recall where I put them. The gallery is nice and places a "new" mark on albums that were updated less than 48 hours ago, and an "updated" mark on albums that were updated between two and five days ago.

2005-11-30 20:58:22

"New" Images from Kathmandu and Bhaktapur

I forgot to post any images from our excursion to Bhaktapur earlier, which is a shame, because it was a very pleasant city to visit, with plenty of preserved or reconstructed architecture. Foreign governments have been big sponsors here, and the city itself was the cleanest of those we visited in Nepal; Pokhara holds the second place.

Here are some more images from Kathmandu and Bhaktapur.

2005-11-15 22:50:03

About London

I met with Rune Bakken for breakfast at 10 AM on Saturday. We then proceeded to take the tube to Hyde Park Corner, which gave us a decent place to start a walk through parts of Hyde Park. We went looking for the fairly new monument to animals killed in war, and then proceeded towards the Serpentine, the boathouse, and later the Diana Memorial Fountain in Kensington Gardens. We took some photos in one of Rune's favorite elements, water, and then went for a pint (Guinness for Rune, cider for me) at a nice pub.

That's all I had time for, and afterwards it was just the stress of getting home with 13 kg overweight luggage, not counting laptop and camera ... :)

2005-11-06 15:46:10

I'm back!

And that concludes the greatest (and most expensive) vacation ever.

Now it's time to follow the rest of the itinerary, and then start saving for another great vacation. Maybe I can afford something in 2007. ;)

2005-11-05 22:13:09

Quick Update

I've now seen "Be Cool" with Uma Thurman and John Travolta, the followup to "Get Shorty". Well, it was something to do with my time, but if I'd been paying specifically to see that movie, I'd be disappointed. So if you liked "Get Shorty" and think you're in for a treat, forget it.

I also had a nap in the fully reclining chair. That was nice, and I'll definitely have another one shortly. The plane is a bit ahead of schedule.

Internet access times improved about the time we reached the border of Iran, I think, and I'm now seeing times closer to 250 ms. That's about as good as it gets by satellite.

In the interest of generating further envy (I must have some value for money when I'm paying this much!), I'll quote the dinner menu, too:

The lunch menu was quite similar. I'm now enjoying a cup of warm cocoa, with a bit more cocoa in it than the previous cup. I'm afraid Raffles class can be addictive. :)

2005-11-04 16:01:02

On the Plane

Just for the heck of it. :)

This is posted from aboard SQ320 (Boeing 747-400). Someone graciously gave me a card with a one-time login for 30 minutes free Internet access, so I'm happily using that right now.

Technically speaking, it's not very impressive, but it's not depressing, either. RTT for ping to 129.240.64.2 is between 360 and 390 ms, and I'm getting 20-25 kB/s in download speed of ls-lR.gz from ftp.kernel.org. IRC is workable.

I'd write something about how good lunch is on Raffles class, but you'd all just be envious or something, except for the cost. Suffice to say that I understand why it's a lot more expensive than economy class, and that it's a nice way to round off an otherwise rather expensive vacation.

Oh, okay, then. We started with Duck fois gras with roasted winter vegetable-duck confit salad and mesclun. There was some delicious garlic bread on the side, and I selected the Chateau Coufran 1998 to drink. I could choose from the following main courses (my selection in italic):

Then there was a selection of cheese, unfortunately not very good compared to a decent restaurant, but adequate, accompanied by a nice Taylor's port from 2000 and some fresh fruit. I also had some Mövenpick chocolate ice cream with mango coulis, but skipped the difficult selection of gourmet coffees and teas.

Hopefully needless to say, everything was good, and most of it very good.

I wonder what I'll do for dinner ...

2005-11-04 07:34:08

Leaving Singapore

Pant, pant, pant. Getting ready to leave with all my stuff is always a tiring experience, no matter how long I've been gone or whatever. Right now, my room here in Singapore is a huge mess, but I'll have it sorted in less than an hour.

This time I have the option of leaving behind stuff that I just want to toss, such as old clothes, but I'll still be significantly above the weight limit on checked-in luggage (20 kg). I'm still debating whether an upgrade to business class will be worth it (10 kg extra checked-in allowance, two carry-on bags instead of one, and a far better seat for 13-14 hours).

Today, I've resisted purchasing lots of expensive stuff. Some things were easy not to buy, such as the elegant watch for SGD 378 000, while others weren't quite so easy, such as the simplistic watch for SGD 4000+ (minus rebates and GST). A fulfilling vegetarian dinner with Odd Einar and Asbjxrn concluded a very nice time in Singapore. My only regret is that I had hoped to find the time to meet with a couple of people I know from Viking MUD, but that was not to be. Damnation!

Yesterday, I cooked Boeuf Bourgignone and brownies for the Norwegian Invasion, and it was well received with them, as well as their Singaporean wives.

The net damage in terms of images taken on this vacation is 2855, including both mine and Odd Einar's. In an act of unprecedented decency, I don't plan to bore anyone by doing a slideshow of all the images. :) :) :)

Some of the images seem to be of a high enough quality that I could put together an image portfolio. We'll see where that leads.

As for returning to Singapore and Asia, yes, I think I'll do that in the future. Maybe not as soon as next year -- my finances must recover first -- but perhaps in 2007. There are several new Banyan Tree resorts opening. ;) While Banyan Tree is an Asian corporation, they're also opening resorts in Mexico and Greece (Pylos) that year, so those who want to experience the magic without flying to Asia can do so.

And if I yet again may recommend Tibet as a travelling experience: go there if you can afford it. It's not very expensive to stay or travel in Tibet seen from a northern European perspective.

Well, I guess that's it. TTFN!

