Bassybeats Travel Blog

So travelling to London proved to be more difficult than I thought. Scheduled to leave at 11.40am, we didn’t even leave till 4pm. All due to rubbish weather in London City, so had to land in Standsted and train in. The weather was bad enough that on the approach I didn’t see the runway till we were about 15m above it!

Sorted the rail system out and ended up at Amy’s place, where I pretty much dropped all my stuff and we went and got Byron Burgers and a beers.

Day 29

So first day in London to do things and it was so nice to realise that I wasn’t obligated to do all the usual tourist stuff as I did it last time. So a quick email to dad the days before and a phone call and I was going to THE Marhsall Amplification Factory to do a factory tour. read more

Last couple of days i’ve spent just checking out Frankfurt and ticking off the boxes of the touristy things on the map. I’m finding out a few things. Germany has stolen all the attractive people, everyone smokes here and I get confused easily when people say “Hallo”, which is German and I think they “Hello”.

Checking out Sachenhausen was a bit of an anti climax. I got there too early in the morning and everything is off season so it was dead empty.

So continued walking towards town to get some lunch and check out the main shopping street. read more

Combining days seems to be a lot easier when it comes to updating this blog so i’ll stick with it.

Third day in Frankfurt, Lukas and I decide to head off to the Natural History Museum. Has alot of specimens ranging from animal collections to Dino fossils. Instantly realised that most of the signs are in German which was an interesting experiment to see if I could figure out what it was.

They had a replica of Lucy in the Human evolution area.

A bunch of mammals including a massive American Bison. read more

As aslways Kathmandu Airport was painful. Multiple security checks (5), they don’t tell you what gate you leave from till the last minute and you can’t go through the last security check until the guy lets you because there isn’t enough seats. Sigh.

Doha Airport was easily one of the best i’ve been through, 2am and still painless and it was massive! I got a bit of sleep on the plane until we flew over the Blacksea, it was bumpy for the rest of the trip.

Landing in Frankfurt was great, familiar feeling to the airport, painless and finally no issues with passports or visas. read more

Well the Past few weeks have been an eye opener. I have been at the foot of Everest, wandered the Tibetian tundra, Met some amazing people and fallen back in love with travelling.

The Intrepid trip was alot more than I expected and alot crazier, even having the flu didn’t make me want to stop.

I have spent the last couple of days relaxing and getting my health back in Kathmandu. Going through all the photos and videos of the trip as I catch up on my blog has made me want to just sign up for another one! But, I have to get my head in the next stage of my trip. read more

Almost everyone but Phil and I leave today. Laura, Phil, Christine and I headed off to Bhaktapur to check out the ancient city and all the Hindu Temples.

A 45min taxi ride in a Maruti Suzuki, the typical taxi in Kathmandu and one of the smallest cars i’ve been in. Laura convinced the driver to drive us 45mins, stay for put for a few hours and drop us back all for 1500NPR (19.20NZD).

It was the first day we could wander around on our own. And boy did we wander. Phil and Laura took over the lonely planet guide book tour and we wander the streets. Most of the Hindu temples we couldn’t enter and the main square was only paid entry from one side, which seemed odd. read more

The morning was a pretty relaxed one with everyone (especially Kamal) being tired and hungover.

Started the morning with Breakfast and then to watch Phil and Michele do the bungy/canyon swing. The viewing deck was right outside my tent.

Then it was back onto the bus and down the mountain roads. It didn’t take long before we found the landslide we were warned about. A few weeks out from the start of my trip I was told to take 400USD as a safety incase the road was closed due to a landslide in October. Upon Arrival we were told the road was “fine” and that the bus could go through. read more

The drive Nyalam was a pretty long one and we all felt like shit after the Base Camp night.

We crossed the amazing Himalayas before descending down to Nyalam.

Well Nyalam was very much a truck stop town. The rooms were unheated, no showers or toilets. Even the Shared shower wasn’t hot. There was however an offer to upgrade for 200RMB per room to get warm showers, electric blankets and a western toilet. Pretty much everyone did. Phil and I restarted our watching on the Chinese weightlifting again now we had TV back. read more

Started off the day with a 4 hour drive to Sakya, Its a bit of a ghost town and I was feeling pretty rubbish from the night before in Shigatse. In hindsight I should have skipped the Yak Dancing Disco night but we all make mistakes.

Once we arrived our tour guide gave me the single room for the night, which was amazing considering we were doing Base Camp and our coldest night the next day.

The place was a literal ghost town. I went for a walk with Micheal and Kamal, but then skipped dinner and slept right through the night. Woke up just in time to get our leaving time and for Victoria to load me up with meds and pain killers, she was a life saver because I felt like shit and looked like death according to everyone else. read more

We start our day nice and early with an 8 hour drive ahead of us. The day got broken up with a bunch of nice mountain passes that did remind me of home. Among some of the stops we got to see some big Tibetan Mastives, which a bear like dogs, treated pretty badly though so not alot of us got photos with them. Also the same story goes for a Yak that you could sit on, cool idea but the animals were treated like shit so I didn’t get any pictures.

After ourlong drive we checked into the Hotel. The hotel was average and uneventful, but it was where Phil and I started watching Chinese weightlifting on TV as it was the only thing on that you could understand without english subtitles. After that I got my first taste of non yak food. read more