Change is in the Air

Although we are only a few weeks into our trip, we are already deviating from the plan. According to our itinerary, we should be in Nepal. However, Nepal suddenly finds itself on the brink of civil war. For the past decade, Maoist insurgents have been rebelling against the government. It has been quite safe for tourists, however, as both sides need tourism $$ to survive. In the last 10 years, over 9,000 Nepalese have died, but not a single tourist. The Maoists have periodically exhibited some annoying habits, however, such as extorting tourists for money, closing down all travel within the country for days on end (known as “bandhs”), and blowing up buildings (strangely, the Maoists have made a practice of entering the chosen building beforehand and announcing the impending explosion…“So, could you please gather your things and leave as soon as possible?”). There has been a U.S. State Department travel warning for years because of this conflict. However, many folks we know have safely visited Nepal, and everyone has consistently said tourists are safe. That is, until quite recently.

In mid-September (just a few weeks after we bought our non-refundable plane tickets) the conflict suddenly escalated, and both the U.S. Embassy and the Peace Corps pulled all personnel from Nepal. In addition, reasonable countries such as Canada and Australia have now for the first time ever also made urgent travel warnings. There has recently been, for the first time, anti-American rhetoric from the Maoists, in part because the Bush administration just gave millions of dollars to the Nepalese government to fight the Maoists, and in part because of the recent deaths of nine Nepalese in Iraq (all Iraq-related problems are attributed to America’s meddling). Although there are still tourists going to Nepal (we have met many), we have decided that the risks for us are too great to spend the 3-4 weeks we planned there. This is quite sad for us, as it was going to be one of the highlights of the trip.

So we are turning lemons into lemonade as they say, and, after an enormous amount of bureaucratic red tape, financial burden, visas, permits, hoops, and the like, we have ultimately (and unbelievably) arrived in Tibet! We started by traveling deeper into China to reach Chengdu, one of essentially only two gateway cities to Tibet. From there, we flew into Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.

After seeing the many sights Lhasa has to offer, our current plan is to hire a Land Cruiser, driver, and guide, and drive over the border to Nepal next week, taking the slow scenic route (approximately 7-8 days) over the Friendship Highway, long considered one of the great journeys of the world. The route will take us though the heart of the highest mountains on the planet, through wonderful small villages, and past historic monasteries. As a side trip we plan to make it to the Tibetan Everest Base Camp (17,056' - on the north side of the mountain). It will be spectacular.

We need to go to Kathmandu to pick up our existing plane tickets to India. This new plan will minimize our time in Nepal (90% of the Friendship Highway is in Tibet), yet allow us to resume our itinerary. We deeply regret that we will miss most of Nepal and not get to complete the trek we had initially planned, but thus far Tibet has been everything we had hoped and more.