Kathmandu – Explore The Unexplored

Day 29:

After a month long trip in most desolate areas of the world with so much beautiful landscapes, so much diverse culture, Kathmandu couldn’t offer much to us, we spent the morning to repack our suitcases and rucksacks to make according to the norms of flights and started for airport just after having a quick lunch. Air India was as usual late and Nepali Immigration were confused on whether to stamp departure in our passport or in boarding pass. Indians usually don’t get stamp in passport but we got it while entering from Tibet now with an exit stamp on boarding pass, made ourselves technically inside the Nepal for time indefinite, not sure what the implication is but we were not ready to think about that after such a satisfying trip for one month. We almost did what we planned except EBC and Nam Tso and that too without knowing the language and managing the complicated Chinese rules. In the flight I took left window and clearly could see Mt. Everest for one last time in trip and it was so much satisfying as the sun sets with its last rays touching the highest point on planet Earth. With the announcement in the aircraft “We have arrived Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport at Kolkata and outside temperature is 26 degree C”, I just woke up from a dream I started to see since I was a kid in school. Every trip is result of a dream but this one was unusually long and got fulfilled after 30 years. It’s a pleasure to share a dream of life time with so many of you and thanks again for travelling with me .

At last boarding an Air India Flight to back home after one month of unforgettable experience (Felt so happy to see Indian Flags on the Aircraft ):

Previous: Day 28

Day 28:

The interesting thing in Zhangmu was the 2 hours 15 mins time difference between China and Nepal and Nepal Immigration starts working at 8.00 local time which means 10.15 in China. So when you are exiting Tibet, you shouldn’t reach very early, the later is better while you are entering from Nepal, it’s other way round, earlier is better as if Chinese immigration gets closed at 5.00 local time in evening (In Nepal it’s just 2.45pm) you might get stuck at border and loose a day. From Zhangmu town it’s 9 km straight down hill to Chinese Immigration and Customs which is parked right next to friendship bridge.The bridge is the real border crossing as the Koshi river demarcate the border, one half of the bridge belongs to Nepal and other half to China, exactly here we switched the road side as well, after one month of right hand drive in China we were brought back to Indian/Nepalese system of left hand drive. Nepal side immigration was as usual very messy and somehow we had to pay few hundred rupees to the touts to get our passport stamped though officially Indians don’t need any visa to visit Nepal. From Nepal border Woeser arranged a Jeep for us to drop till Kathmandu which was definitely a plus and very few Tibetan operators provide this service as part of package without extra cost. The 120 km road from Kodari border to Kathmandu was most pathetic in entire trip as we started getting touch with Indian infrastructure with potholed and broken roads. We were back to reality when it took 4 hours to cross this 120 km, which in whole of China we crossed in 1 to 1.5 hours max. We took a hotel in Thamel area of Kathmandu and started getting acclimatized with unclean toilets, dusts, pollution and heat of Kathmandu, yes we were close to Indian Plains

Just crossing the Friendship Bridge in Nepal side you would find some nice Waterfalls, the flow is quite heavy even in late October:

Koshi River known as sorrow of Bihar entering into Nepal from Tibet here and subsequently flow to India to become a tributary of the Ganges river system: