Tibet is the land of spectacular mountains, majestic views, yaks and where Harry Potter is a subversive. My first experience of Tibet was coming into Gonkar airport over a barren, rugged landscape. As you come down the aircraft steps you feel the altitude, shortness of breath and a pumping heart. Once through immigration you collect your bag and have them x-rayed. This is where the fun starts, the stern woman customs officer couldn’t have cared less about my Lonely Planet and detailed maps, what caught her eye was my copy of Harry Potter. She spent twenty minutes turning every page, not that she could read it, before grudgingly handing it back in a semi dog-eared state.

It takes around 3 hours from the airport to get to the capital Lhasa. Two enormous gold yaks stand guard on the first roundabout and on the left is the Potala Palace. The city has been taken over in every way by the Chinese, only 5% is still Tibetan. This 5% is centred around the Barkhor. The Barkhor is a lane which surrounds the wonderful Jokhang Temple. You can spend hours wandering(Clockwise) around the market, which is mainly full of tourist kitsch, you can buy a complete set of monk’s robes or an “Antique” in the wonderfully named “Ancient Thing store”!

After doing the Kora or circuit, stroll into the Jokhang which is usually packed with pilgrims, some of whom have travelled hundreds of miles, for their once in a lifetime visit. You will remember the Jokhang’s ethereal quality, incense and prayer wheels long after your visit. Go up to the roof for a fantastic view of the Jokhangs golden roof, look across to the Potala and see the city spread out below. The Potala Palace takes a good five hours to visit. The Potala is a warren and is best visited with a guide and a torch. Without the aid of a guide the hundreds of chapels would have no meaning and without a torch you would miss the frescos down the dark passages. The Norbulingka Palace, where the Dalai Lama fled from, can be seen in an afternoon, you can see where the Dalai Lama slept, lived and meditated, all just as he left it, 1950’s furniture, old radiograms and even his bath with the “Made In England” still visible.

Food in Lhasa is not for gourmets and vegetarians may starve. The Dunya Restaurant, run by a Dutch couple during the summer months is worth a visit, a mixture of Chinese and Western dishes are offered in pleasant surroundings.

Lhasa is a fascinating city to visit, just make sure you get there, before the Chinese take over the remaining 5%.

Kevin can be contacted on Kbrackley@yahoo.com
Next week, Japan by the Travelling Stoat!

Twelve countries will introduce Euro notes and coins on 1 January, 2002: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.

The UK, Denmark and Sweden, who are also members of the European Union, are not part of the Euro area and neither are any countries outside the EU, for instance Turkey and Switzerland. Euro notes will be identical for all countries and usable in all EU countries.

Each EU member country will produce their own coins, with one common side and one national side, but they can be used in any of the Euro area countries. Cash dispensers will dispense Euro notes and national notes and coins can be used until 28th February 2002, except in the Netherlands, Ireland and France.

Euro notes can be purchased from most banks and Bureaux de Change from 1st January 2002. If you have existing foreign currency for EU countries, unless you intend to visit these countries very early in 2002, you should exchange them now.

Don’t wait too long as you will not be able to use old currencies by March 2002 at the latest.

Source: http://www.fco.gov.uk/

In September a few Globies `took over’ a youth hostel and explored the delights of Dovedale for a weekend. With beautiful scenery and a pub that also served food only five minutes walk away it was a perfect location. In true English fashion the weather was the usual sunny periods, scattered torrential rain.

On Saturday, daunted by nothing, we went off in 3 groups, the scramblers (very keen), ramblers (enthusiastic) and amblers (laid back). No sooner had we (the ramblers) set off when the heavens opened and we dashed for shelter and this is when it all began. Whilst struggling into wet weather trousers a mobile phone got dislodged and buried in the undergrowth. The loss was discovered some time later during a food stop (and shelter from another downpour). No worries. It was near the start of our walk and we knew roughly were it would be if it hadn’t been stolen. We’d look for it on our return.

The scenery is spectacular in this part of the world and we went about the business of walking and chatting, so much so that we took an unscheduled detour by turning left turn too soon resulting in a very arduous climb up a slippery hill. With no signs or stiles in view and a valley between us and the direction we should be heading we decided on the safest bet and went back down again. Our original 8 mile circular walk was changed into a six miler because of the weather but finished up as 8 miles due to unforeseeable circumstances!

When we got back to the hostel the phone hunt began. The owner and a friend went off armed with another phone so they could make the lost one ring. Clever eh! Close to the spot they rang the missing phone only to get a shock as someone answered it. ” Have you lost your mobile? It’s here at police station”. They closed in 10 minutes but when we explained that we were only in the area for the weekend they agreed to wait for us to pick it up. We jumped in the car and shot off to Bakewell, about 25 minutes away (if you put your foot down).

Something good always comes out of something bad. Just round the corner from the police station was a bakery selling Bakewell puddings and it was still open!!! For anyone who hasn’t tasted this culinary delight, a thick spongey almond topping on a base, it is absolutely yummee, but only available in this town. It is nothing like the heavily iced Mr Kipling’s variety. We left the shop armed with bulging bags and salivating mouths.

Time flies when you’re having fun and the weekend was over too quickly. This is the first weekend away to be organized by a Globetrotter and those who went are game for another trip, possibly near Easter next year. So if your free come and join us.

Oversees readers – This is a very scenic area to visit with good hostels offering inexpensive accommodation. Its good walking and cycling country with picturesque villages and Manchester is not that far away for shopping sprees and a bit of culture.