2005-11-03 16:19:02

Images from Diqing

On Sunday, we went shopping. And verily, we went shopping on Monday, too. The net result is one laptop and one "barebone" box. Odd Einar is now happily(?) fiddling with the setup of the new toy, an AMD dual core thingybob. In the meanwhile, I've been going through the remainder of the images, taken on Thursday and Friday. I just added them to the gallery, starting with an image of the Gyalthang Dzong Hotel.

2005-11-01 16:30:45

Back in .sg

The really exciting part of the trip is now over and done with.

China Eastern showed remarkable efficiency with the flight from Diqing to Kunming, and we took off less than 30 seconds after the scheduled departure time, landing with the same precision. The only downside were the lousy seats, which we could deal with for a 45-minute flight. At Kunming airport, we had less than two hours from disembarking the plane to the scheduled departure, and we also had to get our luggage and check it in again. The international departure from Kunming caused us a little bit of confusion, as the check-in counter for MU0749 was behind the outgoing customs check. After customs and check-in, it was time to deal with immigration (of course you have to deal with immigration to get out of the country) and our expired visas. There was no problem at all (three days over the limit was supposed to be okay, remember?).

The flight from Kunming was different. The time for departure was nearing, but no announcements were made, and the flight didn't appear on the gate's board, nor were there any staff there. I was joking that the flight wouldn't be "delayed" until there was a new departure time to be announced, and I was almost correct. We left about 20-30 minutes late, and only to be escorted to a bus. The bus was taxiing, or so it appeared, until we were at a 737 pretty far away from the terminal building. The plane took off 45 minutes late.

Immigration at Changi was smooth as usual, while baggage was slow.

Today I'll relax a bit more, and perhaps make a decision as to whether I'll go to KL or not.

Øystein: I got your tea, but not your belt.

2005-10-29 05:30:17

Leaving Ringha

Well, that was that. Two nights and two days. At least there's flexibility in check-out times at a hotel like this. The total damage, including two dinners, one lunch, the cultural tour, two spa sessions (there was a cancellation this morning; Odd Einar was too ill to take his session), taxes and service charge is RMB 7839.10.

It's been very, very good. Christina warned me that I might get hooked on Banyan Tree resorts. There certainly is a risk for that! But not until next month's salary ticks in. ;)

Next destination: Gyalthang Dzong Hotel.

2005-10-27 08:42:21

Cultural Tour and the Spa

Phew!

Imagine me on horseback. Well, you don't have to imagine it, an image taken by the guide is in the gallery.

The cultural tour was based on horseback, but we didn't really ride the horse. Two local kids led the horses all the way, I just had to sit on it. I trusted the horse to know its business, and I just relaxed as well as I could; the last time I was on a horse was when I was six or seven years old. There was only one problem, and that was with the stirrups, which were a bit too short for my long, Norwegian legs. That made the whole business much more tiresome than necessary, probably for the horse, too.

We saw a semi-modern Tibetan home, then went on to Ringha monastery, and finished with lunch in a house in the local village. As is usual, there was too much food, but it was very good.

I had hoped to get a nice relaxing massage session at the spa, but yesterday, they reported that they were full for the entire period we're here. Ouch.

But lucky me! Once we got back from that sitting-on-a-horse trek, there turned out to be an opening for a 90-minute session. I chose something called the Banyan Back Reviver. Massage is performed by a well-trained Thai therapist; they have seven here at Shangri-La. It was both uncomfortable and comfortable, ending with a soothing face massage. I'm so relaxed. Highly recommended, 780 Yuan plus taxes and service charge is a fair price.

I forgot to mention a few things about the trip from Lhasa to here. For one thing, we had a police escort almost all the way to the airport, which was very efficient. Oh, allright, so it was the Chinese dignitaries who had a police escort, and our driver who just followed as well as he could.

If anyone can decipher the following piece of Chinglish found at Lhasa airport, I'd be much obliged:

"Rarly sauce yak meat"

(Barley sauce? It was yak meat, at least.)

After the plane took off 50 minutes late, we got a nice view when we'd gained another thousand meters or so: through every window, on either side of the plane, there were mountains as far as the eye could see. It was an amazing view. Flying over the rockies just doesn't compare, and the map doesn't do Tibet justice.

2005-10-26 09:25:01

Ringha Tibetan Village

Well, we made it, kindof. :)

The immigration officers at Lhasa airport couldn't help, but they claimed it usually wasn't a problem if we are out of the country within three days of the visa expiry. Which we are. If we are unlucky, we may have to pay a fine at Kunming airport, and that fine may be approximately 100 RMB per day per person. We'll try to get that proper extension anyway.

And how is Ringha? Well, it's excellently luxurious. I have half a villa -- sorry, "Tibetan lodge" -- to myself, lots and lots of space, too much even for two persons. It's such a tranquil and pleasant place that I'm considering to make way in my future vacation budgets for new stays at other Banyan Tree resorts.

Yesterday, we had an excellent Chinese-style dinner, where we ate more than we should. Eating too much seems to be a recurring event on this trip; normal breakfast, huge lunch, huge dinner.

Odd Einar has caught a cold or a flu or something, and won't be getting the best out of this two-night stay, which is a shame. Christina (that's his wife) and I will be going on a "cultural tour" today, a light trek where we'll see some of the local landscape and eat lunch in a village nearby.

I'm in the process of uploading some images right now, hopefully I'll get most of them done before we start our trek in 30 minutes.

2005-10-26 01:33:36

Last Night in Lhasa

I thought I'd write something inbetween this and the previous entry, describing more of the trip, but ...

