A Gap in the Himalayas: Travel in China, Southeast Asia, Nepal, India and Sri Lanka

A Gap in the Himalayas

Travel in China, Southeast Asia, Nepal, India and Sri Lanka

A Gap in the Himalayas – Travel in China, Southeast Asia, Nepal, India and Sri Lanka

© Tricia Holland and Robert Murray-Smith, 2012

Tricia Holland is the author of two family histories, many short stories and a series of books for teenagers with learning difficulties. She is currently working on a novel that combines her interest in historical fiction with her husband, Robert Murray-Smith’s, interest in science fiction fantasy.

Robert Murray-Smith is a research chemist and inventor, best known for his YouTube channel and the development of graphene-based conductive inks and carbon-based batteries and supercapacitors. He is the author of a number of books on bioplastics, natural dyes, inks, graphene and supercapacitors and co-author of three travel blogs with his wife.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Preparations

Chapter 1: Greenport, Long Island, New York

Chapter 2: Beijing, China

Chapter 3: Xi’an, Suzhou and Zhouzhuang, China

Chapter 4: Shanghai, China

Chapter 5: Vietnam

Chapter 6: Cambodia and Thailand

Chapter 7: Nepal part 1 (Kathmandu and the Annapurna trek)

Chapter 8: Nepal part 2 (the Everest trek)

Chapter 9: Nepal part 3 (Volunteering)

Chapter 10: Nepal part 4 and Northern India

Chapter 11: Southern India

Chapter 12: Sri Lanka

Postscript: Arriving home

Prologue: Preparations

Our six-month trip around South and Central America had taught us several things:

We actually get along quite well.

We like a mix of trekking, voluntary work, sightseeing and the occasional touch of ‘normal’ food.

It is possible to carry everything required for all weathers and occasions in a manageable backpack, but even better if the pack has wheels.

Four months would have been better than six to leave the house, bills, cat and family neglected.

So, our planning for the Asia trip began with an itinerary to fit everything into a shorter timespan: trekking (Rob wanted to climb to Everest base camp.), voluntary work (some combination of teaching and building as we had done in Guatemala), sightseeing (the Great Wall of China, Halong Bay, Angkor Wat and the Taj Mahal were musts) - and a week with the family in Greenport, Long Island before we set off. Of course, Greenport is to the west, the wrong direction for everything else, but that really just meant that the trip became ‘around the world’. We planned, paid deposits, packed and off we went.

Chapter 1: Greenport, Long Island, New York

Day 1 - His

So, we are here. It took 22 hours to get here, twice as long as usual as we have a strict budget for this trip, and, to be honest, my overriding impression of the journey is a sore backside. We  had had an offer of a lift to the airport but, feeling a little guilty about asking someone to drive that far, we decided to take a coach. I suppose that it was due to the South American experience, where the coaches are truly fantastic - well, at least in my memory the coaches are truly fantastic - something akin to a Cunard liner, but on the road. So, it seemed like a good idea. Of course, things that seem like a good idea at the time are rarely so in reality and, true to form, the actual experience of four hours on a coach trogging our way to Heathrow was less of a necessary life experience than I had thought. It wouldn't have been so bad except we then had to follow the coach trip by eight hours of airflight on a budget trans-Atlantic shuttle.

The seats on this particular plane were hard, cramped and cold. Everything was charged for including the blankets and earphones – and it was clear that some people were more prepared for this than we were. The woman we sat next to was obviously a bit of an old hand. The moment we all sat down, she opened her hand luggage and pulled out a blanket, pillow, earphones and two course dinner complete with a small bottle of wine. She smiled at us as she tucked in, made herself comfortable and settled down for the flight. I thought it was a little over prepared until we were two hours into the flight, when, to be honest, I was just plain jealous. The flight was in two legs - London to Iceland (I can't spell Reykjavik, so I'm not even going to try; I'm just going to call it Iceland instead. I think it's a property of the Icelandic language - the only way to speak it properly is if you are gargling with a mouthful of hot coal - far too many weird letter combinations, well possibly not as many as Welsh, but still too many.) Anyway, we flew from London to Iceland, had a two hour stop-over in Iceland and then flew from Iceland to New York. If we do this again, we will stay for longer in Iceland – the lagoons and volcanoes are definitely worth exploring - and I could have done with more of a break before getting back on that plane.

