For the past two and a half weeks we have hung around Kathmandu planning where to from here. Tibet is looking increasingly shady with the TAR ( Tibetan Autonomous Region ) border still closed and confirmation that it will remain so until mid April. Then if we do proceed we will be on a limited group visa requiring us to travel so fast through the country we might as well forget about the bikes. It is also not cheap as to travel quickly will require initially a tour to Lhasa and than a train ticket through to Chengdu. Then if unable to extend the group visa ( and uncertainty clouds this issue) we would need to head South to Laos asap, lugging the bikes all the way.
Tom and Anya just back from trekking in the Langtang area have decided to fly to China. Taking the extra cost of the flight to obtain a Chinese visa which actually sits in the passport versus a separate piece of paper. They have decided to then head south west through the mountains on the edge of Tibet down into Laos.
Following long discussions we decided to continue east following the Himalaya all the way across towards Nagarland. As a result we started to research Bhutan a challenge for a trip like ours as the country has under the shadow of "Gross National Happiness" slapped a tourist tax on to limit the amount of tourists entering the country and to generate sufficient revenue from those who do enter. As a result to travel in the country is at a minimum for independent (non group) travelers $200 USD per person plus a surcharge if less then three people of $30 USD. Then visa costs etc. When compared to our joint living costs for the past five months of just over $25USD per day this is a difficult ask and raises many questions of cultural diversification to justify the increased cost. There are lots of positives and negatives raised by this governmental approach and we argued most of them. In the end we decided to go with it given that we were in the neighborhood.
This change of plan required that we extend our indian visas and obtain a multiple entry allowing us to enter India from Nepal and then Bhutan. The process for visa application in Kathmandu was structured. File in a fax request and pay for the application at the embassy. Wait for four working days for the reply to be received back from the Sydney indian embassy. If positive submit the actual visa application and fee. Pick up the visa in the afternoon.
The first part went fine and when we turned up post the weekend we were told we were approved for a further three months. That afternoon when we picked our passports however we noted that the visa had only been approved for a single entry. This negated all our planning for Bhutan and arranging with various Bhutanese travel agencies to achieve the best deal as bar flying, which Druk Air the national carrier has a monopoly we could not achieve. The cost to fly to Bhutan prior to excess luggage restrictions due to the bikes was significantly more expensive than to fly to Thailand. When combined with the other costs it was the nail in the coffin as far as those plans were concerned.
This left cycling east through Nepal completing our traverse then heading into West Bengal. Permits allowing we would then cycle up to Sikkim (until the 70s a separate country) before heading east down around Bhutan through Assam into Arunachal Pradesh. As the Myanmar border from the west has been closed for a long long time we would then need to loop back around to Kolkata to fly to Bangkok. We even considered entering Bangladesh and following the Brahmaputra south before crossing to Kolkata (as flights out of Dhaka are also comparatively expensive). But again single entry ruled this out.
So we spent our time in Kathmandu eating western food (putting on weight) doing another Nepali language course and reading up on North East India. By the time we left, though we felt quite comfortable in Kathmandu we were busting to get moving once again.
View from our room at The Yellow House, Packnajol.
One good read whilst in Kathmandu was Jamie Zeppa's "Beyond the sky and the earth, a journey into Bhutan" a Canadian English PHD student who went to Bhutan to teach. I have included some quotes below from her book which are arguably valid analysis on societies and our sometimes western perceptions of so called developing societies.
"The more complex and developed a society becomes, I think, the less responsibility individuals have to take for their actions. As long as I could lug my garbage out to the curb two mornings a week in Toronto, what did I care what happened to it. But here we are made to see the consequences of our consumption."
"It occurs to me now that in Sharchhop, the same word is used for both 'thrown out' and 'lost,' and there is no distinction between 'to need' and 'to desire.' if something is thrown out, it is lost to further use, and if you want something here, you probably also need it."
Finally an interesting cross analysis by southern Indian teacher who arrives at the Sherubtse college "Dini thinks I should deconstruct my love for the landscapes of Bhutan. 'you're projecting things onto the place,' she says, 'all the things you feel your own culture is missing. The pre-industrialized world, communion with nature, all that Shangri-La-Di-Da business.'..."I say that lives in the villages might be hard and short, but the people seem genuinely content with what they have, and this is a function of their faith, which recognizes that desire for material wealth and personal gain leads to suffering. Dini says they are content with what they have because what they have is all they know."... "their lifestyle is not a matter of choice but a function of their environment."