As Øystein has noted in the comments, the visa problems continue, since our tour operator here in Tibet reported that the PSB couldn't have an extension ready today. Our plane for Diqing is leaving at 13:10 local time tomorrow, and we have to leave for the airport at 11:00, so there is of course no chance to fix it tomorrow morning either. The issue is that the PSB in Tibet apparently works a bit slower with visa extensions than elsewhere, mainly because Tibet is a closed area, and that requires extra checking or something. Our tour operator therefore recommends that we try to fix this with the PSB in Diqing instead. We arrive in Diqing at 14:40, and the PSB offices close at 16:00 (sharp!), so there will be little time to fix this in.

I've therefore contacted our dear embassy via email, and will also call them in the morning, to hear their take on this problem.

If we have to leave the country, it's very tempting to book a flight to Kathmandu and have a word or two with a certain tour operator there. (I forgot to mention the lies upon lies we got, too.)

In any case, most of this trip has been a happy one, and I hope it will continue to be a happy one after tomorrow afternoon.

Ringha should have Internet access, so I'll blog from there, but if we don't get an extension, well, I don't know where and when I'll blog from.

Enjoy some of today's latest images in the gallery, and don't be too bored by the four monk pictures.

Oh, BTW, Øystein: no luck on the leather belt so far. I'll try to grab some tea at the airport, if possible.

2005-10-24 15:07:10

In Lhasa

Sorry, there was no chance of doing an update until now. Some of you have received text messages from me, and have had an idea about how things have been going.

I'll be (relatively) brief, this computer room is cold.

We got over the border just fine the following day, just in the nick of time: 15 minutes before the border closed for the day.

The hotel in Zhangmu was pretty bad -- and our guess is that so is the other hotel in Zhangmu, so I won't bother trying to recall its name. We used our silk (low weight!) sleeping bag liners to avoid direct physical contact with the linen, and didn't shower because there was hot water only between 20:00 and 22:00 or something like that, and we didn't know until the following morning.

The "hotel" in Tingri (altitude: 4300-something meters) is more like a motel or guest house. There was no running water, no toilets (only squatting slots), one lightbulb (10W?), cold (we had snow), sand everywhere (and I mean everywhere), a restaurant (heh) filled with smoke from the dung-based oven, and I woke up at 02:00 with the shits. And at 05:00, which is about when the electric power went, too. I tried to drink some Sprite for breakfast, but combined with the smoke and whatnot, I had to run outside and throw up the rest of yesterday's food. That was the bad part. The good part: dinner was good, Tibetan butter tea was very welcome in the evening, and there was no signs of altitude sickness the following day. One advice, though: if you want to try that tea, do it before visiting any monasteries, temples, stupas, etc. It's the smell, you see. :)

We didn't get to see Mt. Everest because of the weather, and because of the mess with the group visa, we'd already lost one day. Besides, a trip to the base camp was not on the itinerary, and therefore we didn't have a travel permit for that area, either.

Tagged: High pass at 5220 meters.

Shigatse was heaven. Shigatse Hotel is a four-star hotel worthy of the stars. There was a robe, slippers, bathroom weight, hot water all 24 hours, airconditioner/heater, TV, water heater, smoke detector. It was clean, nice, and had a good restaurant, although the rice wasn't quite sticky enough for regular chopstick use. Highly recommended, and not horribly expensive according to European standards, either.

We visited monasteries and whatnots in abundance, and stopped in Gyantse for lunch, before hurrying towards Lhasa, where we arrived yesterday evening.

Today, we'll visit some of the major sights of Lhasa.

I've uploaded some images, but there are many, many more, and the ones I picked are nearly at random. Don't expect direct links to work permanently there.

Also, it turned out that the group visa arranged by our tour operator in Nepal was a great fumble. You see, when you get a group visa, your individual visa gets cancelled. Our group visa is valid until October 25th. See the itinerary for why this is a bad thing, and why we have to visit the PSB first thing on Monday morning. This happened in spite of me spelling it out quite clearly to our tour operator in Nepal that we had to have a visa valid until at least the 28th, preferably the 29th. This comes in addition to not warning us that we might not have a valid group visa for Tibet, even though this always is fixed at the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu, for those travelling overland as we do.

If you should ever go to Nepal, make sure that you and your travel agent avoid the following company, they just don't seem to care enough:

Yeti Travels

Thank you. (I trust you know that I wouldn't write that unless I was really pissed off and quite sure that they are the cause of a significant part of our problems.)

TTFN.

2005-10-23 01:37:27

Arrrghh

We seemed to be doing so well, and after more than four hours on the bad Nepalese roads (plus some really, really bad roads where the summer/autumn floods had done their worst), we arrived at the Chinese border. After some chatter back and forth in Mandarin Chinese (thanks to our Tibet-side guide for translating), it appears that our travel permit for Tibet isn't in order after all. Someone in one of the travel agencies involved have not done their job right, and they're playing the blaming game. Fortunately, the travel agency that's on top of it all is handling the extra costs, including our transport back to Kathmandu this afternoon, as well as the hotel bills.

The situation is that the local travel agent will go to the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu tomorrow morning and sort things out. If he gets things in order by 11:30 local time, we're on our way -- the border closes at 16:00, so it's a close one. If it's not in order by 11:30, but later that same day, we'll leave the day after tomorrow. So we lose at least one day and perhaps two of our time in Tibet.

Colour me unhappy with the situation, but there's absolutely nothing I can do about it except get mad, and that won't help.

Instead, I'll write some more about Nepal and my impressions.

For instance, in one roundabout, there were three policemen (there seems to be at least one policeman or military policeman in every intersection with a signal or a roundabout), whereof two were armed with pump-action shotguns. That's traffic control!