At Iceland airport, I was told that there was a smoking lounge, which was kind pf cool except that it was on the other side of passport control, so Patti and I crept up to the immigration officers and asked them to let us sneak through so that I could go to the smoking lounge. I have the natural aversion every traveller should have to immigration officials and live in fear of them dragging me off to a little room to be strip searched. Patti, however, is a little more robust when it comes to immigration, so she bounced to up the glass box, smiled sweetly and the bull-like creature behind the glass actually smiled, nodded and let us through. Several cigarettes later and a quick try of several moose skin – or were they reindeer? – hats, we re-joined the flight.

As I mentioned, the seats were hard; they were that faux leather type that six hours of sweating and squirming will firmly weld you into, so the flight attendants went ‘round and peeled us all out when we landed and let us go. Blessed relief. Only a few more hours and we will actually be there. I truly believe that the Americans have raised the skill of sandwich making to an art form. Reluctant to spend $20 on a fish finger on board the flight, we had chosen to wait until we landed to eat. So, after only 20 hours of nothing to eat and nothing to drink but our own sweat, we really needed a coffee and a sandwich. Terminal 7 of JFK is a little place armed only with a Costa coffee shop and Subway. Sort of expecting the English interpretation of a sandwich offered by sandwich shops in England, I wasn't too hopeful. But as I said earlier, American sandwiches have to be seen to be believed. They are truly fantastic concoctions of meat, vegetables and the kind of sauces that make your mouth water just thinking about. Anyway, we ate heartily, drank greedily and, feeling much more human, we went to collect our hire car. I think the moral of this story is - if you are going to travel bucket class with a budget airline, bring a blanket, some earphones and your own lunch.

Patti and I have been coming to Greenport together for something like 12 years; obviously Patti has been coming here a lot longer, but it has been something like 12 years together.  The first year we were picked from the airport by Patti's father; the second year, Patti drove and every year after, I have driven. So, we have got it to a bit of a fine art. We know exactly where we are going, we know what the car hire company want from us before they hand over the keys, and we know which side of the road to drive on. None of this seems like a particular skill until you meet someone who doesn't know any of this. The best place to meet people who don't know any of this is in car hire places in airports where you can be pretty much guaranteed to meet tired confused men holding maps upside down while children cry and anxious mothers try to work out the EZ pass. I feel particularly sorry for these guys when we join the nightmare that is the main traffic around New York in rush hour. Drivers in New York seem to have their own driving code. Mostly, it consists of driving too fast, driving too close and slamming on their brakes as often as possible, especially when they are in front of you and especially while hitting the horn. I like to settle into a steady 40 miles an hour and keep as much as possible to the middle lane. This really seems to upset them. It's a petty revenge kind of thing I know - but it amuses me. Two hours of driving east from the city will bring you the sea. It's pretty much the furthest you can go from the city by car, without needing a ferry and that's where Patti's parents live. We arrived about eleven, swigged a gallon or two of Folgers coffee and collapsed into bed.

Day 2 – Hers

6:15am and wide awake. That’s much better than the usual 4am jetlagged start to our annual week on Long Island; I guess spending 22 hours getting here was exhausting enough to cancel out two time zones. I pulled my shorts and trainers out of my pack and went for a walk on the beach. It was quite hot and sticky even so early. The sun was up and glistening on the bay and a few early rising seagulls soared overhead but there were no people out yet – no sailing classes or jet skis or noisy cigar boats throwing rooster tails as they rounded the point of the beach. They were all waiting for the afternoon. Coffee, a bagel with cream cheese and a few hours later – my mom and sister and I returned to the beach for a swim. Dad and Rob went into town to sort out bait and ice for fishing tomorrow. Later, Rob and I took the kayaks out. I was surprised that Rob hadn’t already started repairing the dock. He always takes on some sort of project when he’s here and this year it’s repairing the damage Hurricane Irene did to the dock. The stairs to it went west 100 yards and the pontoons went east....a bit of geographical realignment with a large hammer is required – just Rob’s thing. After dinner, Rob and I went to collect the kids from the train station. They had flown in late last night but had had a day in Manhattan before joining us. They descended from the little double-decker train at the very cute end-of-the line station looking as travel weary as I am sure I had the night before. We all watched a bit of the Olympics on telly and headed to bed. Everyone else arrives tomorrow – let’s hope the lovely weather holds for our annual barbecue on the beach tomorrow night.

