Hello to Namaste

We gave this lil' ole' lady some ciggies as we watched her smoke a small roll-up and estinguish it after a few goes - presumably to save tobacco, so we gave her 5 pre-rolled. She almost lit the first one from the filter end, so cute.
see all photos »

Well we crossed the border into Kodari and from there we caught a local bus to Kathmandu.... luckily our wily, well honed traveler instincts (blah) were set off during the organising of this trip. Back in Chengdu, our albeit very nice travel consultant (Mobe you know who you are), advised us to book an optional 4WD to connect from Zhangmu-Kodari to Kathmandu.... ok we said how much "an extra 2000 Yuan" or 400/person for 5 people. That's about 60-70 US each! Yep sounds a little too expensive for Nepal - dont you think. He said there were no buses and hiring a taxi on the other side would be tricky... we smelt 'bulshit' and took to the interweb for advice. Fortunately the lonelyplanet travelers forum came to the rescue and we were confidently able to predict that a bus on the Nepal side would be feasible. At this point it must be noted that we did not have a travel guide for Nepal.....

It rapidly got a lot 'greener' and warmer as we descended below 1000m towards Kathmandu
see all photos »

We caught the local bus for 300 Nepalese Rupee each (4 US) and were quite chuffed at having dodged our friendly yet in this instance exploitative travel consultant.... it reminded us of the conversation we had with our cute-as-a-button nepalese guide Yongsu. She told us that the chinese take full advantage of the tours into Tibet, edging local Tibetans out of the pointy end of the business and keeping them in the lower ranks, "because they are soo smart with computers....". They make a huge commission booking the tours in Chengdu and on-sell the package to Tibetan operators at fraction of the original cost. We estimate that of the 700 AUS we paid each for the 10 day tour the break-even point was probably 300 each.... the rest went to the travel agent. Our guide recommended that anyone who wants to tour tibet from China organise the tour directly with the Tibetan agents. It might take a few days longer to get the permits and such but the cost could be almost 50% less.

we smelt 'bulshit'

Yes. This was the slightly sinister side to our time in Tibet. But heh - it's only business, don't take it personnally.