I'll also note that the Indian-made Mahindra semi-offroad vehicles are both more comfortable, more powerful and seemingly better handling than the Nissan Pathfinder. Our transport back to the Nepal-China border was in one of the latter vehicles, while our transport from the border was in one of the former. We also got a far better driver, the trip back took more than 20 minutes less.

Oh, and remind me to get in touch with the Ministry of Health and whatnot in Norway when I get back; they really ought to issue a health warning for travelers to the Kathmandu valley. Now that the festival is over, traffic is up, and the pollution is BAD. Never mind that warning from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that's almost ludicrous, it's the health problems (and the risk of being hit by one of the loonie bus drivers, which I guess is an acute health problem) that are important.

After a total of close to 8 hours on bad roads and some two-three hours on really bad roads, plus nearly four hours waiting in the heat, I'm dead tired, but I'm going to upload some more pictures anyway.

Good night! Hope I'll be able to send an update from Tibet soon ...

2005-10-18 17:21:20

A Summary of Impressions and Some Pictures

I didn't manage to upload many pictures, the network connection from Hotel Himalaya is sub par compared to a typical western/northern nation, even though it's the best I've experienced in Nepal.

In the spirit of rehashing things I've forgotten to mention earlier:

General Impressions

People in Nepal are, in general, friendly and mildly curious. Those who have heard of Norway immediately become even more friendly and positive, some are bubbling with appreciation for the few projects initiated by our government. Yet it's just not enough; Nepal has a long way to go before abolishing general poverty and establishing sufficient infrastructure for education, health and communication. While it's tempting to urge you to support this nation in any way you can, keep in mind that Nepal is hardly unique in these respects. Maybe some of the upcoming photos will give you an idea.

We also happened to arrive during the big annual (lunar year based) festival, which also is a national holiday. This means that most shops are closed, and that traffic is only mildly chaotic. People go to visit their elders to receive tikka, which is basically a blessing signified by a red mark in the center of their foreheads. The grandparents usually provide gifts to their children and grandchildren, in the form of new clothes and money for the youngest generation.

Kite flying is very popular, perhaps this is just a festival thing. A sure sign of the festival is the multitude of bamboo swings that children and teenagers use.

Now for those other impressions.

Driving

During our drive from Kathmandu to Pokhara, there were three things I disliked:

  1. When overtaking another vehicle, our driver has a tendency to wait until the last second or two (literally!) before changing back to the left lane. It took me a while to get used to this and accept that he had things under control.
  2. The driver is way too slow to change into lower gears, and he keeps the engine running at too low rpms to get the most out of the engine, to the annoyance of others while going uphill.
  3. The car (a Nissan Pathfinder diesel) doesn't have the juice to handle a driver, two passengers and 60-70 kg of luggage.

Apart from that, our driver turned out to know everything he needed to get us reasonably quickly from place to place, and did his best to provide a comfortable ride. The return from Pokhara to Kathmandu (200 km) took extra long today (ca. 6.5 hours effective driving time, plus half an hour for a tire change and half an hour for lunch) because of traffic and busy checkpoints.

Pokhara

In general, Pokhara was more relaxed than Kathmandu, while the climate was slightly warmer. And there were many more tourists, and an easily recognizable tourist-oriented area (there was even a sign for that). Both advertising ("door to door massage" available several places, "STD/ISD" phone and Internet services, etc.), density and opening hours of shops, plus the sheer number of caucasian people made that clear. We couldn't walk for as much as five or ten minutes without seeing another tourist or two. Hawkers were about as persistent as they were in Kathmandu, and often took a no for a no. In a few cases, it was "maybe tomorrow". Yesterday evening, I agreed and said "tomorrow" to a particularly persistent hawker, which lent me some peace to enjoy the city.

Our Tibetan travel permit is in order, and we've just started our Diamox treatment, in preparation of this week's higher elevations, and our transport leaves 07:15 in the morning local time.

I'll just try to upload some pictures to the Nepal gallery, and then I'll be off to bed. Don't expect to read any news here until the 22nd of October, there's no way knowing where we'll have Internet access next, or if we'll simply be too put out from altitude sickness to do anything like that. :)

2005-10-17 17:12:25

One More Thing

Okay, more than one more thing.

Note to travellers: sleeping on the roof of the bus is prohibited. But you may want to sit there to get some "fresh" air.

There is an international food festival in Pokhara these days, it opened on Friday and closes today. The German Ambassador to Nepal said, according to Friday's Himalayan, that Pokhara and surrounding areas are now safe for tourists. Good to know.

Odd Einar just returned from his flight, and he seemed fine. We'll check out the pictures once he's had breakfast.

It's time to get ready to leave, so I'll log off this spyware-infested computer now.

2005-10-17 03:14:15

Pokhara

There's an Internet connection at the Fish Tail Lodge, too, but it's modem based and only 115.2 kbps, so I'm not uploading any images this time, either. There are also security warnings popping up, so I've probably shared my blog password with a virus or two. ;)

Driving to Pokhara along the main highway is an experience in itself. I mentioned to Odd Einar that if I'd been tougher, I'd be interested in taking a bus. After seeing two wrecks and how the buses drive, I think I'll amend that to "a lot tougher and a bit crazy". There are several official and semi-official checkpoints on the way, but not really exciting, just boring. The military and the police just tell tourists and their guides to continue, and usually by waving them on.

The climate is slightly warmer than Kathmandu, and the view to the Annapurna range of mountains is stunning. we've taken a bunch of pictures again. Yesterday, we rented a boat and went out on Fewa lake, which gave us a whole lot of subjects to photograph, not to forget the splendid view of Annapurna II, Annapurna South and Fish Tail Mountain.