Day 3 - His

The great tradition here is the family barbecue. Well, the family barbecue, getting up too early and waiting for people to arrive. I never really understood jet lag until I started travelling here - I had heard about it - mostly in really bad sitcoms - but it kind of kicks in when you know it is midday in reality but all the clocks say seven. Mostly we are led to believe that time is some kind of constant - but it just isn't true. Try spending some time being bored and you will realise how long an hour can be - some hours last a life-time. Equally, when you’re having fun, days just fly by. All this causality nonsense leads us to believe that time just ticks by at the same rate everywhere - it just doesn't. If you want proof of this try spending a Saturday morning here. The day starts at the wrong time and then it drips by like treacle until we go out, when it just flies. Equally when everybody arrives it speeds past at an unbelievable rate until it's time to go to the beach and sunbathe when it slows down again and becomes so thick you can hardly move through it. It creeps moment by moment until the barbecue when it all speeds up again and everything becomes normal - whatever that is. So, everybody arrived today. Another really curious thing about time. In my mind at least, it lacks sequence and sometimes it's hard to decide which came first the graham cracker or the Hershey bar.

One of the things we cook at the beach barbecue is s'mores. For the uninitiated s’mores are cooked  marshmallow, chocolate and graham cracker sandwiches (Graham crackers are a kind of square digestive biscuit thing). They are sweet, sticky and incredibly filling. But the most curious thing about them is that the cracker is just the right size for a Hershey bar - so which came first, the Hershey or the cracker? These are the deep philosophical problems one must struggle with here. The beach barbecue begins with a bonfire - the younger guys set off first to collect driftwood, pile it high and soak it with enough lighter fuel to ensure worried parents. By the time we arrive with the great heaps of necessary paraphernalia the fire is roaringly high and we all spread out and try to cook hot dogs without losing too much of our own eyebrows. There are two types of cooking forks - short ones and long ones and the trick is to get a long fork while looking like you don't care if you get a long fork. Of course, everybody cares, but it would be social death to show you did. After we have eaten, we chill and watch the sun go down, sipping, in  my case at least, root beer. Root beer is another of those great American inventions I truly appreciate. It tastes like antiseptic and I am almost sure it rots your teeth, but I can't get enough of the stuff - I think it must be is banned in Europe - maybe the main ingredients are carcinogenic – but it seems the only place to get it is here and I love the stuff. I must be braver than I thought: I won't use a rope swing, but I am happy to swig gallons of gut rot and risk a tumour. The only other thing we did yesterday was go to Greenport and buy a penknife. When we pack, we do so with the aid of lists. The idea of lists is to ensure nothing is forgotten. The reality of lists is to ensure lots of things are forgotten. In our case we forgot woolly hats and a penknife. We figured that we wouldn’t find woolly hats in Greenport in August, so we just made it part of Saturday's mission to find a penknife – and to look around Greenport - just to check that nothing had changed. Unfortunately, things have changed. It is always a disappointment to find things have changed, but that is the nature of things and in this case, the Arcade had shut. The Arcade was like a Poundsaver on steroids, full of those intriguing little bits and pieces that no one could possibly use but were huge fun to look at and think about buying. We might have even found woolly hats. I suppose if people did more buying and less looking, it would still be there. But then, there are only so many tin bucket plant stands and plastic hoops you can possibly use.  Time definitely has a curious property here – that, of course, may be because the big decisions of the day consist of whether to have Fritos or Fruit Loops for breakfast, and a hour on the porch watching squirrels play in the yard and drinking coffee is about as dangerous as it gets!

