Until we entered Tibet our hands and feet were much more useful to talk with than our mouth. Only a few locals could speak more than two sentences in English and we sometimes did not meet other travelers for months. Next to the fact that I am quite lazy to do anything which even just remotely reminds me of my really frustratingly boring schooldays - and writing texts (especially English ones) will definitely remind me - the “Hands and Feet Language” is the main excuse that there are just four entries in our English diary section after more than three years “on the road”.
But now, after traveling in Tibet, Nepal and India we met so many people who are interested in our travel stories that I wish to have more articles in our English diary section. The problem I face with that wish: too much is happening on such a trip - at least too much for a lazy person like me to write it all down and furthermore with such a limited time in front of a computer.
So my solution for the future is to write the English diary like the German one with short articles just about some of our adventures but more regular. However for now another school-style summary just to let you know where we have been and what has happened after the last diary entry ten months ago:
Before we entered Tibet, we traveled through the scenic Western Sichuan Province in China which was a really interesting opportunity to come in touch with nomadic people. We met much more Tibetan people here living in their incredible simple tents out of yakwool then later in the TAR (Tibet Autonomous Region) and moreover they are much less influenced by Western and Chinese tourists than in the TAR.
We also cycled our first 5000 Meter Pass in Sichuan Province which was quite tough because it was such a steep uphill. The people who recommended this gravel road to us said that there are also trucks going up the pass but they forgot to mention the bulldozers which support them with ropes to help them to make the steep climb…
However, quite soon we got really used to the thin air in such high altitudes because many more passes waited for us in the TAR. They were all much easier than we expected them to be because there weren’t really steep passes on the main routes through the TAR. It was only after Lhasa when we decided not to go on the Friendship Highway but on horsecart tracks or walking trail instead that we had really hard ascents again. Many times we had to push one bike together - just a few meters at a time because after every few steps over all the steep climbs and stones we needed a break. Funnily enough, when cycling (or pushing) got really strenuous it was one of the best times of the journey we had.
Before we left the main road (and before winter came which is in fact so much easier to bear then a siberian winter) we really had surprisingly numerous encounters with other cyclists in the TAR. Just in the city of Lhasa alone we met more cyclists than on all the rest of our trip outside of the TAR before. It was great for us to hear about the experiences and travel stories of the other cyclists and we were really surprised how different every biketraveler is even if we have the same instrument for traveling.
With quite a few cyclists we camped a night or two, with a french couple on a tandem - Damien und Delphine, - we also cycled for a few days together. We did not only have a fantastic time with them but also have - because they are quite professional filmmakers - a great short film (three minutes) about our trip together which you can watch here: Video).
There was one problem about traveling in the TAR which sometimes made us change our route through Tibet or even did make us turn: Traveling without special permits is not allowed in the TAR and to get these papers you need to be part of an organized tour group. So we - like most of the other cyclists - were crossing the TAR illegally.
While some bikers are never checked for permits others get fined heavily or kicked out of the TAR when caught. Even if we really took care and cycled through all the “dangerous areas” and checkpoints in the night, we got caught quite a few times. But for us it turned out to be an entertaining game to deal with the police. They succeeded to get a nice collection of our fingerprints in red ink but we could successfully make it to Nepal with police offering us money in the end instead of forcing us to pay the fines.
For describing Nepal the word colourful seems to be most adequate for us maybe especially because we spent such a long time in the dry altitude landscape of Tibet before. We really loved the amazing quick change in scenery and culture we experienced on the long, long downhill to Kathmandu.
A big surprise for us was that Martins parents decided to visit us and this was the main reason for our really long stay in Kathmandu. We were able to hang out with my brothers Raj and John and many more great people.
Kathmandu itself is also quite interesting: on the one hand its one of the most westernized cities we’ve seen on the trip with an incredible array of european products, much tourist infrastructure and many english speaking people (even the street kids), but on the other hand it’s the least developed capital we’ve ever seen with eight hours of power cut per day, severe water shortages, serious pollution, many demonstrations with road blocks, tire burning and stone throwing, etc.
The terrible traffic in Kathmandu and the black air are a good training for India at least, which - after all the warnings of other travelers - turns out to be one of the easiest countries to travel for us. Not only because most of India is really flat but it’s also quite a rural country. There are many quite silent small roads for us to choose from with good spots for camping and without much other traffic then cyclists, oxcarts, camels or elephants. Only in the cities the traffic is really chaotic but it’s possible to get used to it. We also don’t have that much of a problem compared to other cyclists with curious crowds who are surrounding us. We are already used to such a for western people in the beginning incomprehensible curiosity from people of some parts of china and are positively surprised therefore how respectful Inidan people are staring at us cyclists.
We liked India for the many different kinds of people. Every Region has it’s own interesting language, customs, clothes,… However, we miss the nature a little bit like in many parts of China because almost all of the land is cultivated here.
In Delhi we have another unusual long stay. The embassy area is convenient for organizing many onwards visas and again we learn to know so many great people. Not only citizens of India, also from France, America and we even learn to know Austrians (which is something quite rare throughout our whole journey). Everybody of our new friends is so helpful to us and we enjoy the stay with all of them so much that it’s again hard to leave. But even if we are traveling for more than three years now: if we stay somewhere for a while we still feel the urge to travel further. Maybe there will be a day were we are tired of traveling but it seems not to be in the very near future. The daily surprises on the road, the simple but adventurous life and the great people we meet are the reasons we still keep on going.