At 06:30 (local time ...) this morning, I went on a 1.5 hour flight by microplane with a Russian pilot, for the small sum of USD 325 (well, 375 if we count the price of a photo-CD). Again I took a whole bunch of pictures, some of them are very nice. I'll have a lot of work in sorting through pictures when I get home; we've used more than 40% of the storage space on our portable drives now.

Upon returning, I was a bit late for breakfast and our appointment with the local guide for our tour of Pokhara, so no breakfast for me. Pokhara doesn't have much to see, so the tour felt kind of strange.

We've just finished lunch, and I think we'll have a walk in town before calling it a night. Odd Einar is taking the same flight at the same time tomorrow morning, before we leave for Kathmandu at 09:30.

BTW, this hotel seems to be better than the Hotel Himalaya, I can recommend it fully. If you by any chance want to go to Nepal, visit Pokhara and pay the price for the microplane trip; 1 hour is just above USD 200 all inclusive, and half an hour is a bit more than 100 USD.

I'll try to make an update from Kathmandu tomorrow evening, and if not, it will be from somewhere within Tibet. I'm not sure whether net access is possible before Lhasa.

2005-10-16 09:48:45

Patan, Kathmandu, Bhaktapur

Last time, I forgot to mention that the hotel's food wasn't particularly impressive. The dinner choices appeared to be ... buffet, and most of the dishes that were supposed to be warm, were only luke warm. Breakfast is similarly disappointing.

On the 13th, we were met by our guide PL and chaffeur (didn't catch his name), and were taken to the Swiss-sponsored Tibetan Handicraft Center. There was quite a lot of activity there, and we took a bunch of photographs of women spinning and weaving traditional carpets etc. I made a small contribution to the local economy by purchasing a small carpet.

Afterwards, we were driven to central Patan (not far), where we were taken on a tour of the old Durbar (Palace) Square and surrounding areas. We were harassed by extremely eager hawkers, who wouldn't take no as a no. There are some relevant photographs of this, too. And of course there is a whole bunch of trinket stalls.

We were then driven to the "Monkey Temple", at the top of a hill. There were monkeys, tourists and a bunch of trinket stalls.

Next: Durbar Square, this time in Kathmandu City. Neither square is square. As with Patan, it's filled with ancient buildings, and restoration has been financed by various western governments. The hawkers took no as a no.

We had lunch at a local rooftop restaurant, where we pait exhorbitant prices. Or to put it in a Norwegian perspective, it was cheap. Nepali cuisine isn't particularly exciting, though, once you've tasted Indian cuisine.

In the afternoon, we had decent visibility, and could finally take some pictures of some of the mountains -- from our hotel room window. :)

After sunset, we asked the hotel clerk for a restaurant recommendation, and were directed towards a place called "Kilroy's". We then asked for a taxi, and ordering a taxi in Patan and Kathmandu is done by walking to the street and hailing one, not by calling anywhere. Lazy tourists ...

The cab fare (ca. 5 km?) cost 200 Rs, not metered.

Kilroy's is a place I've seen mentioned elsewhere. The food and service was good, and the waiters polite and friendly. If you find yourself in Kathmandu City and don't know where you should eat, it's an easy way out.

Mind you, there's plenty of restaurants that are good, you just have to know what they're called and where they are.

The return fare was 300 Rs, not metered.

Yesterday, we first went to a place higher than Nagarkot (east of Bhaktapur) to photograph the mountain range, then to Bhaktapur proper.

Bhaktapur has several medieval buildings, some of which have been restored after the 1924 earthquake. The Patan Square and palace restorations are sponsored by the German government. Bhaktapur was cleaner than any other place we've been so far, and the hawkers weren't as agressive as in Patan.

In the afternoon, we went -- on foot -- towards downtown Kathmandu City. I'm not doing that again, not because of the traffic or that I'm in any way feeling unsafe, because it was quite safe. No, it's the pollution. I'd need a mask.

It took over two hours before we saw the next tourist!

We got lost after a while, and had help from an English woman who's been living here for a few months. It took another hour or so before we saw other tourists. Eventually, we found our way to Kilroy's again, after giving up on finding a decent local restaurant.

For the return trip, we managed to get a metered, fare, and ended up paying 160 Rs including a small tip.

So where are the photos? Well, you try finding the time to upload a bazillion photos from Nepal when you also want to sleep ... ;)

Bye-bye for now, our guide and chaffeur are probably waiting in the lobby, and I have to run and fetch my luggage! Maybe there will be an update from Pokhara this evening.

2005-10-15 02:12:02

Arrival in Nepal

Packing went well, except for forgetting the Kvikk-Lunsj, which I bought based on Øystein's idea that it would be cool with a picture or two of someone eating this chocolate biscuit in front of e.g. Mt. Everest. Alas, that is not to be, but maybe we can convince Odd Einar's wife to bring them to Lhasa for other spectacular footage.

The trip itself went fine. Thai Airways is a clear step down on the service ladder from Singapore Airlines, but it's still pretty decent. The flight from Bangkok was delayed by almost three quarters of an hour by several late-coming passengers. Flights to Kathmandu aren't very frequent, so the airline company actually chooses to wait for a while. Remarkably enough, we were only 5 minutes delayed to Tribhuvan International Airport (that's Kathmandu's airport). Baggage pickup, immigration and customs went smoothly.

Oh, BTW, on the plane, Odd Einar and I caught someone reading a document from September labeled "Nepal: Beyond Royal Rule" by the International Crisis Group, whatever they represent. The guy seemed to study it carefully, and it struck us as somewhat late to start reading it on the plane. He fell asleep partway through the document. :) (I hope this information isn't confidential in any way, but if it was, reading it on tourist class isn't exactly clever.)