Day 4 – Hers

The Sunday of the annual family weekend is always a bit of a strange day. Each grandchild has some tradition that must be followed before those with work or camp or commitments catch their transport home. For some it’s a run on the beach, for others a last swim – or tubing behind Grandpa’s boat – for still others it’s lunch at Claudio’s Clam Bar or the Chowder Pot Pub (an easy decision this year as the Chowder Pot Pub is closed for refurbishment). Some years we have also had to fit in a round of mini-golf, croquet on the lawn and a ride on the carousel. This year we had to coordinate a group photograph, everyone on the steps, to replace the one from 2006 – and a team effort to help Rob lift the heavier bits of dock back into place. A whirlwind of morning activity, a lunch that is always too much food....and then it stops. Damp beach towels, empty soft drink cans – and, invariably, one forgotten flip flop – scattered on the sandy porch remain to tell the tale.

Arranging lunch for 15 on a summer weekend at a dockside restaurant that doesn’t take reservations requires serious logistical strategy. The advance party went an hour early to set up a spearhead, nabbing three tables as each became free and assembling them into a line. The rest of us arrived in another three cars, two already packed for the journeys home, and swarmed into the melee, establishing our base camp somewhere between the day sailors from Connecticut and the weekenders from Queens. Rob ordered a footlong hot dog with sauerkraut – he said he was trying out the ‘international cuisine’ - most of the rest of us had clams, scallops or lobster – and we managed to split the bill without bickering which was a plus. Entertainment was provided by the manoeuvrings of inexperienced boat handlers negotiating the narrow slips. Note to novice Greenport mariners: You cannot turn a 50-foot boat around when the docks are only 50 feet apart.

Day 5 - His

Autism - according to Wikipedia – is characterised in one of three ways: 1) delayed or abnormal social interaction, 2) delayed or abnormal communication, and 3) restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behaviour, interests and activities. If you exhibit any of these, you are said to be on the autistic spectrum. A moment’s thought, though, will tell you that we all exhibit number three to some degree or other. Mostly we call them habits. But, just think how uncomfortable and upset you are if someone drinks from your cup at work or sits in your chair at home or has the temerity to change the pre-sets on your car seat and music system. Low level stuff, I admit - but it does kind of smack of being on the spectrum to me! Anyway, so it is on our trips to the States; we have a whole host of things we like to do because we have always done them - no one would categorically say these things had to be done and no one would admit to being upset if these things weren't done - but there would certainly be a general sense of things just not being right if these things were not done. Consequently, day 5 was spent ticking things off the list. These primarily were: - shopping in Tanger outlet mall, eating fish, playing crazy golf and having an ice cream. Doesn't sound like much, I know, but as the time taken to organise any activity is directly proportional to the number of people involved, then having an ice cream at a specific place and at a specific time is challenging, Ii assure you. Tanger outlet mall is a spread of asphalt, concrete and neon constructed for one purpose - to sell - and they do it very well. Even Patti’s 20-something son admitted he had spent more than he wanted and bought stuff he didn't really need but found impossible to refuse. But then, he did spend 6 hours there and that kind of thing is going to  happen after six hours.

Eating fish may not sound too wild but as these are fish we have caught ourselves, there is more behind this than meets the eye. Patti's dad has a boat and another of the great traditions is to take the kids fishing - mostly they don't bring anything back - not because they don't catch anything but because what they do catch is too small to keep, but this year they caught a few keepers! I have no idea what kind of fish they were, but Patti’s dad cleaned them and gutted them and we ate them. Actually, the guys ate them - I don't eat fish – well, only if they are in the form of fish fingers - but not if they are in the form of fish. It's the eyes - I can't eat things that look at me as I eat them. I do like crazy golf - who doesn't - but the most disappointing thing is coming last - which I did last year with a score of something like 101. Luckily, we have a crazy golf in our town in England, so only 6 months of practice means I had a respectable score of 42; I tied with the kids - though I might have cheated a little when no one was looking. Ah well, tomorrow is going to be taken up with mending the dock, so time for bed!