To get in touch with Gill, please contact the Beetle

This is the continuation of a story of a very ordinary journey on an Indian bus, a journey without drama, without crashes, rollovers or other theatricals, a journey that millions of Indians make every day. Having escaped Pokara in Nepal, the next job was to travel to Delhi.

The usual way is a bus from Pokara to Sunauli on the border, a cycle rickshaw across the border, a bus from Sunauli to Ghorakphur and then a train to Delhi. If all goes well, which is improbable, it’s a thirty hour journey, as both Sunauli and Ghorakphur are dusty, noisy, uninviting places to linger. We had passed through Nepali Immigration quickly and efficiently, and using the cycle rickshaw to carry our backpacks, moved on to the Indian border post. Six officials sat at a trestle table steadily eating their way through a pile of peanuts on the table, scattering the shells hither and thither, whilst we filled in the forms.

After a while, one man picked up my form and compared it with my passport and a previous visa with a puzzled look, then found the current visa and smiled happily. After a careful and labourious check he passed it on to his superior who checked again and then passed the form and passport over to the ‘stamping man’. This accounted for three of the six officials on duty, the other three obviously there to provide backup if the work load was too heavy. This is known as ’employment creation’.

The rickshaw driver took us to the bus station, where all was the normal confusion with dozens of buses parked in no sort of order on a muddy plot of ground. But being Westerners everyone was anxious to help and showed us the bus to Ghorakphur, which was due to leave at seven o’clock. We were lucky as it was now just five minutes before departure, giving us time to get a quick cup of chai (tea) at a nearby stall.

I had a seat behind the driver so was able to stretch my legs a little and to put my pack on the floor beside the driver and within my sight. I felt I was lucky to get this seat as it is between the wheels, so one is not bounced up and down so much with the hard suspension and rough roads, and also being on the driver’s side is reckoned to be the safer side.

Promptly at seven, just as it was getting dark, the driver started the engine, sounded the ordinary horn and the klaxon horn a few times, revved the engine, slipped it in and out of gear, sounded the horns a few more times, then turned the ignition off. With a bucket of water and newspaper, he cleaned the windscreen which was reassuring. Then back in the drivers seat to start the engine, sound the horn a few more times, slip gear into neutral and leave the bus with the engine running. Then another man seated himself at the wheel and he was the real driver, and the previous ‘driver’ was only the conductor playing at being a driver.

Finally at seven twenty, after more engine revs and more sounding of the horns, we moved off down the road. At last, we optimistic fools, thought we were on our way. But after a hundred metres, the bus stopped, the driver looked around and seeing the the vehicle was only half full, reversed back a hundred metres to our original position to await more customers. This was an opportunity for the conductor to play at driver some more.

We had been told that buses to Ghorakphur left every half hour, but seven thirty passed. Then mysteriously, as though a secret message had been passed around, at seven forty-five many passengers crowded on the bus, the driver was in his seat revving the engine and sounding the horns, and we were unbelievably on our way. Indian buses are tough, built to last and endure hard driving over rough roads.

The suspension is hard, there is no internal lining to the metal roof and sides, no automatic transmission and little or no power steering. The dirty windows may or may not slide open, and sometimes a window is missing. This is an air-conditioned bus. The seats are upholstered but this may be torn, or the springs broken, or the seat loose on it’s frame. In theory the backs are adjustable, but often this is jammed. The seats are close together, so Westerners with their long legs will have knees butting into the seat in front. But fares are ridiculously cheap by Western standards. The fare from Sunauli to Ghorakphur, seventy kilometres, two hours, is forty rupees ($A1.60; $US 0.80; UK Pound 0.60) Indians are a friendly, curious people and love to talk to visitors from other countries.

My seat companion was typical, and once he knew that I was from Australia, he wanted to talk cricket and especially the recent Test Series which India had won. But his accent was strong and pronunciation poor, making it difficult to understand him. He would say a name which sounded something like ‘Sanwan’, then repeat it, and I would say questioningly ‘Shane Warne’, and he would reply ‘No, Sanwan’. This continued in a very frustrating way with several names, and then thankfully the driver turned on the radio with Indian music and drowned out any opportunity to talk. Radios on buses are always on at full volume.

We continued on our way, picking up more passengers, one a small girl with a chicken under one arm, a young man with two sacks of rice and an old man with a goat. Soon people were two abreast down the isle, a man sat on the gear box with the floor gear stick between his legs and another man jammed himself between the driver and the driver’s door. The driver kept up a continual conversation with his friends crowded around him, whilst watching for potential passengers in the villages through which we passed. Sitting directly behind him, I had almost as good a view of the road as he, and his skill was amazing, although he still relied on the principle of all bus drivers that might is right.

In the dark, he avoided other vehicles with one or no rear lights, wandering cyclists, inane motor cyclists, vehicles with headlights on full beam, ox-carts, bullocks, goats, tractor trailers without lights, holy cows, rickshaws, and worst of all, people, because Indians have absolutely no traffic sense. We arrived at Ghorakphur ‘on time’ at ten o’clock, and were able to buy tickets for sleeper berths on the midnight train (which arrived at two o’clock in the morning and in Delhi five hours late at seven o’clock the next evening, but this is another story). And that’s just an ordinary Indian bus journey.

If you would like to get in touch with David, who is currently studying Italian in Perugia and has several other stories we will be including in future editions of the e-newsletter, please contact the Beetle