Outside, we were met by someone displaying a piece of cardboard with Odd Einar's name. That was just the guy who was to take our luggage to our guide and driver. The guide explained the itinerary for us, and there were some minor changes in the schedule of events, but nothing that affects the travel plan.

This afternoon, we've spent two or three hours walking around along the streets, taking photographs of whatever struck our fancy while attempting to remain civil and not take pictures of people without their consent. I'm not uploading any images right now. We're both too tired. It's now almost 21:00 local time, or 23:15 Singapore time, which is what we've been on since 06:30, and with little sleep at that.

In other news, my cellphone is switched off, since roaming doesn't work for me here. It does work for Odd Einar, though.

2005-10-12 15:16:29

Melbourne Summary and Packing for the Big Trip

A three-day visit to Melbourne isn't much, so I think I'll have to go back someday.

The weather remained rather chilly, and gave us a little bit of rain and wind. I thought I'd be okay with a shirt/t-shirt and fleece sweater, but I quickly realized I needed a thin jacket to slow the wind, unless I really wanted to catch a cold. I really regretted forgetting my bicycling jacket in the hallway in my apartment in Oslo, but I managed to find something light and decent on sale.

The superglue broke up again, and I had to redo the exercise. But now it seems to be pretty solid, my guess is that the humidity in Singapore worked against the glue.

We took it easy the first evening, but on Saturday, I walked around a bit without the camera to get to know the city and to look for stuff we couldn't buy in Singapore:

Well, one out of three isn't bad ...

On Saturday evening, Lionel and I spent around three hours taking pictures on Collins St near Queen St, and on Sunday, we went to the zoo. You can see some of the results in the gallery.

The return from Melbourne went well, although getting up way early in the morning to catch a flight isn't fun.

After a hearty dinner cooked by Wati, Odd Einar and I drove to get some photos of downtown Singapore. I'll put up something in the gallery.

Today, we're preparing for our early morning flight to Kathmandu, and debating to which extent we'll need what kind of clothes. 20 kg of checked-in baggage per person may sound like a lot, but it fills up quickly.

I can't think of anything more to write right now, so I'll just fiddle a bit in Photoshop, and then get back to packing. I hope I'll be able to post a blog entry or two from Kathmandu. :)

2005-10-11 06:12:19

Melbourne Gallery

I just managed to install a gallery package and put up some of the photos taken in Melbourne on Saturday. This is far more practical for me than fiddling about with the wiki; I never could get the gallery plugins to work ...

2005-10-09 16:34:49

In Melbourne

I'm now partially installed with Lionel in Melbourne.

Yesterday, I did all the awfully complicated packing and managed to fill my backpack and a small sports bag Odd Einar lent me with all the stuff I thought I needed. As usual, the backpack is more than half full with photographic equipment, and the tripod must be checked in and went in the sports bag, wrapped in my sweater, resting on a pair of sandals, with all the other clothes around it.

Most of my time was spent fiddling with the photos from the botanic garden, so I didn't do anything actually exciting.

I then had late lunch and bought some superglue to fix the broken lever on my tripod. It doesn't seem to work very well, so I'll definitely need to get a replacement lever. However, I couldn't find a shop in Singapore that had that. There are just too many shops to ask around in. :)

We had a late supper at around 21:30, and just as we were about to leave for the airport, Odd Einar noted that the sports bag

  1. is impossible to lock
  2. is completely anonymous

so he provided me with a different travelling case that I quickly but carefully stuffed the sandals, tripod, clothes etc. in.

We made the airport in good time; both for me to check in and buy tax-free goods, and for him to pick up his wife on return from Hong Kong.

There were a seemingly ludicrous amount of security checks of my passport and boarding pass, I think the total was five.

The plane was a Boeing 777, with slightly wider seats and better leg space than the 747 I took from Heathrow. But the neck rest was awful, giving me no chance of relaxing in a reclined position. When dinner is served around 00:30 (Singapore time, or 02:30 Melbourne time), and breakfast from around 07:00 (Melbourne), there is precious little time left to relax in, too. The food was good, though. Oh, and the knife was made of plastic while the spoons and fork were metal, with a note of apology from Singapore airlines that certain destinations were more prickly about these things than others. They didn't use exactly those words, though!

Upon arrival at Melbourne airport, we were greeted with an announcement that mobile phones must remain switched off until after customs, or we'd be liable for an AUD 1000 fine. So much for calling/messaging to say we'd touched down safely! Although there was a fairly long immigration/customs queue, it went reasonably quickly, and my only problem was that part of my carbon fiber/magnesium tripod was recognized as "wood" by the security scanner.

The rest of the way went like a breeze, using the Skybus to Spencer Street Station, which is only a five-minute walk or so from Lionel's apartment.

It's cold here today, the day started at about 11 degrees Celsius, and I don't think it's become much warmer (13? 14?). A refreshing change from Singapore!

2005-10-07 02:45:52

Catching up on two days

I didn't bother with an update around lunchtime yesterday. The day before was pretty uneventful. First, I called Lionel to discuss the trip to Melbourne in a bit more detail. Then I read up a bit on two Footprint books on Nepal and Tibet, and went out to find places to buy necessities for that journey. I bought some super glue for the broken lever of my tripod, and met with Odd Einar at a pub, where I gracefully lost several rounds of pool games with one of his colleagues. Dinner was around 22:30 or so, another really good meal prepared by Wati, the maid.

