Shake, rattle and slide!

After I left Mongolia you may remember that I was hanging around in Beijing for a while. Then I set off for Delhi to help the Manager there for a couple of weeks. Oh yeah, I might have been there near where 2 of the bombs went off, but that is a whole other story.

Then it was my final trip. What a doosy! I went to Pakistan again, and if you were with me for the first adventure, you will remember it was a little interesting. The fun bit this time was the Muslim fasting time of Ramadan. That means that getting food in daylight hours was somewhat of a challenge for our Pakistani guide, he had to be careful not to offend some religious high person. So one day found us eating in a darkened hotel restaurant, another in a local eating place that looked closed from the outside but was crowded inside...only with men...except for my group with 6 women of course and lots of others just in our hotel because nothing else was open. The hotel in Lahore would feed us, but only with room service!

Anyway, the group included a man who was 81 and a lady who was 78! Yay, that sound like fun for long bus rides at altitude doesn't it. But wait, both of them could barely walk more than 300m, they couldn't do stairs, even a short flight, they had no flexibility, so I was considering a cattle prod to get them in and out of the bus ,and they wanted to eat dinner at 6pm every night cause the lady told me that 8pm was her bedtime!

So Pakistan conquered, yes I did that crazy hike to the glacier again, we went to China. Now I love China, it is a fun place to be...except in an earthquake...shake rattle and roll. Again another story for another day!

I made up about the first 4 days of the trip as there was no leader notes, the we finally got on the train to Tibet. Yes, after waiting 6 months, the Chinese finally allowed us to enter. It was worth the wait too. Lhasa was really cool, Potala Palace that you are sure to have seen pics of is great, but the highlight of course was getting to see Everest. We were lucky with the weather too.

Then there was the landslide.....

Finally made it to Nepal, on my birthday for the second year in a row....how random! Where I officially hang up my leading boots.

From there it was a lightening trip to BKK, then back to Wollongong for some family time...and the beach!