Tom and Anya just back from trekking in the Langtang area have decided to fly to China. Taking the extra cost of the flight to obtain a Chinese visa which actually sits in the passport versus a separate piece of paper. They have decided to then head south west through the mountains on the edge of Tibet down into Laos.
Following long discussions we decided to continue east following the Himalaya all the way across towards Nagarland. As a result we started to research Bhutan a challenge for a trip like ours as the country has under the shadow of "Gross National Happiness" slapped a tourist tax on to limit the amount of tourists entering the country and to generate sufficient revenue from those who do enter. As a result to travel in the country is at a minimum for independent (non group) travelers $200 USD per person plus a surcharge if less then three people of $30 USD. Then visa costs etc. When compared to our joint living costs for the past five months of just over $25USD per day this is a difficult ask and raises many questions of cultural diversification to justify the increased cost. There are lots of positives and negatives raised by this governmental approach and we argued most of them. In the end we decided to go with it given that we were in the neighborhood.
This change of plan required that we extend our indian visas and obtain a multiple entry allowing us to enter India from Nepal and then Bhutan. The process for visa application in Kathmandu was structured. File in a fax request and pay for the application at the embassy. Wait for four working days for the reply to be received back from the Sydney indian embassy. If positive submit the actual visa application and fee. Pick up the visa in the afternoon.
The first part went fine and when we turned up post the weekend we were told we were approved for a further three months. That afternoon when we picked our passports however we noted that the visa had only been approved for a single entry. This negated all our planning for Bhutan and arranging with various Bhutanese travel agencies to achieve the best deal as bar flying, which Druk Air the national carrier has a monopoly we could not achieve. The cost to fly to Bhutan prior to excess luggage restrictions due to the bikes was significantly more expensive than to fly to Thailand. When combined with the other costs it was the nail in the coffin as far as those plans were concerned.
This left cycling east through Nepal completing our traverse then heading into West Bengal. Permits allowing we would then cycle up to Sikkim (until the 70s a separate country) before heading east down around Bhutan through Assam into Arunachal Pradesh. As the Myanmar border from the west has been closed for a long long time we would then need to loop back around to Kolkata to fly to Bangkok. We even considered entering Bangladesh and following the Brahmaputra south before crossing to Kolkata (as flights out of Dhaka are also comparatively expensive). But again single entry ruled this out.
So we spent our time in Kathmandu eating western food (putting on weight) doing another Nepali language course and reading up on North East India. By the time we left, though we felt quite comfortable in Kathmandu we were busting to get moving once again.
View from our room at The Yellow House, Packnajol.
One good read whilst in Kathmandu was Jamie Zeppa's "Beyond the sky and the earth, a journey into Bhutan" a Canadian English PHD student who went to Bhutan to teach. I have included some quotes below from her book which are arguably valid analysis on societies and our sometimes western perceptions of so called developing societies.
"The more complex and developed a society becomes, I think, the less responsibility individuals have to take for their actions. As long as I could lug my garbage out to the curb two mornings a week in Toronto, what did I care what happened to it. But here we are made to see the consequences of our consumption."
"It occurs to me now that in Sharchhop, the same word is used for both 'thrown out' and 'lost,' and there is no distinction between 'to need' and 'to desire.' if something is thrown out, it is lost to further use, and if you want something here, you probably also need it."
Finally an interesting cross analysis by southern Indian teacher who arrives at the Sherubtse college "Dini thinks I should deconstruct my love for the landscapes of Bhutan. 'you're projecting things onto the place,' she says, 'all the things you feel your own culture is missing. The pre-industrialized world, communion with nature, all that Shangri-La-Di-Da business.'..."I say that lives in the villages might be hard and short, but the people seem genuinely content with what they have, and this is a function of their faith, which recognizes that desire for material wealth and personal gain leads to suffering. Dini says they are content with what they have because what they have is all they know."... "their lifestyle is not a matter of choice but a function of their environment."
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