There was another thunderstorm that night, at almost precisely the same time as the previous night, but this one was rougher. The wind was really whipping. Not too dissimilar from the October storms in Norway, except for the temperature and that it had the good grace to stop before morning. ;)

The following day was cool, with temperatures starting below 30 degrees Celsius, and staying below until lunchtime. At 14:45 I took a taxi to the Singapore Botanic Gardens, where I met up with Sven and Paul (the two friends mentioned in the previous blog entry). Did I ever mention that taking a cab here is rather inexpensive? It seems we usually pay SGD 10-15 for distances that would cost us NOK 120-200 (SGD 30-50) in Oslo.

When I returned, I changed clothes and met up with Odd Einar at a pub, before all us Norwegian-speaking invaders had dinner at an Indian restaurant on the second floor of Swissôtel The Stamford. The food was on par with the better Indian-style restaurants of Oslo, and we really enjoyed ourselves. After dinner, we went to a bar for drinks, and we managed to end up in a place with prices close to the lower price range of bars in Norway. In other words, rather expensive. A quick and rough estimate suggested that the price of my B-52 by volume was about 30 times of what I paid in Prague. And no, this wasn't even a classy place. Huh.

This night was pretty uneventful, and I slept well. It's about as cool as it was yesterday, there's a gentle breeze, and today I'll just do an itsy bit of shopping before packing for Melbourne. The plane leaves in about 8.5 hours.

2005-10-06 08:20:30

Sleeping in, a walk, nigth safari and thunder

After brunch yesterday, I decided to go for a walk.

When I returned, two of Jens's friends, Jens and I went to dinner, and then to the Singapore Night Safari. While the guide tended towards drama, the potentially dangerous animals -- water buffalos, tigers, hyenas -- were well sealed off from the route us tourists were on. The animal pens (can't think of a better name for them, they weren't very large) were lit with artificial moonlight, and it was an enjoyable ride.

After the ride, we walked around for 15 minutes, before securing a seat for the "Creatures of the Night" show. The show was enjoyable and well directed, with a couple of animal tricks. I liked that the animals didn't seem to act like circus animals.

During both the tour and the show, there were repeated requests by the guides that people not use flashes for photography. Guess how well that worked ... There were also some flashes from the Big Photographer in the sky, but it seemed far away until about the time the show was coming to an end.

We went for a drink at one of the establishments of the area, and almost right on cue after we'd sat down, the downpour started. While it wasn't very impressive, it did last for a while and make a few careless people wet. Not us, we were under a roof, and waited it out with our single round of beer and drinks.

This night/morning, around 3:50 AM, I awoke from some rattling close to my pillow. Well, it wasn't close to my pillow, it was the rain beating against the window a meter from my feet. Flash, thunder, and plenty of rain. This time, it lasted for a good while. So much for not raining several times in a day, eh?

I managed to catch some of it on video with my cell phone, but it seems to be in some weird MMS compatible format that I can't simply convert to MPEG or whatnot (maybe if I download software onto Odd Einar's computer, won't he be happy). Well, if you have a phone where you can watch this in some way, here's a 25-second excerpt from the small rain storm.

Now I've spent way too much time behind the computer fiddling with photos and typing, so I'll head out again.

2005-10-04 06:27:27

Photoshoot in the Arab Quarter and a bit of shopping

Another day, another activity. Sunday in Singapore doesn't mean much, except that there's less traffic. Many shops are still open, and the locals love shopping. According to my local sources, it's because there isn't anything else to do around here, unless you want to go to the botanical gardens, the zoo, or a neighbouring country.

Odd Einar and I started to check our photographical equipment (the bastard just bought an EOS 5D) and tried to decide on what to bring. I found out that one of the levers on my recently acquired tripod had broken off during transport, which is quite impressive considering that it's been lying in a hard shell suitcase with clothes around it. It's not completely useless, just very awkward.

We drove to a parking lot near the Arab Quarter, both because it's convenient when that's what you want to see and take pictures of, and because we were going to a nearby shopping mall; Sim Lim Square.

In the six-story technology mall, we were looking for two things: a small, portable photo printer and a 4 gigabyte Compact Flash card (for a reasonable price). Trying to get the point about being "portable" across to salesmen was sometimes difficult, and it strained our patience. 

Salesman: No, the battery is optional.
Odd Einar: So can I buy a battery?
Salesman: No, that's not available yet. Maybe on the Internet.'
Odd Einar: It's hardly portable then, is it?

Well, we did find something at the Song Brothers, a Canon CP-330 on sale with 108 extra sheets of photo paper. Bought and tested; it prints post card sized photos in excellent quality. Just the thing to give to children in Nepal or Tibet or something.

The 4 GB card? Not acquired. Prices ranged from SGD 730 to 850 (the price in Norway is equivalent to 820), but we managed to get a promise for 700 at the place Odd Einar bought his camera, if we returned on Tuesday.

Later that evening, we had a wonderful home-made dinner with the rest of the Norwegians that were here for the wedding. Several of these were photography nerds, too.

BTW, it's raining every day, but it's mostly sunny and hazy. Temperatures have been somewhat mild, but probably what most Norwegians would consider stifling. So while I'm sitting here and typing, it is stifling; there was just a thunderclap, it's raining, and since there's a bit of wind, we had to close the windows. I'm going out after the rain stops, it doesn't often seem to be raining twice in a day.

And maybe some of you may want to look at my room view.

