Nepal and Tibet

We are surprised when we soon reach Nyalam. We were not aware that our driving day is to be so short. When we see this town, we wonder why we have stopped here at all when we could have driven much further. The town has the potential to be very pretty. It is built on a steep hillside, overlooking a rushing river. We approach the town over a high bridge and I expect to see a reasonably nice place.

Well, it is the dirtiest, most dreadful place I ever hope to visit. The main street is rubble, rocks, rubbish, dirty kids and dogs. The guesthouse, the Nga-Dhon, which we have been off-loaded into, is a hovel. I ask our guides if there is a chance that Robert and I could have a room together. This does not go down well as I think this means that our main guide would have to share. She is annoyed with us and lets us know, when we comment on the accommodation, that we have no right to complain about the place because we have - "....the best room in the hotel. Why it even has a cross-breeze!" If our room is the best room, the worst must be bad. It is pokey with two hard beds with dirty under sheets. Bedding is folded and piled high on the end of the beds. These are grubby, hot-pink satin quilts with moth holes. Thank goodness, we still have our sleeping bags, with our lovely sheets, which we bought in Kathmandu. We use the drawstring bags from the sleeping bags as pillowslips and fill them with soft clothes so we do not have to use any of the bedding. Of course there is only the basin with the thermos of hot water but in another wing of the building, there is a washroom with cold water on tap, and a toilet, which is quite clean. It actually has a lockable door. One delightful addition to the décor is the china spittoon, which is placed outside each door. There is no electricity in the town tonight, we are told, so stubs of candles are given to us to light our rooms. They are also strategically placed throughout the building to light our way. The building is so very old and built of timber, a real firetrap! The "cross-breeze", if we needed it in this cool climate, would have come from the two cracked and dirty windows over which grubby fabric is tacked. The Lonely Planet Guide does not give it much of a wrap-up either and from this publication we find that our bed cost us approximately 25 yuan per night (about six Australian dollars).

We decide to get out of the place and to see what the town has to offer. We meet one of our travelling companions and we go walking up the steep street. The road is muddy and full of potholes. Rubble is lying everywhere from some unfinished building project. Dogs roam the streets and kids play in the filth. We have to watch where we put our feet because, I'm sure that what I see by the roadside, is not from dogs, but human excrement. Little children, including one who cannot yet walk, are playing in the gutter. The little one rolls over and over in the dirt. His pants are especially made with a split from front to back so that he can "go" wherever he likes. I am really angry. This place is not fit for humans to live in. Why isn't the government doing something for these people? No one should be expected to survive in these conditions.

I am further shocked that an Australian tour company has had the hide to expect us to stay here for the night. We have paid a lot of money for this trip, more than we paid last year for our trip to China, where we had wonderful hotels, with breakfast and lunch included, private tour guides and many internal flights. The profits for this trip must be excellent because they have, for the last three nights, put us into hotels that would not have even made the rating list. Rongbuk, they can be forgiven for. There was no alternative. Even Tingri was acceptable because there was probably nothing better but why did we have such a late start from there? We could have made it all the way back to Kathmandu in one day. Our guide's argument is that she wants us to be able to enjoy tomorrow at a leisurely pace because the drive is so beautiful.

We cannot believe she has had the hide to put us up in this town and in this hotel. To add insult to injury, on returning to our room, the key, which is made of a very soft metal, breaks in the lock. We tell the second guide, who is in the room next to us, but he just scoffs at us for being stupid enough to lock our door in the first place. We are told that we will just have to pay for a new lock. He just points to the rules on the wall and says that that is our responsibility. We do not mind paying but the attitude the guides have taken since we asked for our own room is not acceptable. Obviously, one of them wanted the room but hey, who are the clients here? We are the ones on holidays. They are supposed to be giving us good service. We go to find Karma so that he can translate for us so we can organize to get into our room, because, at this stage, we are locked out. Before long, a new key and lock is bought and we hand over the fifteen dollars for the cost. The money is not the issue. Later in the evening, when we speak about it around the dinner table, our guide pretends to be horrified that we have had to pay for the breakage. She says that she was only fooling earlier. Fooling! No way! She tried to degrade us and belittle us! Now she is trying to save face.

The best part of the whole incident is that it makes us read the rules on the wall in greater detail and it gives us a good laugh. The rules are as follows:-

Rules and regulation for guest
Dear guests, in order to make sure you'll satisfy our Hotel's service and accommodation and safety during your stay our hotel, we make this special systems for Guest who stay in our Hotel. We hope guest will accept to Abide the hotel system!

1. Before you going outside please do not forget to close window. And keep your valuable things such as money, golden rings In register office or with you otherwise we'll do not be responsible about it.
2. When you depart from hotel please check your room And any hotel's things to service with (cannot read)
3. No permitted to use heated condition, and the some kinds of petrol in hotel room and please do not remove or touch Electric wire from original installation.
4. Please do not cigarette smoking the bed or any passage, and throw your cigarette dust in ashtray, dispose your garbage in Garbage can, throw properly your plastic bag or any paper in garbage can and (cannot read) in toilet.
5. No allowed to say unkind things to other people and disturb other people's rest time after your drink beer.
6. Please be care for hotel and toilet things, if your damage or lost them, you must compensate for it we tabled the original price with them.
7. Strictly forbid to take bomb or explosive things and any rotten things including dogs in hotel room.
8. The checking time is until 12 o'clock, if you are latt or check your room after 12 o'clock afternoon you have to pay hole of fee for Room, if you check your room until 12 o'clock you have to pay full fee for your room.
Finally we wish have nice trip to you
during you stay top of the world!!!

It seems we have had to abide by Rule Number 6 and we don't mind but perhaps our tour guides should have read and obeyed Rule Number 5.

I have no appetite for dinner because I can imagine what the state of the kitchen must be. Sitting at the table in the restaurant, I wipe my little patch of table with a tissue. The tissue ends up black with the grime of who knows how long. We go up to our room, prepare for bed and sit in the dark with a brandy or two. We just have to go to sleep so that this horrible night will pass quickly. Once in our clean sleeping bags, we can hear the rushing river behind the hotel. The sound is quite soothing. We do go to sleep and the night seems to pass quickly. Not so for some of our friends. They have a noisy party going on next door to them in their part of this big rambling hotel. People come and go for half the night. Chinese voices can be heard amongst a lot of giggling. Eventually our friend loses her cool and knocks on the door and demands quiet. She really believes that the hotel is running a brothel. She says her part of the establishment is like Grand Central Station for most of the night. She is furious too so we are not the only ones.