28.08.10-30.08.10:

By 11am we had arrived in Kathmandu.  The bus ride had tested my X-Men power to the extreme (that power with which I can sleep anyplace, anywhere, anytime) but I had still managed a decent amount of shut-eye and was raring to go.  Dawshan had arranged for me to be picked up by the hotel I was staying with – by the brother of the owner, no less.  But on arrival at the Khangsar Guest House, I met up with the owner himself, Raj.  But, alas, he had bad news – because my bus was late getting in, he doubted if I could get the Chinese visa I needed quick enough to get on the tour for Tuesday.

But Raj wasn’t giving up hope just yet.  After a few phone calls, he asked for my passport and said he’d see what he can do.  It was going to be expensive, but in a country where money trumps bureaucracy, anything is possible.  Raj and I chatted about my travels and what I had learnt on the road and he treated me to lunch.  By early afternoon the signs were good – Raj gave me a 80% probability that I’d be leaving for Tibet on Tuesday (the next tour wouldn’t be for a week).

My only worry was the fact that I have a Chinese visa in my other passport (I need to leave and re-enter the country for Mongolia and Korea), which is currently winging its way to Shanghai, and that a bit of cross-checking could result in a headache.

I headed out to reacquaint myself with Kathmandu, returning at 6pm to meet with Raj and the Danish ladies to watch some Salsa dancing (Yup! Got a problem with that?!) at Raj’s new restaurant-bar called the Tantra.  As in Sting having sex.  Actually best not think about that, especially if you’ve just eaten.  I had a cracking meal and afterwards headed out to see my old haunt, The Tom and Jerry pub, to see if my signature was still on the wall from 2002.

Sadly, the place had been painted over since then.  The owner, Tom (funnily enough) told me that it had to be done – it was all getting too much – but they did keep the signed T-shirts that expedition-types like myself had put up on the wall.  As thousands of people have climbed Everest, but so far NOBODY has visited every country in the world without flying, I felt my expedition deserved a place on the wall – so if you’re ever in Tom and Jerry’s in Kathmandu, look out for this historical relic:

Met some people, drank a little too much Everest beer, ended up going to Platinum, but to be honest I remember very little.  I blame the altitude.  Don’t look at me like that!  This time last week I was in Kerala by the sea!

The next day I had some errands to run.  First up – see if I could fix Javier, my damn camcorder – the screen of which hasn’t been working probably since I attempted to sail around the world with Fajer on the fourth of July.  Kamal, the nice guy in the camera shop on JP School Road said he could fix it for fifty quid, which is what I’d pay in the UK for someone to look at it, so I said yes.  This was turning into an expensive weekend.  I also looked for somewhere that could fix Sony Jim, my laptop YES I SPEND A LOT OF TIME ON MY OWN SO I ANTHROPOMORPHISE MY THINGS STOP PULLING THAT FACE but it looked like I’d be better off getting it sorted in Beijing.

I then met Cirrus, the most awesome tailor in the whole of Nepal, who agreed to fix my shoulder bag, make me a new slip for my laptop, embroider The Odyssey logo onto a polo shirt (something I should have done ages ago) and supply me with badges of the flags of pretty much every country in the world (I wrote the list out from memory).  Those badges that they didn’t have they would make for me.  Hell yeah!

Another night in Tom and Jerry’s, but one that was spent pretty much all on the phone to my mum in a vain attempt to get a video file I needed emailed over to me.  You know people bitch about the way that Ewan MacGregor and Charlie Boarman have this huge logistical team helping them out, but I can’t help but envy them.  Later I returned to Platinum only for the place to be raided by the fun police about five minutes later.  I have no intention of spending another minute in a foreign police station I DON’T CARE IF IT MAKES GOOD TELEVISION so I made like a tree and got out of there.

The riot van waiting outside informed me that I had made a good choice.

On Monday, it was all about getting my camera back (Fixed! Woo!) and taking it on a walking tour of Kathmandu.  It’s really quite amazing the way that statues carved over a millennia ago, which in any other country would be in a museum, are to be found on the streets of Nepal being used as a child’s plaything or as something to tie the washing line to – but it makes the whole place a living museum – and one that has many Easter Eggs to find!

One thing that’s been a bit -urk- during my stay here has been the fact that the bin men are on strike.  The rubbish is piling up on the streets in a way that not even India would stomach (well, maybe it would, who knows) and the stench is quite unbearable.  But that’s just one black mark against an otherwise perfect scoresheet for old Nepal.  I like this place, I really like it a lot.

That night I headed over to Cirrus’s tailor shop (it’s just to the right of the stairs leading to Tom and Jerry’s, by the way) and picked up my personalised polo shirt, laptop slip and badges, badges, badges (haven’t decided what I’m going to do with them all yet!).  One thing I had to get done was to transfer all my camcorder tapes to my hard-drives before I attempted to enter Tibet – I have a feeling that the Chinese authorities are not going to be too pleased to see them.  Unfortunately, my  battery charger had blown (my fault – didn’t switch it back to 240v after using it on 110v setting on the train) and I didn’t have the battery life to do it.  I would be taking one hell of a risk trying to get these tapes into Tibet – they could easily be confiscated – and if the Chinese decide I look like a journalist, they can always turn me back at the border.  But by now it was too late – I was leaving for Tibet at 6am.

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