2005-10-03 06:57:08

Shopping clothes and wedding celebration

As mentioned earlier, my pants had an unhealthy encounter with wine on the way from London. Red wine and nearly cream-coloured textile; that's a bad match. So after that good sleep, a shower and lunch (prepared by the house maid) yesterday, I went to Suntec City to find new clothes. The place is almost a maze. So after a few hours of wandering around and watching people, browsing stores and so on, I ended up with two pairs of pants and two short-sleeved shirts, paying SGD 290 or so. That's probably not very cheap, but it works for me. :)

Clothes wasn't the only item on the shopping list; I needed to get a red envelope for my wedding present. According to some Chinese tradition, the guests don't wrap gifts, but present money in an envelope instead. So that's what I did.

The wedding party at 19:00 (local) was Yiru and Jens's third; the original ceremony was in January, and the second was in Norway (and I missed it). There were plenty of guests, even a few other Norwegians who had made their way over here.

When we arrived at the Asian Civilisations Museum -- yep, that's where they held the dinner -- we were greeted by the happy couple, and proceeded to register our arrival and hand over the envelopes. The dining hall was set up with around 10 round tables with 10 people around each, so I guess that makes the number of guests around 100. After finding our assigned table, there was some general chatter, and then we viewed a picture presentation that Yiru and Jens had prepared.

Yiru and Jens were announced, and entered to general applause. She was wearing a lovely white gown, and Jens was handsomely dressed in a suit. They cut the wedding cake, and Yiru held a brief speech, both in English and Mandarin Chinese.

Dinner wasn't the traditional 10-course meal, but rather a buffet with assorted foods. That makes it easier for a distracted food allergic like myself. :) Oh, I forgot to mention yesterday that my seafood allergies seem to have become less of a problem, so I carefully tried a spiced noodle soup with prawns (well, prawn actually). My body hasn't revolted yet. The food was really good, and I ate until I was full, and then had two pieces of cake and some fruit.

During dinner, Yiru changed into a pink dress, and they both reentered under a new round of applause. They were handed a bottle of champagne which Jens struggled a bit with, but they finally popped it open and poured the contents into a tower of cocktail glasses. Family and friends (such as myself) were then invited onto the podium to toast with the couple, and we did.

It was a wonderful evening with lots of happy people.

2005-10-02 03:34:30

One night's good sleep

The flight from London to Singapore went well. There were a couple of warnings about turbulence, but nothing that could spill a glass of wine. I managed to do that just fine by myself at the beginning of the flight. But I did catch a few hours of sleep.

If I'd had a laptop, I could've blogged directly from the plane. Something to think about for my next trip with Singapore Airlines. :)

Odd Einar picked me up at the airport yesterday after an extremely smooth arrival; stamp immigration paper, stamp passport, buy a bottle of wine at the tax free shop (yep, one at arrival, too), pick up my luggage, and waved out by some friendly customs people.

After settling in with Odd Einar and his wife Christina, I had a shower and slept for an hour. That felt good. I had agreed with Odd Einar to meet him at a pub he showed me on the map, so I left the apartment, took the subway to the City Hall interexchange, and walked the rest of the way. It was easy to find.

After hanging around the pub for a while, we drove and picked up Christina, before meeting up for dinner with other friends: Jens, his wife and some of his friends and family from Norway, Asbjorn (curse this English keyboard!) and his wife, and another local friend.

Of course we stopped by a place for a drink afterwards, and suddenly it was late. So I've slept for about 10 hours, and I'm soon about to have lunch (no breakfast for me).

2005-10-01 05:03:47

Heathrow T3, T-330 minutes

Huh, this is extortion. Although it's cheaper per minute than OSL, I still think £3 to blog for half an hour is a bit steep. I'll have to compensate with catching up on the news and the funnies. Of course, the keyboard is even worse, too.

The flight went too smoothly, so we arrived too early and had to wait on the ground instead, until we were sufficiently delayed.

I've staked out the taxfree shops and am now standing right next to a Bentley Continental GT, lovely car, and I can pay £60 for a shot at winning one. Yeah, right, as if I want to pay the taxes for winning that car. I'll let someone else win. :)

There's plenty to do here while lugging around my bags and waiting for check-in to open, in other words.

2005-09-29 12:05:43

At OSL

So now I'm at the airport, paying a lump of virtuamoney to tap on an awful keyboard, in an Internet Explorer insisting that the wiki is in Japanese. Thank goodness I know the control layout!

Unsurprisingly, I slept a bit fitfully tonight. I don't think I've forgotten anything, and my luggage is packed with exactly as much as there was room for.

This morning, I made the airport express bus just in the nick of time, so I was a bit too stressed out to really catch up on sleep on the bus.

40 minutes until departure means it's time to get moving towards that exit. Next stop Heathrow!

2005-09-29 08:00:30

RSS feeds

If you choose "IRSS" in the pull-down menu ("More Actions:" in English, "Flere operasjoner:" in Norwegian), you should get an RSS feed of this page. RecentChanges also has an RSS feed, but there you must click the RSS icon; the IRSS selection does not work. Silly, I know, but that's how it is.

2005-09-27 14:58:30

Destinations and hotels

I've added some more information about traveling destinations, hotels in Nepal and so on. Now on to explain why I'm doing this.

2005-09-24 22:01:00

Itinerary updated

There, the itinerary is updated with the details I have available.

I have no idea how easy it is to access the net to read/send e-mail and update this site while I'm in Nepal and China. I guess I'll find out when I'm there.

2005-09-23 23:15:00

Wiki-wiki!

I finally got around to create a wiki or something where I can share stuff about my trip. Whopee. I'll do this in the usual annoying blog style, new stuff at the top.

So right now I'm sitting at the office (ssh!), and I'm soon off to my best friend's birthday party at 15:00 UTC.

Why do I use times in UTC? It's easier for me to keep track of when I'm abroad.

2005-09-23 13:57:00

blog (last edited 2005-11-30 20:58:39 by JanIngvoldstad)