Day 6 – Hers

Another day of ticking off ‘things we have to do’ – most of which involved a hammer for Rob, golf clubs for the other guys, and a bottle of suntan lotion and cooler of drinks for the rest of us. We started off, though, with the annual huge breakfast at the Coronet diner in town. The Coronet has apparently been serving pancakes and eggs ‘over easy’ with home fries and coffee to Greenport fishermen since 1949. Now it is mostly full of tourists who can’t face breakfast on their bobbing yachts. My father always gives us the history of who owned it when and my mother - who remembers it when it was new – gently corrects any misinformation. Rob tried to order half a ‘hungry man’ breakfast which really seemed to throw the staff – so he just ordered one of everything a la carte and still faced a mountain of food. We then discovered that two enterprising young men are having a go at re-establishing the Arcade – a shop that sells everything you could possibly want but nothing you actually need. In my mother’s youth, it was one of only two shops in town that were open all year. They only re-opened this morning, so we went in and duly purchased some things we didn’t need, paying more than we would have anywhere else – supporting local businesses like good tourists should. The evening was spent adding detail to the family history, going through boxes of old photographs and mementos – including a ferrotype featuring an unidentified woman with a clutch of kids and a marriage certificate from 1865 that confirmed some of my earlier guesswork. The letters from my grandfather and aunt written home on childhood visits provided much hilarity – as did my father’s (sparse!) notes from one of his college courses. My father’s commentary added a lot of ‘colour’ that he wouldn’t allow us to record for public viewing. An evening of enlightenment!

Day 7 - His

Well, I sort of expect to get ill at least once on these long trips - but I have to say I hadn't expected to get ill quite so soon. It started a few days  ago as a sore throat and was a full blown cold by last night. Consequently, I spent most of the morning in a haze of runny eyes, runny nose and lots of sneezing. Patti's mom rode to the rescue with some antihistamine and, that coupled with a gallon of Lemsip - which mysteriously appeared from the bottom of Patti's rucksack - there is a bit of like mother like daughter going on here, I think -  helped me limp into the afternoon and a boat trip launched from the newly restored dock. I think everyone else went off to the beach or something, but to be absolutely honest, I am not a hundred percent sure. I dragged myself through the rest of the day and dinner by the sea - more fish! - How much fish can one person decently eat? A couple of the guys varied it a little by having soft shelled crab but most ordered the same thing - some kind of stuffed flounder that looked for all the world like an huge eyeball. I have to admit I was wishing all the time I was in bed and that I would stop sneezing. I am a terrible invalid, like most men I think, so though I have glossed over it, I am quite sure there was a lot of whining involved. Patti said I looked miserable - I certainly felt it - but, again, that could be because I am just a whiner when it comes to being ill. We are setting off for Beijing in the morning - I think we leave about 5am - so not being particularly early risers, the rest of the family said their tearful goodbyes at about 10 and we went off to bed. I strongly suspect Patti's mom will get  up with us - she didn't cry nearly enough - still plenty of time for that in the morning and I am sure she will get a sob or two in!

Chapter 2: Beijing, China

Day 8 – Hers

Well, here we go – our first big travel day. We were up at 4:45am – I set 3 alarms to make sure – and, as Rob predicted, my mother got up to see us off. She had also set the coffee to be ready for us at 5am. How’s that for thoughtful! We drove to JFK, just beating the morning rush hour, and returned the car. We found the Air Canada desk, checked in and set off for Toronto. Toronto airport was modern, efficient and empty. They obviously keep lots of people employed by insisting on full security checks even for transit passengers – both for arrival and departure. We were lucky that our Toronto to Beijing flight didn’t have a stop in Vancouver or we would have had to collect and re-check our luggage there as well.

Air Canada’s seats were considerably more comfortable than those of our flight from London to New York – and we were fed 3 times on the 14 hour flight to Beijing (though some of the food was a bit disappointing; I generally quite like airline food – well, some of it – and oddly Rob usually likes the bits I don’t, so it’s a bit like Jack Spratt and his wife). The first meal was very Western – chicken or pork with salad and chocolate cake. The middle meal was incongruously noodles (with complimentary chop sticks) and a roast beef sandwich. The third was a breakfast choice of plastic omelette or rice with pickles. The Chinese girl next to Rob seemed to enjoy the rice much more than we enjoyed the omelette.....

We arrived in Beijing at 4:45pm local time – 12 hours ahead of New York – so exactly 24 hours from when we got up – and half a world away.

Day 9 – His

My poor behind! You try sitting still for 14 hours and see how numb your backside gets – at least it wasn’t on seats like we had before. We have now gone so far around the world that we are beginning to come back on ourselves. The plan was certainly to circumnavigate and in one sense we are doing it quicker than Fogg, but in another we are going more slowly.

The Chinese seem a very orderly people. They love to form ‘official’ queues for everything including the taxis. Taxis are any airport traveller’s nightmare. Every traveller I know fears being ripped off by rogue taxi drivers and I am sure that we have been overcharged once or twice at least on our travels. Well, in Beijing they have notices everywhere and an official queue and as long as you don’t get diverted from the queue the charge is pretty reasonable; we paid £11 from the airport to the hotel and it was miles. If we had been in London it would have been a good £80 at least.

I had always assumed that Chinese painting was metaphorical and whimsical, that when they painted the hills and trees, they did so with a degree of poetic licence. But it turns out that the trees actually do look like they do in the paintings; it is astounding. Our taxi drive took us past Tiananmen Square, past the Forbidden City and past the government palaces. So the £11 was even better if you think of it as a tour - quite cool.

The street our hotel is on is only a short walk from the Forbidden City and is like an exploded China town in London. The street heaves with people: tourists, sellers, dogs, children and, of course, bicycles. We checked in at the hotel which is a little basic but does have complementary toothbrushes, so it’s not all bad! -and almost immediately we went for a walk to breathe in a little of this vibrant, colourful and exciting place. Often when we arrive in new cities, they can be a little intimidating, but Beijing completely breaks this mould. It is friendly and welcoming and the people are helpful and pleasant – so far our experiences of it have been nothing but positive – but then I guess we have only been here a few hours and, like any tourist, the thing we most have to do is chuck ourselves in, try the language, get lost, eat the street food and be overcharged – well, it is kind of obvious we don’t belong. It is kind of a shame that we are so exhausted after having been up for 24 hours – I would have liked to explore more – but to be honest we are dead on our feet and stretching out for a good sleep seems like the only thing we are really going to be able to do from now. Ah well, tomorrow awaits and a whole new set of experiences beckon from the front doors of our hotel.

Day 10 – Hers

A good night’s sleep and off to explore Beijing. As the Great Wall and Forbidden City are part of our tour that starts tomorrow, we headed for the Temple of Heaven and markets. We strolled along residential streets, the only non-Chinese faces in evidence, past a table tennis club, gardens and slum areas enclosed in decorative walls, until we reached the North Gate of the complex. The Temple of Heaven is a huge walled park with rose gardens, ancient trees and a number of ancient buildings, once reserved for the imperial court’s prayers and rituals. Today it is clearly one of the places to be on a Saturday for fitness, music and relaxation. There were groups of singers (not, as they would in England, expecting money – just singing for pleasure), dancers (everything from waltz and tango to line dancing), martial artists (tai chi and sword play), players (I must find out what those instruments are called), prayers, picnickers and some groups playing odd sports – one looked like football skills with a large badminton shuttlecock. It is apparently called jianzi and is based on an ancient game of the Han dynasty, 2000 years ago.

We spent a good 3 hours just walking around and people-watching before heading to the Pearl Market where Rob sharpened his haggling skills. We then wandered down several of the main shopping streets – H&M, Burberry’s, Macdonald’s and KFC did not have the same appeal, though – and finally returned to the more traditional shopping area near our hotel. We had a late lunch in a noodle bar – beef for Rob and spicy sesame paste with pea shoots for me, accompanied by green tea – and bought a few odd things to try later before heading back to the hotel.

Day 10 – His

 We are on a trip in a new city, so I expected Patti to march me around without a rest or water for hour after hour and she didn’t disappoint. We walked for ages until my incessant whining brought us to a bench